‘People are going to do things beyond their roles’
The biggest change is that people are talking a lot about how the synergies should work without the hierarchy. And the creative team and people are supposed to be insightful about creative as well as certain other aspects that move along with it in tandem. I think that is one big change where people are going to start seeing things beyond their roles and responsibilities and probably explore more of what they are capable of doing – breaking the monotony of just following the hierarchy with their own talent and creativity. It will have a direct impact on anybody who has a knack for it and is able to come up with an idea that makes a change or a difference.
Prateek Mishra, Group Head – Digital, Omnicom Group
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‘Emphasis will come back to innovation and creativity in planning’
It will really put the emphasis back on the end of third party cookies. I think it’s a big change coming to the industry where targeting is going to be difficult. The emphasis will have to come back to innovation and creativity at the center of planning. We are trying to get a lot of insights from the giants in terms of how this will pan out. We are gearing up as an agency ourselves and we will wait to hear from the giants on what are the next steps.
Rohan Chincholi, Managing Partner – Digital, Havas Media Group
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‘People need to come up with newer skills’
One big change which I feel that all of us need to gear up is for unlearning and learning. A lot of new things are coming, it is getting more cluttered. We hear a lot of words like AI, ChatGPT and all these words we all are new to. It needs to become a part of the system and for that we all need to unlearn and learn. In terms of prerequisites of getting into a media agency, it will require a lot of other aspects. People need to come up with newer skills. Otherwise, people are becoming redundant now.
Saurabh Jain, Managing Partner – South, Havas Media Group
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‘The idea remains at the centre of it all’
A lot of things are happening, particularly in the last three years. Having said that, there is the central thought or idea and that will never change. Therefore, anything that we will do has to be idea-driven. There could be a lot of technology, AI which will enable it to go much larger in context, but idea is something that will remain. It was there when I started my career and it is there right now as well and it will be central even when we move from here.
But then, of course, in terms of change, a lot of touchpoints are already changing. The way we work is changing. There is ChatGPT and other stuff that has come in but that doesn’t mean it is going to replace the human knowledge or inputs but will enable them to work better and bring results in a much larger context.
Talent is also changing very fast. In the past when we were looking for people to work in our team, we were generally looking out in places like management schools or maybe art schools, whereas now I think it’s also people from engineering, technology, psychology and different domains.
Ujaya Shakya, Founder, Outreach Nepal
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‘AI won’t replace, it will enhance’
Everybody is talking about the big change being AI. I don multiple hats at The Times of India, one of which is creative head, innovation head and content head. I think what AI is going to do is not replace anything that we are doing, but we should be able to use AI in a manner that can enhance what we are doing. How do you actually use AI to help you improve innovations, improve your content, give you different perspectives? AI essentially would help you research better and one can use that to improve whatever you are doing. I would say it doesn’t replace but will enhance.
As of now, I don’t see any negative impact, I think it’s going to be a positive impact. One example: in the matrimonial section on Sundays, we used to have real people’s pictures. Different regions would have different regional brides and grooms. Over the last three to four months, I have used Midjourney AI to create brides and grooms for those specific regions but in styles of different artists. The current style that we have going is with Madhubani paintings. We are using AI to create a refreshing approach to what we are doing currently.
Malcolm Raphael, Senior Vice President, BCCL
