The new legends of Indian advertisement  ( November '19,2003, ET)

He took Ogilvy & Mather India from a middle-of-the-road agency to one that was ranked the most admired in the Brand Equity Agency Reckoner 2003. He spotted Piyush Pandey from a horde of creative directors and gave him free rein to turn Ogilvy into a creative powerhouse. He proved that big could be beautiful as O&M went on to become one of the largest Indian agencies without trading in its creative badge. He personally led and closed two of the biggest pitches this year — Close-up and Brooke Bond. And just when everyone thought that he would announce the ubiquitous extension that advertising CEOs tend to give themselves, he declared the innings.

That’s perhaps the most graceful gesture in an industry that lives and thrives by the credo of a favourite O&M client — Fevicol ka jod hai, tootega nahin. Ask Ranjan Kapur, executive chairman O&M India, why he never contemplated an extension, and he’s quick with a response: “People laughed when I said I would retire in 2003. But I believe that there’s got to be a life beyond Ogilvy. Besides, I am a Sagittarian and the horse has been bridled for too long. It’s time to throw away the saddle and roam unhindered. I’m a free bird,” Kapur chirped, during a three-hour interaction with Brand Equity over a few glasses of red wine.

Razor-sharp, extremely articulate and enormously suave, Ranjan Kapur is easily the best Indian advertising man that the last decade has thrown up. He’s recently written a 40-page book — The Perfect Snowball — and most of his talk is peppered with references to that little boy who’s trying hard, very hard, to make a perfect snowball. He’s one of the rare few CEOs in advertising who can paint and sculpt, and at the same time be completely consumed by an agency he served for over 37 years. Here’s a pat on the back from his big boss at WPP, Sir Martin Sorrell: “Ranjan played an essential role in building the Ogilvy brand in India over the last ten years. It was a team effort, but Ranjan was one of the most important factors.”

Behind the polite, humble and polished exterior is a fiercely ambitious man fighting his way to the top and his agency’s into the Big League of Indian advertising. At the same time, he knows when the time is ripe to call it a day. Whether it’s about moving into a new house or plunging into sculpting, painting and writing or putting together a new management structure — Kapur has meticulously planned his exit.

His new ‘three legs of a stool’ management structure has raised many an eyebrow. The company after the Ranjan era will be run by a three-man committee: Piyush Pandey, executive chairman designate, will create, John Goodman, CEO-designate will manage and SN Rane, COO, will operate. Many believe that this structure has been created to ensure that Pandey does not have unfettered control. Kapur thunders against this loose talk: “People say that Ranjan has divided Piyush’s role. The fact of the matter is that I divided my own role. When I took over, O&M was a small agency. Today, given its size, it’s impossible for one man to do all the work. For the last two years, we have been operating in exactly the same manner with Piyush, Rane and me as the three legs of the stool.”

Take a look at O&M’s numbers over the last decade and you can see the point Kapur is trying to make. When he came back from Singapore in January 1994 to take over as CEO of O&M India, it was a small, well-managed agency, but nowhere near the big two — Lintas (now Lowe) and HTA (now JWT). It was reasonably respected for its strategy, but considered below par when it came to creative. O&M’s billings in 1993 were approximately Rs 100 crore — today it’s estimated that billings have topped the Rs 1,000-crore mark. The number of divisions back in 1993 was three — there are now 10 divisions which contribute almost 40 per cent of total revenue. There were 650 employees in 1993 and the company only added 150 employees in the last 10 years while growing almost 10 times. And O&M India is today the largest contributor to O&M worldwide’s profits from Asia and the fifth largest in the world. Clearly, the job has grown humongously and Kapur does not exaggerate when he says, “At this size, you need more bodies to do the work.”

To give you a sense of how Kapur operated, let’s briefly take you back by a decade. He declared quite famously in the mid-nineties that he would topple Lintas from the number two spot, causing a stir in advertising circles. It was this flamboyance and aggression that set the tone for advertising in times to come. What was then seen by many as vaulting ambition almost came true as O&M inched closer to the top three charts, with claims and counter-claims by both parties — Lintas and O&M — keeping the gossip mills working overtime. Of course, by then Kapur had won the more important battle which was making O&M the destination for both advertising professionals and clients. Here is what Suhel Seth, old O&M hand and now chairman Equus has to say: “JWT under Mike has been India ’s Rajdhani express of advertising — O&M under Ranjan was like a bullet train.”

But Ranjan knows when to shoot from the hip and when to shoot from the double-barrel. He took on JWT by provoking it about its creative work and letting Piyush take pot-shots at the quality of creative. And as he rose in stature and clout, he receded from the media limelight. “It was part of Ranjan’s deliberate strategy, taking a backseat after his agency was in the reckoning. Of course, he spotted in Piyush the loose cannon which could go off every now and then at strategic points,” says a senior executive who knows both Kapur and Pandey very well.

Kapur’s unconventional management structure today might surprise a few, but the truth is that he has always been a trendsetter. When Suresh Mullick, O&M’s national creative director was on the decline, largely due to personal and health-related reasons, in terms of both output and influence, Kapur, despite his great respect for Mullick, took a tough call to change the old guard and gamble on a complete unknown — Pandey, who was then a copy head at O&M. Reminisces Kapur: “Piyush was very frustrated and was shopping around for avenues outside Ogilvy. I believed that he had a maverick streak in him and that he could very well be the creative partner that I was looking for.”

A number of creative people left the agency and many accused Kapur of dumping Mullick, but as far as Kapur is concerned he did what was best for the agency. Says Kapur, “What people must realise is that if Piyush had failed to deliver he would not have been in this job. Piyush has worked his butt off to get where he is today and all due credit to him for that.” Also unlike most agency heads of his time, who never had a creative soul mate, Kapur made sure that the he did not merely pay lip service to the word partnership. Says Kapur, “We had a genuine partnership unlike many other so-called partnerships in the business. And that means giving up power to push beyond limits of creative excellence.”

It was a bold experiment which succeeded wildly. Kapur was also clear that creative would help drive business. He was not interested in turning Ogilvy into a boutique agency but determined to prove that even large agencies could be highly creative. If it was Alyque’s Lintas that set the standards in the 1980s, it was Kapur’s O&M that helped Indian advertising take the next big step in the 1990s. “I think his big contribution was the focus he brought to creativity which set new standards and benchmarks for others to try and emulate,” says Colvyn Harris, who of late has kept a sharp eye out for creative talent from O&M. Equus’ Seth goes all out: “For the first time, the chief executive has backed the creative product unequivocally. It’s a watershed in Indian advertising — the amount of faith and money he invested in creative. Ranjan Kapur to my mind is India ’s David Ogilvy.”

Many CEOs and creative hotshots we spoke to think that he would perhaps have made it as big — or bigger — as creative director. The man who comes from a town smaller than Jaipur called Patiala , was also canny enough to realise the future of Indian advertising belonged to Hindi. Says Kapur, about his conscious strategy of hiring of small-town boys: “They had the hunger and they wanted to get ahead in life unlike the south Mumbai types who dominated advertising when I came back to India . Even today, if you come to O&M you will find that people speak in Hindi or in Hinglish not in English.”

The accolades followed and it was O&M which became the benchmark for creative standards. Reminisces Kapur, “A good friend of mine told me in the early days that perhaps the reason O&M makes so much noise at award shows when it wins is because it happens so rarely.” He not only made those celebrations the signature tune of the agency, but made sure that O&M dominated award shows like never before. The Men in Black are now an integral part of Indian advertising. From having little or no presence on the Indian awards circuit to showing the way to win at Cannes , Kapur made sure the creative bar at O&M was constantly upped.

The culmination of O&M’s creative heroics was the ‘Dead Horse’ ad which won a gold at Cannes two years ago. The buck has always stopped with Ranjan. Of the three ads that Piyush and team submitted to Kapur, he killed two of them and picked the ‘Dead Horse’ — after which he even gambled on his job. While the agency and Pandey walked away with the kudos, Kapur found himself in a precarious position. The chairman of Philip Morris and Kraft (which also owns the Marlboro brand) hauled up Ogilvy worldwide for taking a pot-shot at one of their biggest brands. Kapur spoke to Shelley Lazarus, worldwide CEO, O&M, and told her that he was willing to resign if it came to that. Says Kapur, “Finally, I sent a sketch of my head on a platter to the chairman of Kraft while he was in Singapore and after a good laugh, the matter died.”

O&M’s former worldwide creative director Neil French has this to say: “All that’s needed of a truly great creative director is to totally and religiously be sure that breakthrough ideas work better than ploddy ones; to make decisions and stick to them, and never show a sign of weakness; to have the balls to support his teams through thick and thin; and to give all the credit to others, whenever it’s due... and sometimes when it’s not. To those attributes, Ranjan brings the voice of a poet and the hand of an artist.” Says Nirvik Singh, chairman-Grey South Asia and an old friend of Kapur’s, “He not only had the vision for O&M but also the courage to implement it and still had the humility to take a backseat. Ranjan is not one of those who dodges bullets!”

Despite being one of the most influential men in Indian advertising, he never became a Page 3 regular or was seen being photographed with the likes of Shah Rukh Khan at advertising dos. Says Kapur: “If I am not working, I believe that I should be spending time with my family.” In fact he goes on to blast what he calls the ‘Bollywoodisation’ of the advertising industry by the press, including Brand Equity.

Kapur believes that the pendulum is swinging the other way and the age of the individual superstar is on the decline. He says, “In the coming years awards are no longer going to be as important. Clients are tiring of awards and are more interested in work that will grow their business.” Agrees Sir Martin: “Building the Ogilvy brand in the market and emphasising the critical importance of the agency’s creative product, its ability to co-ordinate across all marketing disciplines and finally, ensuring that communications were as effective as possible are the three issues that clients worry most about.”

Many senior ad executives have been sceptical about getting an expat like Goodman in to head a country like India . Kapur scoffs at this: “We wanted the best person for the job and colour never mattered. As far as I am concerned, it just so happened that that the ‘right man’ happened to be a ‘Good-man’.” He elaborates that this is not some madcap experiment, but merely a reflection of today’s India . Says Kapur, “ India is increasingly being integrated into the world system. Today some of the brightest people from all over the world are being sent to India , even in companies like Unilever. There is a lot to be learned if people want to collaborate rather than compete.” That’s something that Mohammed Khan, chairman Enterprise-Nexus, believes Kapur himself brought to Indian advertising. Says Khan, “You always associate the word international with Ranjan — he brought in an international perspective to the business with his experience.”

The arrogance shown by many advertising professionals about India being too complex for a foreigner to understand is nothing but a defence mechanism. “If an Englishman can run Ogilvy Japan , then an Eskimo can run Ogilvy India ,” says Kapur. Au revoir, Ranjan.