A panel discussion titled ‘Creator Calling Creator’ curated by the Advertising Standards Council of India witnessed an in-depth discussion on the connection between content creators, collaboration and the need to foster a thriving creative community.
The panel was moderated by Subhash Kamath, former CEO, BBH & Publicis Worldwide, India and former Chairman, ASCI. The panelists included Rajdeepak Das, Chief Creative Officer and CEO, Leo Burnett, SouthAsia, India & Chairman, Creative Council, Publicis Groupe - South Asia; Shreya Agarwal, Head of FilterCopy, Pocket Aces; Smruthi Rajagopalan, AGM Maybelline, L’Oreal; and Prableen Kaur Bhomrah, beauty, fashion, body positive & lifestyle influencer.
“Everything has changed so drastically that there exists a new world of opportunity to speak to the consumer. There are different mediums to talk to them. Today we have multiple agencies to deal with the communication. There are mainline agencies who still believe are the custodian of the brand, there are digital agencies as the brand needs freshness and they understand the newer platforms. It is a huge opportunity to be able to tailor your message to the consumer in every possible way that you want. It’s also a challenge at the same time to maintain brand DNA consistency across all of these. Because for us, we are consumer and brand first – we want the message to reach the consumer and want the brand to be intact,” Smruthi Rajagopalan - AGM Maybelline, L’Oreal said.
Alignment of all agencies and partners to be on brand with shared goals was her ask.
“We need to create things with what we have,” Das said. He added that the best part of creativity is not having options – that’s when best creativity happens, according to him.
“Our followers are what drives us, " observed influencer Bhomrah.
“I believe that we need to have some specifications of what you stand for. When I started off, there were brands who were against body positivity, I stood against it and communicated that I don’t stand for that. That’s when I started my #nofilter journey. After a few years I am witnessing the same brands coming back to me. You really need to stand for what you believe and the brands will come back to you,” she added.
Speaking on the collaborations between content creator, agency, and influencer, Agarwal said, “It does happen. We have a lot of successful campaigns that have come out of collaborations where the agency partner has themselves recognised that a particular platform is an apt one to communicate this messaging to the audience segment we are trying to reach. Campaigns of Pepsi, Cadbury have come out of that collaboration as well.”
Adding to her point, Das said, “Brand takes time to build. In a time like this, you need multiple mediums to create brands. There should be a brand structure, how and what the brands are standing for is also a question to be asked.”
“Ideas can come from anywhere, the only thing that matters is how we execute it. For that to happen, all the collaborators need to have one goal – how to make the brand successful and use the respective tools to make it happen,” Das added.
Lending the content perspective, Agarwal said, “From the content perspective so much matters on the brand objective as well. There are brands coming in for various objectives. Some brands don't care about conversions at the moment, some don't care about the communication but require X number of downloads. We come with solutions based on objectives. Brand building matters so much. At times we get feedback from the agencies as well. Good things happen in collaboration.”
The panel reiterated the need and power of creators coming together to exchange ideas, share knowledge, and elevate their craft, collectively.
