Last year, FCB Group managed to rope in Dheeraj Sinha, whisking him away from the hugely successful agency - Leo Burnett, and his larger role at Publicis Groupe. It was considered the biggest coup at the agency world in India in the past 12 months.
After discussions that lasted nearly a year, Sinha was given the position of CEO of FCB India and South Asia. It was a role which was earlier shouldered to perfection by his predecessor, Rohit Ohri who along with Swati Bhattacharya ushered in the era of winning awards on the global stage, like Cannes Lions, for FCB Group India.
Six months later when Tyler Turnbull, the Global CEO of FCB decided to visit India, he was greeted with favourable quarterly results in the country. Sinha and team had secured as many as 20+ new client wins in Q1 of 2024, amounting to business worth USD 2.5 million plus.
Talking about Sinha’s glowing report card, Turnbull says, “When I look at our growth rates in the last quarter, I feel we are on the right track. We want to solidify India’s position even more in the global scheme of things for FCB and create an abundance of great work.” Turnbull strongly believes that one of the things that the industry hasn’t done well is give great leaders enough time to build. As someone who has clocked a decade at the network during which he has assembled great teams in markets across the world, with IPG backing of course, Turnbull wants to extend the same support to Sinha by giving him space to build something very special and to continue the momentum.
He adds that currently, India is the largest market for FCB globally, after North America and will be even more important to the Group going forward. “India is of critical importance to the global health of FCB. We have incredible teams here be it Ulka, Interface, India or Kinnect; and all are growing. A key discussion when Dheeraj joined us was as to where we can take FCB Group India from here. Also, in my last interview with IMPACT, I had shared how much I believe in the country and the market, and honestly, I’ve never believed in it more than I do now.”
FCB in India has nurtured long-standing relationships with their clients be it Amul, Mahindra or Tata Motors, in fact the Global network’s oldest partnership in the world is with a brand here in India- having completed 63 years with Zodiac. Turnbull ditched one-on-one meetings for a more fruitful gathering with most of their clients under one roof, during this India visit, organised by the new leadership here. Interestingly, close to 90% of the clients of the network here are specific to the country and not globally aligned.
Dheeraj Sinha says, “We have a huge exposure to clients, who are directly linked to India’s growth economy and to India’s consumption expenditure. We are big on the automotive sector, finance sector, CPG, etc. It means that if India grows, we grow as well. And we are lucky that most of those relationships are on an Agency On Record model- long term relationship based. Even with the new age clients, such as Uber, we have a longstanding relationship and not project based ones. While we do projects for many clients, right now, that’s not a huge part of our revenue, but it will grow.”
Even though IPG CEO Philippe Krakowsky recently spoke about how the shift from AOR to project-based business is responsible in a big way for the drop in the holding company’s revenue, Turnbull argues that project-based business has its merits, “We have many agencies across the world where 60- 80% of the revenue is from project-based business. A lot of our new business has shifted to projects versus pitches to start with. And that gives both sides the ability to work together and see if we will be the right fit for each other and then grow from there. Coming from a digital background, for me, projects were the norm, it didn’t have the AOR status. Many of our clients, in fact, want different commercial models. Our focus has been on how to make sure that we are getting compensated for the value we drive to their business, and that our model matches the outcomes that they’re trying to drive as well.”
The 151-year-old global agency brand that recently celebrated its 63rd anniversary in India, FCB continues to service some of the oldest brands in the country. But can being legacy-heavy take FCB into the future too, or does it make good business sense to have a healthy balance between new-age and legacy clients. Turnbull responds, “Majority of our partners regardless of whether they are a 151-year-old brand like FCB or a new start-up that was launched last week want to disrupt the status quo with a challenger spirit and that’s the kind of partnership we are always on the look-out for.”
Talking about the near future, and whether acquisition in gaming or the much sought after AI vertical is on the cards for FCB, Turnbull promptly says that while they are perpetually interested in options, clients around the world including in India want to simplify their relationships with agencies. And that they want an agency which is more accountable to delivering growth across every aspect of their marketing ecosystem. “We’re very well positioned now with our assets to do just that,” adds Turnbull confidently.
Sinha chimes in, “With Kinnect coming on board, I would say that we are the largest integrated creative company in the country. We can go from strategy to mainline, digital, social, CRM all the way down to production. Five years ago, clients were excited about navigating between 17 odd agencies. But now when I meet them, they are quick to request for an agency that manages all. And that’s where we come in because we have the ability now in one P&L to drive the full funnel. If we’re able to accelerate this in a good way, we have a good game going.”
Sinha who is clocking six months at FCB in a week, says Tyler Turnbull has been on his speed dial throughout this period and what he truly appreciates is that unlike other systems there is no inordinate pressure to engineer things in an unnatural way at the FCB network. He explains, “Some of the things that I’m learning from Tyler is how to grow the business organically. In my past life, we grew a lot through new business acquisitions. Here at FCB we have very strong relationships with clients and a full funnel product to service them. Also, the biggest thing which attracted me to FCB at a time when everybody is losing faith in creativity and running off to become a software company, is the fact that the network is very bullish about the ‘power of creativity’.”
WINDS OF CHANGE
In an in-depth conversation with Neeta Nair, Editor of IMPACT Magazine, Tyler Turnbull, Global CEO of FCB and Dheeraj Sinha, Group CEO, India and South Asia, FCB talk about India always being a growth driver for the Group globally and how the network is continuing the momentum with Sinha at the helm; why Cannes Lions is a byproduct and never the goal for FCB Group India despite its successive wins at the festival; the big exits at the Group here and emerging with a stronger team
Q] Tyler, two big developments have taken place in India after your last visit. The first is Dheeraj’s appointment to the top role which is set to give a new direction to the network and second—Swati Bhattacharya’s (FCB India CCO) departure which is considered as a big loss for the Group. On hindsight, do you feel, that every CEO really needs to find his own partner to create that magic and for FCB, it would have been tough to recreate that Swati-Rohit partnership?
Turnbull: I am incredibly proud of the agency that Rohit, Swati and our entire team built over the years. Some of our most globally recognized work came from them. But I also believe that change is a positive thing, especially in our business and in our industry. Clients look for it and creativity thrives on it. And so, I could not be more excited that Dheeraj has chosen to join us. His first few months at FCB have been incredible and I know that he’s going to build a phenomenal creative group and team which can keep up the legacy that Swati, Rohit and many of our people created over time.
Q] On one side, Dheeraj, you have brick by brick built Leo Burnett into a force to reckon with at global award shows while Swati helped carve FCB Group India’s debut at Cannes Lions and plastered its position there, year after year. Does her absence put more pressure on you this year at the festival, also how hopeful are you of a big win at Cannes?
Sinha: The work that Rohit, Swati and the entire team have done for FCB built a great pedestal for us. And a big part of that team like Nitin, Rakesh, Gaurav, and many others; and also, those that powered the leadership are still carrying on the good work. As far as Cannes Lions is concerned, I never put that kind of pressure on myself because I feel an award is one of the outcomes or measurements of how the organization is doing. It’s not something that I want to engineer artificially. All of us at FCB, as individuals and as organizations have won enough Cannes Lions, to not worry about winning another truck full of them. So, if we win, we are happy. If we don’t win, it’s fine. We are focused on building an organization, a creative culture, making our clients successful. So, no pressure.
Q] But do you have a good line-up this year?
Sinha: We have a good line-up. Many of the Cannes contenders this year are a product of the work done last year. Of course there is more in the pipeline for this year. But Tyler and I are never in a hurry to meet a Cannes deadline. We want to do things right, win big on our larger brands. And once that happens, you will see the energy of the organization kicking in, brands kicking in, and glory too.
Turnbull: Susan Credle, our Global Chair, has always said that our focus needs to be on doing our best work on our biggest brands. And over the last seven years, she has built an incredible global creative council that is fixated on doing just that. So, as Dheeraj says, that really is our first bar of success. The outcome and the recognition that the work may receive at Cannes or at other award shows is always a cherry on top but our goal is never that. Our goal is to drive economic growth for the brands that we work with. And if the work is recognized as a result of that growth, we’re proud.
Q] I remember that FCB had managed to grow even during the peak of the pandemic i.e. 2020. Cut to 2023, most other creative agencies were struggling, even IPG network saw a drop in organic revenue by 0.1%, but FCB managed to grow by 5% globally. What are the factors that have helped FCB go against the tide and how much did your India office grow in this period?
Turnbull: While I can’t share specific numbers, I would say that India has always been an incredible growth driver for FCB overall. The dynamic nature of the market here, the talent, our clients, has been incredible. And that stability and energy reflects in our results year after year, certainly in 2023. Getting to your second question, the overall growth of FCB—we believe that our product is our creativity which in turn needs to help clients grow. Across our industry, creative is seen as a variable within a wider media mix. But all of us who choose to work at FCB really believe that the journey starts with an incredible creative platform or idea and it then gets distributed and amplified through new technologies and platforms. Attention has never been harder to get than today and thus having ideas that cut through in compelling ways is more effective. More and more clients who come to us around the world believe in the same thing.
Q] Dheeraj, in one of your interviews, you mentioned that the world will be divided between people rallying behind creativity and humanity and those rallying behind data, technology and AI. FCB has traditionally been drawn to the former and done well, but now will we see a major track change?
Sinha: Today there is a mad chase for everything related to data, adtech, martech just for the sake of it. People want to turn everything that creativity does into a machine that gives lots of output e.g., hundreds of social media posts. But how many of those posts are being liked or shared. So, I believe that we have to get away from that mad rush and go back to the core of the fact that creativity can solve business problems, and when I say creativity, it can go beyond advertising on Print and TV and be a product solution or a platform which solves clients’ problems. We just launched the Indian Data COE, Centre of Excellence, with Kinnect at the heart of it and are investing in that -- people, resources, access to data for everybody in the group. But this focus on data and tech is to the service of creativity at FCB.
Q] With the exception of Kinnect, FCB has not been too big on acquisitions in India which is considered the fastest way to show growth in the books, instead you have stepped up to build in house capabilities wherever needed, be it FCB/SIX or FCB India. What are the advantages of that approach?
Turnbull: At FCB, we’re truly local operators versus a global network. That operating model has allowed us to experiment in different markets with different services, capabilities, perspectives. When we see something working in a market, we bring it to others and FCB/SIX is a prime example of that. It’s an agency brand that we started in my hometown of Toronto which has now expanded to eight markets around the world. Within India, it’s one of our fastest growing units in the last 12 months. Growing from within, organically, has allowed us to understand the proposition of the agency, the core capabilities and the roadmap on how to scale and grow. Also, we know culturally what type of people to bring into that unit, and the kind of work that we want to create. But obviously, when we see something that can help our clients and our capabilities, we will acquire it. Kinnect is a prime example of that.
Q] FCB/SIX was launched in India in 2023 with the plan to tap existing clients of the Group for the first few quarters. A year later how many of them are associated with FCB/Six and has it found a strong footing in the market to attract clients independently?
Sinha: Our top 10 clients in India are integrated, like Amul works with Kinnect and Ulka and also on the media side with IPG Mediabrands. So, the integration story is playing out well, and at the same time, Kinnect and FCB/SIX are winning huge mandates on their own as well, so both are firing simultaneously.
Q] At a time when agency margins are suffering, in-house production houses have become a ray of hope as a revenue channel. Agency networks like Publicis, Ogilvy have woken up to it globally. How soon will FCB’s Fuel content, which was launched six years ago, contribute to a significant percentage of FCB’s India revenues and do you hope to scale it up further?
Turnbull: One of the things that has made our production solution unique compared to some of our competitors is that we wanted to build one that the world’s best creatives love. With the rampant machine mentality, we’ve seen a lot of high volume, high efficiency production solutions out there, but I would argue that many of those solutions are creating work that is just visible or average, not great. So, we roped in Kerry Hill who has worked with some of the top CCOs in the world to attract amazing talent into the production mix. They understand how to work with great creatives, to make that work thrive. So, from an India perspective, we certainly see it as an opportunity for growth. But again, production at FCB is in service of the creative product, not as a separate standalone solution.
Sinha: I want Fuel Content to be the best production house in the country, working with the best directors. I want our creative folks and our clients to have the best experience from Fuel and not just because it’s an in-house production studio. So, we will accelerate it in the right way, so that the experience is fantastic.
Q] FCB Kinnect is another agency brand which has steadfastly been gaining recognition worldwide, including the Cannes Lions stage. What are your plans for Kinnect in the coming year?
Turnbull: Rohan and Chandni, the founders of Kinnect are exceptionally talented. They are a big reason why we wanted to partner with the agency in the first place. When I look at the recognition that Kinnect has been able to drive, both locally and globally, what really excites me is that it was done in collaboration with many of our other FCB agencies around the world. So, if you take the campaign ‘Chatpat’ as an example, it was done in partnership with FCB Chicago. This is the kind of collaboration we want at FCB. All our agency brands are quite special but I am biased towards Kinnect.
Sinha: I’m very proud of Kinnect, they’re doing some amazing work on their businesses. However, the growth that we’ve managed to see last year or in this year’s first quarter has come from all the agency brands. And that really is the power of the group.
Q] Also, Kinnect is one FCB agency where the leadership is stable right now. Your other brands FCB India and FCB Ulka are missing a CCO each, additionally we have seen some recent appointments and elevations to leadership roles across all FCB agencies…
Sinha: But largely, if you ask me, the leadership is very, very stable. So, Nitin, who has led Ulka all the while, besides that one agency is now helping with the Group as an Executive Director, Kulvinder Ahluwalia who joined many years ago as a management trainee is the CEO of Ulka. Within Ulka, we have very senior executive creative directors who have been with us for at least a decade each, and they are powering the work on a day-to-day basis. The CCO gap is temporary and that’s getting filled very soon. Interface has got very strong leadership -- Rakesh Menon is now the CCO while Gaurav Dudeja has been promoted to the role of CEO.
Q] What have been the big account wins in the past few months, especially after you took over as the CEO?
Sinha: The new business performance has been fantastic, we have won 20 plus new clients in the first quarter of 2024, adding up to business worth USD 2.5 million.
Q] Dheeraj, who are we going to see as your partner at FCB in India, as the Group CCO?
Sinha: We have a great structure in India with four agencies each, with a CCO and CEO and that allows us to have so many clients and get peak level talent across each of the brands to service them. As far as hiring the Group CCO is concerned, I am not sure about that right now.
