Campaign India caught up with Richard Pinder, who took sole network leadership of Publicis Worldwide in May this year, on the sidelines of the 2009 Spikes Asia festival. Pinder who hired former JWT worldwide chief creative officer Craig Davis in June this year as a precursor to setting up a global creative council, spoke about how far they have managed to progress in this respect, creativity in India and how the Razorfish deal fits into the Publicis system.
On the progress of setting up the global creative council
We are making progress. Craig was obviously a key lynchpin in those recruits. If you look at the quality of talent that we have either promoted in some places or brought in, it has been satisfactory. I was very excited by what was happening in India and it made me realise that the Indian team we had is doing very well. I don’t think that we need to worry about that region at all.
As for the rest of the names to be appointed to the council, it always takes a little longer for the appointments to be announced, than you would wish. I still believe that by the end of the year, I will have our global creative council with six chiefs.
On which regions the creative council will draw upon
I won’t get into each region but I would say that among the regions that I am most focussed on, for higher quality creativity is Germany, Brazil and China. It’s very high up in the Gunn Report as a country, more so than people realise. We have announced in the German press that we will appoint a chief creative officer for Germany, this week. I have put someone from the headquarters temporarily as the chief creative officer to search and find an internal candidate. So we are very clear about Germany. Brazil is another region that we are going to focus on, as part of the global council. We have a very good team but we need to drive the creative side more from an awards’ point of view. We will focus on the places which are the most powerful in the Gunn Report and ask ourselves if we are strong enough there. I am satisfied with India though, we won five Cannes Lions this year which is pretty cool.
On how Publicis is shaping up in India
The creative side of India is doing well. We are still to see recovery, though as far as advertising is concerned. Advertising tends to not follow so fast.
On how the Razorfish deal fits in with the network’s plans and the implications for India
The Razorfish deal is not closed, yet. It has only been announced. Clearly until it closes, it is hard to say what we will do. Razorfish will fit into the Digitas world because essentially Digitas is not really a global brand whereas Razorfish is very strongly global. The two will partner where they can and Publicis Modem is going to be the vehicle through which Publicis clients will get access to Razorfish and Digitas’ talent, knowledge and technology. They will be the technology experts and we will be the creative experts at the front of that technology.
On the progress of setting up the global creative council
We are making progress. Craig was obviously a key lynchpin in those recruits. If you look at the quality of talent that we have either promoted in some places or brought in, it has been satisfactory. I was very excited by what was happening in India and it made me realise that the Indian team we had is doing very well. I don’t think that we need to worry about that region at all.
As for the rest of the names to be appointed to the council, it always takes a little longer for the appointments to be announced, than you would wish. I still believe that by the end of the year, I will have our global creative council with six chiefs.
On which regions the creative council will draw upon
I won’t get into each region but I would say that among the regions that I am most focussed on, for higher quality creativity is Germany, Brazil and China. It’s very high up in the Gunn Report as a country, more so than people realise. We have announced in the German press that we will appoint a chief creative officer for Germany, this week. I have put someone from the headquarters temporarily as the chief creative officer to search and find an internal candidate. So we are very clear about Germany. Brazil is another region that we are going to focus on, as part of the global council. We have a very good team but we need to drive the creative side more from an awards’ point of view. We will focus on the places which are the most powerful in the Gunn Report and ask ourselves if we are strong enough there. I am satisfied with India though, we won five Cannes Lions this year which is pretty cool.
On how Publicis is shaping up in India
The creative side of India is doing well. We are still to see recovery, though as far as advertising is concerned. Advertising tends to not follow so fast.
On how the Razorfish deal fits in with the network’s plans and the implications for India
The Razorfish deal is not closed, yet. It has only been announced. Clearly until it closes, it is hard to say what we will do. Razorfish will fit into the Digitas world because essentially Digitas is not really a global brand whereas Razorfish is very strongly global. The two will partner where they can and Publicis Modem is going to be the vehicle through which Publicis clients will get access to Razorfish and Digitas’ talent, knowledge and technology. They will be the technology experts and we will be the creative experts at the front of that technology.
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