What Agnello Dias teaches about brand purpose

A lot of the stuff we would do which are really good advertising or content out there is held back or pulled back because of the possible fear of 500 people in the country coming together on one place and saying you know we are going to boycott this. One of the first questions you know you have been through the whole sort of shift or major change in the industry that started from a very TV print outdoor led industry to today digital which plays a massive role and it sort of has invaded into the space of each other mediums as well.

How do you sort of view the change? How have you sort of internally dealt with it? There is a bit of confusion in the creative side of the business and I think that confusion is because it's often been touted as a change in which the creative process works which I don't think is true. I think the confusion is in the way it is measured. The manner in which you think of a video or the manner in which you think of a print ad or a photograph or a writing is still pretty much the same.

The attention spans have not gotten lower only on digital, they have even got lower on normal television and reading. But I think the confusion has started or is there because the way digital content is measured is often a miss you know it's a bit unusual because in the old world what you put out in advertising was measured largely driven by sales and a bit about what you would hear on ground and what people like the ad or not.

But now the irrational accent on hits and likes as a definite indicator of people buying into the brand is what is creating the confusion. Because there is always a difference between affinity and behaviour. Affinity is when people really like you and behaviour is when they like you so much that they go out and actually buy the brand. Or do something about it. Yeah. And in the earlier measurement system if I may call it that the accent was more on behaviour which in final terms was sales.

And in the new measurement system the accent is more on affinity which may or may not transfer or transform to sales. And this creates confusion in the minds of younger creative people because they tend to wear on the side of getting affinity rather than behaviour. There is a lot of backlash that certain ads see and it also ties to the point that you made about affinity and the final behaviour. Because many brands are sort of trying to influence that affinity at a very sort of short and immediate sort of reaction basis.

Some ads tend to sort of focus on certain aspects that evoke reaction. Very sort of immediate reaction because they play with the thinking process of people. So but that backlash has also been sort of a challenge for many companies because previously they couldn't measure what that will be. But today they are able to. How are we sort of dealing with this? How are the creative people sort of thinking that going back to the drawing world, figuring out that you know, maybe these are no go areas.

I shouldn't sort of take that route because this has been a problem case. What is your view on it? I don't think we are dealing with it. I think we are suffering from it. So it is a serious problem for as far as creative thinking goes. And it is a big problem because a lot of the time we are thinking and second guessing more about this than actually what the brand needs and what the client has asked for. So the broad grey area on which I do not know whether it will cause a public outcry or not is usually taken as a default version of it will cause.

So you just stay away from it rather than you know, say, you know, let's see how it goes. So it's a big, big curb on creative thinking irrespective of what people may like to say. A lot of the stuff we would do which are really good advertising or content out there is held back or pulled back because of the possible fear of 500 people in the country coming together on one place and saying, you know, we are going to boycott this.

What is your view when ads play on this flavour of religion, pluralism, national integrity? These are all very sort of touchy topics that evoke a lot of emotions in this country. I think there are two issues. One is the backlash to issues like this and the other is the crazy kind of chase to, you know, create some kind of public, I call it soul cleansing actually.

And I say, you know, the whole world is trying to save the whole world from the whole world. Because there always seems to be if there is no issue in the world you can solve other than your brand solve, then you shouldn't do an ad. But for brands like these, I think they will force creatives to stay away from areas that can cause this kind of backlash. And they will have to try and play safer, which is not good for the creative industry.

We have the elections coming up. We know that there are certain issues that are sort of very high on the agenda and also being driven high on the agenda because of certain reasons, right? Should advertisers, brands be sort of looking to ride on those waves because they know it's easy to rise on those waves because you'll definitely get a certain reach. But is that reach going to be out to your favour or not? That's that sort of a worry.

So I think traditionally a brand would create its own wave. Now if a brand chooses to not create its own wave and ride on something that's out there, then it should be prepared to deal with the fact that the wave can go up and down. You don't want the wave to go up and down and always stay on top, then the only choice is to create your own wave by creating something that is so popular that it does not exist in society on the cusp of say,

a polarizing debate. If you're choosing to go there, then you're going in with your eyes open and say if it works, it works like the blazes. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. The other thing is about, I mean, especially this is about online digital advertising and content led. We see a lot of short videos, digital videos being made today. And it seems to me that there's a huge sort of way where everybody wants to do the emotional route, especially do the emotional route using women.

Are there sort of other avenues out there that brands and advertisers are not exploring? They should be. I mean, humor for example. So I think it's this weird online behavior where one tends to feel obligated to share something. And your obligation to share something comes from a safe place where there is something that cannot possibly have a backlash about me sharing it.

For example, I share a joke, somebody doesn't like the joke, they may say, think badly of me. They like the joke, they think fine of me. But when I share something that is so safely in the zone of the Holy Cow that cannot be done, then it's easy to share because nobody can say why are you sharing something on Women's Day or why are you sharing something?

So I think it's an outcome of more populist behavior, more social jingoism. I don't know if there's something like that, but social jingoism is probably the best way to describe it where everybody just wants to be in the good eyes of everybody. And follow the herd because it's work for one brand. I'll also do this. Okay, this looks really nice.

So I think it seems like the shortcut to taking a celebrity, which is you can't afford a celebrity, you take a celebrity cause. And that is maybe a result of a trust deficit between marketeers and agencies to create original content of their own. Could you list out that sort of one or two sort of projects that you feel, I mean, there's some that won awards, but that you feel has really sort of shaped your career?

Well, one, if you can call it something that got me noticed at the beginning of my career, which actually was before the digital age also was the first, very first thumbs up bungee jumping ad, which until at that time, I don't think Cola in India had done an action sport in an advertisement. Now there are not only Colas doing action sports, but there are several categories in the CSD category that define action. So that was the very first one.

It was a controversial ad because of the effect it had on some parts of the country. But it was the first ad that really put me in the public eye, so to speak, and people started asking who's done this ad. For a creative person, thinking is really 24 by 7 jobs. There are always so many sort of brand campaigns that you're going on in your mind. How do you sort of switch off? I'm sure you also need, otherwise you'll burn up. You need a break.

It's not possible to switch off consciously, but subconsciously you switch off by becoming a consumer of other creative. So you're not really using your creative mind to attack a problem, but you're becoming a receptacle for creative problems that other people have attacked in the form of movies, songs and stuff like that. So it kind of, it's like that belt that people wear to exercise themselves when they don't want to exercise. So it's that kind of thing in creative. So you just consume other forms of creativity and keeps you relaxed.

It's a good job. Yeah, but at the same time stimulates your creative muscles because it could lead to something, but there's no responsibility on you to go somewhere with it. What does Agnilodias do outside of the workplace? Mostly if I don't work, I largely keep myself busy doing household stuff. So I like to do things at home, repair things, you know, grow some plants, spend some time with the children, but no real like hiking or that kind of hyper parallel clear hobby. I think that's what I'm doing. I think that's what I'm doing.

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