The proverb, “tree with strong roots laughs at storms”, has never been more relevant than now.
Suraja Kishore – CEO – BBDO India
Deepen our roots: We are living in times where nothing is fixed everything is variable. The proverb, “tree with strong roots laughs at storms”, has never been more relevant than now. So for 2021, we would like to further deepen our values and embrace the inherent culture of BBDO. We would like to work with like-hearted people who believe in doing work that shapes an equal world for all and one that makes this world a beautiful place to live in. We believe that doing good for people and the planet is good for profit and we will expand our circle to those who buy into our belief. Business or life, no matter how lucrative it might seem, if it doesn’t match our values we will not do it.
Emotional data to drive effectiveness: We have a deluge of big data and scarcity of deep connections. Data doesn’t have feelings but people do. With consumers leaving fingerprints of their emotions everywhere, there is deep work that can be done. In fact, social media is all about sentiments, and brands need to evolve from targeting and talking to consumers to connecting with and understanding them at a deeper level. Since it is rooted in human confessions, not just insights, emotional data for us at BBDO will be at the centre of most of the work that we will be doing to maximise effectiveness of our campaigns.
Embed empathy in everything we do: Be it our clients, consumers or BBDOers, we would like to hold space for them, be sensitive to feel what they are feeling. In this uncertain world, our clients need our empathy along with our expertise. They need us more than ever to see their challenges from their context and constraints they have on desk. When it comes to understanding consumers, we need to move away from looking for tension and conflict in their lives to developing empathy to tap into silent emotional data. And last but not the least, when it comes to our own people- BBDOers, we want to be a commune for them where we look after one another and put their well-being above everything else.
Embrace the Start-up way: This year we would like to embrace the ‘start-up’ way of doing things. This comes easily to us, beginning in 2008 we are one of the youngest start-ups in creative business. We would like to experiment, explore and experience never-before ways of working and building brands. Today, time is currency and therefore we would like to adopt Silicon valley’s ‘fail-fast philosophy’—an iterative, hypothesis-driven approach to developing and launching new ideas. In 2021 we would like to blend failing fast philosophy together with thoughtful analysis, emotional data and big bets!
Share of the future: With the level of uncertainty brands and business face today, more of our partners are asking, how can you develop a strategy in a world that keeps changing so fast. We at BBDO believe that it’s all about aiming for share of the future versus share of the market that can create a strategic playbook to optimise our wins in the future. At BBDO we are developing frameworks for problem penetration over market penetration; mapping arena and ecosystem over competition in the category and identifying emerging human need versus manufactured product benefits to help our partners take strategic position early on and maximise their chances. We will be investing in building knowledge in areas like Health and wellness, Tech and culture, Diversity & Inclusion – areas that are shaping new consumer behaviour and narratives.
