A G Krishnamurthy: People over profits

AGKspeak/ It is unhealthy for agencies to replace teams to please clients

What I've liked
The new Yamaha campaign "" yes, it has breathed life into a brand that had gone out of sight for quite a while. The new Yamaha campaign looks like as if there is a well-thought out strategy governing its burst on the media.

Complemented by a look and feel that doesn't let it down. I like this sudden surge of energy that seems to fill the brand, bright red and pulsing with life, bringing it back with a bang onto the consideration set.

I guess if you break down the communication to bits and pieces, the creative might not survive critical scrutiny, but I am not referring to a particular aspect of the communication. It works quite impactfully together and that really is the point of effective advertising.

Revving up the pace of stagnant brands is what ad agencies love to do. It gives so much scope for creativity. In every sphere "" media innovation, advertising strategy and, of course, the core creative itself.

In the 1990s Eveready put the juice back into the most unlikely category of the times "" batteries "" with its "Gimme Red" campaign. It would be wonderful if the pace is maintained but more often than not, the rejuvenation zeal putters down to a standstill sooner or later.

People change, agencies lose interest and the brand slips back into invisibility. I wish that Yamaha keeps its pace, now that it has jolted all of us into realising it is there. And that would be the true indicator that the brand means business.

What I've learned
"We bet on people"
I remember the time when Mudra was just a Rs 8-crore company and trying hard to establish itself, when we bagged a prestigious Rs 3-crore account. It was a huge win and kept us elated for days.

The account was, of course, put into the able hands of a bright, young executive and very shortly, I was asked by the client to compromise on a monetary matter, to which I refused.

The client's response to this was to harass my executive every day. Soon they asked for her to be taken off the account. A totally unreasonable demand considering it was not her fault at all. I gave the matter some thought and decided to let go of the client instead.

It was not easy to let go of a Rs 3-crore account in the 1980s. In fact, it still isn't. However it seemed the right thing to do, right up until today.

Today, I see agency heads unquestioningly replace executives in order to please their clients without giving any weightage to their team's side of the story. In fact it is this that got me wondering where corporate values are headed for?

Have people really become so replaceable? Do terms like "believe in your team", "have faith in your people" become outdated?

If so, I have a few questions. In a service industry, what is your product, if it isn't your people? If you do believe that your people are your most valuable assets, how do you expect them to stand by you, if you can't take a bullet for them?

In another incident, one of our branches had landed an impressive chunk of a huge multinational account. The client, on the other hand, decided that Mudra was his playground and used to drop in often, walking in and out of the various cabins, creating strife and suspicion within the branch.

To me, there was only one answer "" no account was worth the destruction of my team's morale. So we had to let that account go as well.

The point I am trying to make is simply this "" you don't have a team if you don't have people who believe in you. And for that, you have to believe in your people first.

Fortunately for me, I had one of the best corporate leaders as my boss, Dhirubhai Ambani. I have never seen any one repose so much faith in his people like he did. In fact one of his oft quoted statements is, "We bet on people".

Despite the fact his company is a manufacturing one, he always believed that his team was his biggest asset. Of greater value than all his multimillion dollar plants. And at no point in time did we ever get the feeling that he would give greater credibility to an outsider's point of view over ours.

I guess belief like that always gets reciprocated. And lays the foundation for a future-proof organisation.

Email: agkbrandconsult@yahoo.com