 "Dark and lovely")
Simple, straight speaking and finicky to a fault are three characteristics that best describe V Sunil, creative head of Wieden and Kennedy India. Sunil, who made an early start in life (straight after 10th grade), has little formal education in art -in fact he has little formal education at all.
Yet he has to his credit some of the best ad campaigns in recent times, the latest being 'Make in India' for the Narendra Modi-led government. He had earlier worked on the 'Incredible India' campaign. This is when he was first seriously noticed in the advertising world. Since then, he's worked with Enfield and IndiGo in India - both stellar examples of how smart advertising can help a brand succeed. In the advertising world, people say he could be India's next generation Piyush Pandey.
He walks into Delhi's Oberoi hotel wearing a track suit - a bit incongruous in the otherwise suited-booted lot at the Club bar - but quite comfortable in his own skin and plunges straight into his life story.
The young boy was fascinated with painting and colour, and that's what he did for a large number of his hours. No one, of course, took his passion seriously, expecting him to become a mechanic or even a driver, eventually. His uncle's neighbour, who worked in an agency, encouraged the 17-year-old to quit painting and fine arts and get into commercial art. A great trainer, he would sit with him and get him to redo existing advertisements. "He made me sit with ink and brush and do lettering; there was no computer on which to choose a font. Everything was manual." In three months, he had a small portfolio.
He found a job with a design studio that did exhibition designs on MG road at a princely sum of Rs 350 a month. "This is where I got all my training over two-and-a-half years".
One of the offices in the same compound was of Contract Advertising, whose studio manager asked Sunil to come for a test and offered him double of what he was then drawing (Rs 1200 a month). Overjoyed, he jumped at it.
At Contract, he moved gradually from studio to the creative side. There was a small group moving to Delhi to set up Tara Sinha Associates (TSA) and they asked him to move to Delhi as an art director- an offer he again jumped at.
"Exposure then was so limited. I used to think I would become an art director at 40. And creative director- I never even dreamt of. Back then, if you were a creative person, you could become chief art director, not creative director. Those were few and far between. Art directors back then were primarily from Kerala or Kolkata and while many had the talent, they stayed at that level. They were not savvy… art directors could rarely come up with ideas; they could only do the drawing and the craft," he says.
But at 23, Sunil found himself as an art director. At some point, he moved back from TSA to Contract. He was head hunted by Lintas but went right back to Contract, which was then one of the hottest agencies to be in, as creative director. At 27, he felt he'd arrived. "For me, that was it", he says.
Contract and many agencies back then were just copying what the Western world was doing in advertising (Neil French style of writing and so on). Some agencies were doing good work but they did not have their own individual flair or style. Contract was one of the first agencies in India that started entering its work for international awards and so on. "It was THE agency back then".
Then came Piyush Pandey (with Ogilvy) who 'Indianised' advertising and gave it a desi touch, making it local, Indian and traditional. Sunil would meet Pandey often and the latter offered him a job in 2001-02. He joined Ogilvy to 'fix Ogilvy's Delhi office'. "This was great learning for me. I went from Contract, a very progressive agency, to Ogilvy Delhi, which was then struggling". Four years of solid work as Ogilvy's creative director, he learnt how to set up systems to run a large creative department. Many creative directors of that time are now heading the creative department in India's larger agencies.
One of the main campaigns he started doing there was 'Incredible India'. He also began to notice that small, creative hot shops were doing well globally. "This keeda entered my head. To start something of my own. So I told Piyush I want to leave." Pandey tried to dissuade him but was very supportive of the idea, suggesting that Sunil do whatever he wants, under the Ogilvy umbrella.
But in 2004, he quit and started 'A' with his partner Mohit Jayal (who had been running his own agency till then). They started with the Incredible India campaign (Ogilvy handled the business and hired 'A' to do the creative work). A similar arrangement was done with Nokia.
"We were lucky. All we had was one laptop and one peon. We had 'Incredible India', a global campaign, and Nokia, a national campaign. But a couple of things we did with these worked and there was no looking back". Soon, the duo got Enfield and IndiGo (in 2006-07) and four years later, a call in the night from Dan Wieden.
Known worldwide for it's creative edge, independently-owned Wieden and Kennedy (W&K) was pitching then for Nokia, globally, and wanted to set up an office in India. But once they met Sunil and Jayal, they decided the companies should merge as they had a "vibe, connect, and were on the same wavelength. They said your agency feels like a young us".
So the tiny little hot shop merged with the gigantic global agency and became W&K India. "The best thing that happened to us," says Sunil. The agency went from seven-eight people to almost 80 today. Besides of course the money, the merger gave them a global platform and some great partners to work with.
What do his parents and family think of his success? Usually, Keralite parents are fiercely proud of their engineer, scientist and doctor kids but would view with mild suspicion professions such as journalism and advertising - no matter what heights you may have reached.
"My parents, somehow, had a very global perspective on life and never pushed me in any direction. All he (my father) asked me was to be decent". But they never actually recognised his success in any way since most of what he did was alien to them. The fact that he built them a big, pucca house and was always travelling was one indicator of success to them but not all convincing.
"I would also slip back into my old setting every time I went home - my four school friends and I, wearing my brother's old shirt and a lungi. So, they never felt I had gone away to start with"
It is only now, since his cousins and family have moved out of Kerala and gone all over the world, that they know about a global advertising firm called Wieden and Kennedy and that it is relevant in the advertising world. It is now that his parents have come to see what the young boy from Kerala has made for himself.
"You know how it is. My uncle, and others, would want to show off their nephew's achievements in the community but they never got an opportunity." But, at last, a couple of years ago, when a photograph of Sunil appeared in local Kerala newspapers (at the Kochi art biennale, of which he is a founding trustee) with the chief minister of Kerala, they heaved a sigh of relief. It gave them "bragging rights".
Since 2012, he's been deeply involved with the Kochi art biennale. It showcases the best possible art in the world. As he describes it, he makes one want to visit it. "On the back of biennale, there is pressure on the system to fix things". Last time (in 2012), the biennale attracted almost 450,000 people over three months. "It's great for the local economy and tourism and for the locals".
But Sunil is already restless. Only advertising and earning money is clearly not enough. His creative streak is currently running in all kinds of directions. These days the dark-skinned 47-year-old is working on a photography project 'dark and lovely' (as opposed to 'fair and lovely'). "Successful people can be dark, too," is what he is out to prove - although he's already proved it. So, he's printed some T-shirts that say 'Dark and Lovely' and is photographing people who are dark and successful in their own fields wearing these.
So what happens next ? Is he content to run W&K's India operations for the rest of his life? Far from it. He's already got some mad plans brewing. After seven years with W&K India, it's time for Sunil (and his partner) to move on to a new 'random space'. In due course, we'll know where and what that space is.
Yet he has to his credit some of the best ad campaigns in recent times, the latest being 'Make in India' for the Narendra Modi-led government. He had earlier worked on the 'Incredible India' campaign. This is when he was first seriously noticed in the advertising world. Since then, he's worked with Enfield and IndiGo in India - both stellar examples of how smart advertising can help a brand succeed. In the advertising world, people say he could be India's next generation Piyush Pandey.
He walks into Delhi's Oberoi hotel wearing a track suit - a bit incongruous in the otherwise suited-booted lot at the Club bar - but quite comfortable in his own skin and plunges straight into his life story.
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A bus conductor's (and later an agent for the Kerala State Milk Federation) son from the small village of Kannur in Kerala, Sunil was never one for academics (one of four siblings and no silver spoons around, there was no question of the luxury of further studies, anyway). Having finished his 10th grade, he moved to stay with his uncle in Bengaluru, who worked in a factory. He was to be an apprentice in the factory but fortuitously this never happened.
The young boy was fascinated with painting and colour, and that's what he did for a large number of his hours. No one, of course, took his passion seriously, expecting him to become a mechanic or even a driver, eventually. His uncle's neighbour, who worked in an agency, encouraged the 17-year-old to quit painting and fine arts and get into commercial art. A great trainer, he would sit with him and get him to redo existing advertisements. "He made me sit with ink and brush and do lettering; there was no computer on which to choose a font. Everything was manual." In three months, he had a small portfolio.
He found a job with a design studio that did exhibition designs on MG road at a princely sum of Rs 350 a month. "This is where I got all my training over two-and-a-half years".
One of the offices in the same compound was of Contract Advertising, whose studio manager asked Sunil to come for a test and offered him double of what he was then drawing (Rs 1200 a month). Overjoyed, he jumped at it.
At Contract, he moved gradually from studio to the creative side. There was a small group moving to Delhi to set up Tara Sinha Associates (TSA) and they asked him to move to Delhi as an art director- an offer he again jumped at.
"Exposure then was so limited. I used to think I would become an art director at 40. And creative director- I never even dreamt of. Back then, if you were a creative person, you could become chief art director, not creative director. Those were few and far between. Art directors back then were primarily from Kerala or Kolkata and while many had the talent, they stayed at that level. They were not savvy… art directors could rarely come up with ideas; they could only do the drawing and the craft," he says.
But at 23, Sunil found himself as an art director. At some point, he moved back from TSA to Contract. He was head hunted by Lintas but went right back to Contract, which was then one of the hottest agencies to be in, as creative director. At 27, he felt he'd arrived. "For me, that was it", he says.
Contract and many agencies back then were just copying what the Western world was doing in advertising (Neil French style of writing and so on). Some agencies were doing good work but they did not have their own individual flair or style. Contract was one of the first agencies in India that started entering its work for international awards and so on. "It was THE agency back then".
Then came Piyush Pandey (with Ogilvy) who 'Indianised' advertising and gave it a desi touch, making it local, Indian and traditional. Sunil would meet Pandey often and the latter offered him a job in 2001-02. He joined Ogilvy to 'fix Ogilvy's Delhi office'. "This was great learning for me. I went from Contract, a very progressive agency, to Ogilvy Delhi, which was then struggling". Four years of solid work as Ogilvy's creative director, he learnt how to set up systems to run a large creative department. Many creative directors of that time are now heading the creative department in India's larger agencies.
One of the main campaigns he started doing there was 'Incredible India'. He also began to notice that small, creative hot shops were doing well globally. "This keeda entered my head. To start something of my own. So I told Piyush I want to leave." Pandey tried to dissuade him but was very supportive of the idea, suggesting that Sunil do whatever he wants, under the Ogilvy umbrella.
But in 2004, he quit and started 'A' with his partner Mohit Jayal (who had been running his own agency till then). They started with the Incredible India campaign (Ogilvy handled the business and hired 'A' to do the creative work). A similar arrangement was done with Nokia.
"We were lucky. All we had was one laptop and one peon. We had 'Incredible India', a global campaign, and Nokia, a national campaign. But a couple of things we did with these worked and there was no looking back". Soon, the duo got Enfield and IndiGo (in 2006-07) and four years later, a call in the night from Dan Wieden.
Known worldwide for it's creative edge, independently-owned Wieden and Kennedy (W&K) was pitching then for Nokia, globally, and wanted to set up an office in India. But once they met Sunil and Jayal, they decided the companies should merge as they had a "vibe, connect, and were on the same wavelength. They said your agency feels like a young us".
So the tiny little hot shop merged with the gigantic global agency and became W&K India. "The best thing that happened to us," says Sunil. The agency went from seven-eight people to almost 80 today. Besides of course the money, the merger gave them a global platform and some great partners to work with.
What do his parents and family think of his success? Usually, Keralite parents are fiercely proud of their engineer, scientist and doctor kids but would view with mild suspicion professions such as journalism and advertising - no matter what heights you may have reached.
"My parents, somehow, had a very global perspective on life and never pushed me in any direction. All he (my father) asked me was to be decent". But they never actually recognised his success in any way since most of what he did was alien to them. The fact that he built them a big, pucca house and was always travelling was one indicator of success to them but not all convincing.
"I would also slip back into my old setting every time I went home - my four school friends and I, wearing my brother's old shirt and a lungi. So, they never felt I had gone away to start with"
It is only now, since his cousins and family have moved out of Kerala and gone all over the world, that they know about a global advertising firm called Wieden and Kennedy and that it is relevant in the advertising world. It is now that his parents have come to see what the young boy from Kerala has made for himself.
"You know how it is. My uncle, and others, would want to show off their nephew's achievements in the community but they never got an opportunity." But, at last, a couple of years ago, when a photograph of Sunil appeared in local Kerala newspapers (at the Kochi art biennale, of which he is a founding trustee) with the chief minister of Kerala, they heaved a sigh of relief. It gave them "bragging rights".
Since 2012, he's been deeply involved with the Kochi art biennale. It showcases the best possible art in the world. As he describes it, he makes one want to visit it. "On the back of biennale, there is pressure on the system to fix things". Last time (in 2012), the biennale attracted almost 450,000 people over three months. "It's great for the local economy and tourism and for the locals".
But Sunil is already restless. Only advertising and earning money is clearly not enough. His creative streak is currently running in all kinds of directions. These days the dark-skinned 47-year-old is working on a photography project 'dark and lovely' (as opposed to 'fair and lovely'). "Successful people can be dark, too," is what he is out to prove - although he's already proved it. So, he's printed some T-shirts that say 'Dark and Lovely' and is photographing people who are dark and successful in their own fields wearing these.
So what happens next ? Is he content to run W&K's India operations for the rest of his life? Far from it. He's already got some mad plans brewing. After seven years with W&K India, it's time for Sunil (and his partner) to move on to a new 'random space'. In due course, we'll know where and what that space is.