'I want to do away with hierarchies in Lowe'

, popularly known as Balki, was appointed chairman and chief creative director of Lowe India yesterday.

Sumana Guha Ray caught up with the adman and film-maker, who has been with Lintas (which later came to be known as Lowe-Lintas) since 1994. Excerpt:

How does it feel to be promoted to the post of chairman from national creative director? How will your role change?

Everything remains the same. Just that I will no longer be able to blame anyone about mistakes anymore. I will have to bear the burden on my shoulders.

What changes are you going to bring about to the way the business is run at Lowe India?

I want to do away with the hierarchical system that exists in the agency. I don't believe in this system and I want to increase focus on talent-based promotion.

Talent management will become an area of focus and I will be working closely with Fali (Vakeel), who is the chief talent officer. I like people who think of things in an interesting way. It might not always be successful, but I want to change the system of evaluating people based on billing. I want to introduce the system I use to evaluate my creative team, right through the system.

Are we going to see more recruits at the higher management or executive levels?

No. We have a strong enough team in place at Lowe and I am happy with the current team. There will be no need to have more executive creative directors on board.

Of course, Charles (Cadell) is joining us from Leo Burnett, Malaysia and although I have never worked with him before, my instinct says that we'll be in perfect sync.

He is coming in as the CEO, but he will also look after the duties that Pranesh (Mehta) looked into. The designations might be somewhat different, but in an agency such as Lowe, it doesn't matter.

A while ago, Lintas had consultants and there was this entire issue when the company trust paid the employees and the consultants got left out. Will Lowe also have consultants, or has there been any change in policy?

I don't think there is any need to have consultants anymore. When you look at the taxation policy, it really doesn't make any difference being an employee or a consultant. More and more people are actually opting for full-time employment. So, no "" we are not going to have consultants.

As chairman, what will be your vision for the agency in the years to come?

Look, Lowe has a clear-cut niche in the market. The niche is very simple "" providing hardcore, but interesting solutions for clients.

For example, for the Tata Tea or Idea campaign "" we came up with a thought. We develop thoughts for brands, around which several creative ads can be built. We need to put a name to this business of developing interesting thoughts and build a brand around it. We need to propagate this edge we have.

In trying to promote other people's products, we tend to forget that we are a product, too, which needs to be packaged and promoted.

While we are talking about building a brand for the agency, doesn't Lintas still have a better brand recall value than Lowe? What are you doing about it?

True. Lintas has a huge brand value and the name is definitely better known in India than Lowe is. However, that doesn't pose a problem because people work with a set of people they are comfortable with; they necessarily don't work with an agency.

Since the people at Lowe are still the same, the business has not been affected in any way. Moreover, since we are still using the Lintas name along with Lowe (Lowe-Lintas), there has been no need for branding.

What is the equation between Lowe and Lintas? What role does Lintas play in the running of the business?

Lintas India is now a legal entity headed by Prem (Mehta). It is a statutory board, but not a policy-making body. In fact, all the entities "" Lowe, Northpoint, Imag and Initiative "" will report to Lowe Worldwide.

Will the Interpublic Group also have an India CEO like WPP?

No. There's no such plan. What is the need when the agencies themselves have chairmen? What will an India CEO do? IPG has big agencies in India and there is no need to have a CEO.

With two of IPG agencies having two such renowned creative heads (Balki of Lowe and Prasoon Joshi of McCann Erickson), is there a possibility of a conflict of interest, or any conflict in creative ideas between the two of you?

Not at all. Lowe and McCann function as two entirely different entities with their individual ways of doing business.

With you at the helm, will Lowe pay more attention to digital media?

Well, the digital medium is important. But I don't think it will become the centre of focus in the recent future. In another two to three years, maybe. However, we already have a team in place to cater to the digital media space, but it is good as of now.

With added responsibilities, would you have time to focus on film-making?

Of course, yes. There is hardly much of 'added responsibilities'. I will carry on doing the stuff I love to do. I will start working on my next film, 'Pa', this month. It will also be a light film like the previous one (Cheeni Kum).