I joined advertising in 1979 and my first exposure to the legend called Bal Mundkur was a quick visit to his wonderful home, a recce for the famous Bombay Dyeing film (I had been seconded by my first employer Rediffusion to work for a week with film maker Prahlad Kakar who was making the film for Ulka). I met Bal the man for the first time at his office in 1989. I was to be interviewed by him for a position to head Ulka South. He, in his inimitable style told me that I had little chance of turning around the South operations which had been a drain on the agency for a decade. Persuaded by Anil Kapoor who had joined Ulka as MD in late 1988, Bal gave his nod. My adventures in straightening out Ulka South were often spiced by Bal’s pungent handwritten letters. After a few years, he admitted that Ulka South was indeed out of the red.
In those years I did not get to work with Bal directly but got to meet him only at informal meetings and the occasional visits he made to South India. But the agency did have many stories about Bal. And here are some of them, some heard through the Ulka grapevine, some from the man himself. Some true. Some part of the Bal legend.
Bal started Ulka with a team of six professionals. All colleagues of his who were with him in D J Keymer (now Ogilvy). He used to boast that he never poached any account from DJK. All the accounts he got were obtained outside the DJK ambit. Bal did not want to call his agency Bal Mundkur Associates. He decided to ask his mother for a name for his new agency, and his mom suggested ‘Ulka’, the Sanskrit name for a meteor. Ulka is possibly the first Indian agency to derive its name from the ancient Indian language Sanskrit. Many have followed since.
When Ulka was set up in 1961 the big boys of advertising were all from Britain, so were the big clients. Ulka could not enter their club. But they were fortunate to get clients who were outside the British Club, Ceat, an Italian company was one of the early clients. So were Indian clients like Zodiac, Tata Fison and Anand Group.
Bal believed that an agency needs to be a ‘Happy Place to Work’; this was articulated by him when I had met him in 1989. No wonder Bal had instituted a ‘No - Hire – Fire’ policy. The agency always treated its staff with utmost respect. Rumour has it that Bal used to walk around the Nirmal office taking bites out of the variety of lunch boxes that got opened up at 1 pm every day. A quick game of chess would follow inhis room.
On to chess, Bal had one India’s best collection of antique chess sets. Satyajit Ray borrowed one of his chess sets for his film Shatranj Ke Khiladi. Bal understood that an agency needed to have strong strategic thinking behind the advertising it produced. So one of his first senior hires was his brother Bhaskar Mundkur, who was then the marketing research manager at Hindustan Lever, or Lever Bros as it was known then. For almost two decades, Bhaskar provided the strategic direction to the agency’s advertising, while Bal provided the vision and drive. Almost as a repeat of this, Bal brought on board Anil Kapoor, a marketing man, to head his agency in 1988, after Bhaskar had laid down office due to ill health.
Bal also understood the importance of financial management. While agencies that were set up around 1960 were winding up due to cash flow crises, Bal’s prudent cash management kept Ulka is the pink of health.
Bal loved clients. He truly enjoyed meeting them and having a one on one conversation with them. But he was of the belief that agency management should stand up for their rights with clients. In his mind the relationship was never one of supplier and buyer, but that of two mutually supportive partners. So there are legends of Bal taking up cudgels with clients when they rejected campaigns for whimsical reasons.
Not only did Bal run the agency he also thought that the advertising business needed strong institutions to support and help grow the industry. He served as the President of AAAI and was honoured by AAAI in 1992 with the AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award. It is also Bal’s energy that gave birth to Ad Club Bombay over 55 years ago. Bal was proud that he had the membershipnumber ACB 001.
Bal’s love for the advertising profession continued almost till his last breath. Bal is no more. It is prophetic that he lived to see his baby Ulka celebrate its 50th birthday last year. I am sure he liked what he saw at the Ulka 50 year party and is sitting back now, a drink in hand with Mozart playing in the background, contemplating his next chess move.
The author is ED & CEO, DraftFCB Ulka Advertising, Mumbai
