Globalism made in India

W+K Delhi is just more than a year old, the result of a merger between the global $1.4-billion Portland-based boutique agency, WiedenKennedy and Sunil and Jayal's self-started creative agency A. WiedenKennedy is known for its work on superbrands like Coke, Starbucks and Nike - including the “Just Do It” tagline. The agency was awarded Adweek's Global Agency of the Year for 2008 for "its ability to grow globally with its independent spirit intact, its strategic management skills and its culturally relevant, award-winning work,” read Adweek's citation, three months after W+H Delhi opened in December 2007.

WiedenKennedy is apparently one of the case studies from which the cliché “think global act local” was birthed. Their strategy is said to be based on offering global superbrands geographic and culturally specific activation by partnering with the best-in-class grassroots creative agencies.

“Any culture that is living takes on different characteristics and evolves with the circumstances,” Wieden, the agency's co-founder and chief creative officer explained. “And our offices are a reflection of the ethics and weirdness of the mothership, but they also are enriched because they operate in very different surroundings and different cultural settings. And that cross-pollination enriches all the rest of the offices, because we move everyone around. It's just damned remarkable, quite honestly.”

After Beijing, the next growth point was India. It was confirmed when WiedenKennedy landed the $300-million global Nokia account with the task to infiltrate emerging markets. Finding the right partner in India, WiedenKennedy had to go below the veneer of traditional advertising and there they found Sunil and Jayal's A.

“Agencies here either copy a Western style or are asked to match Ogilvy's style of advertising,” explains V Sunil. “We feel we are very Indian in our sensibility but we're the new Indian cool guys - all of us would be very comfortable in New York or London, but we're very proud of the whole Indian thing and are able to show that in our work.”

Launched in 2004, A is believed to have defined a new approach to branding in India. Rejecting the usual clichés of aspirational faux-Western imagery and defensive, in-your-face ethnicity, A's work aims to reflect an India that was finally comfortable in its own skin. Campaigns such as !ncredible India are deemed to have combined local flair, values and tastes with global aesthetics and pop culture. Accounts included the India tourism account, A1 Grand Prix Team India, Royal Enfield motorcycles and IndiGo airlines, for which the agency handled from art direction on the body exteriors of airplanes to designing the uniforms for flight attendants.

As W+K Delhi, the agency has maintained these clients, added Nokia and as well as a handful of other clients. However, they are believed to have kept a low PR profile during this initial phase to work on consolidating operations, focusing on maintaining creative integrity and a spirit of experimentation.

Nokia have made use of the pair's guerrilla tactics. The music video that was developed as a spin-off from the Nokia Navigator TV campaign became the fourth most requested track on Vh1 in November 2008. Their campaign for the entry-level Nokia 1209 aimed at appealing to the simple dreams and aspirations of common folk in India, without departing from Nokia's high-status brand and the Nokia 2600 Classic campaign was aimed at first time upgraders by using a futuristic rubber duck.

Launched last week, the team's Incredible !ndia campaign also shows a departure from pure tourism, by highlighting foreigners who have fallen in love with and settled in India after visiting it. Still based on photography and a progressive perception of the country, Sunil says that there has been a tangible sea change since the inception of the campaign in 2002. “When we meet business people or those who are doing business with other countries, they find the campaign to be very helpful in terms of the shift of image. That slickness of execution was never shown by India before,” he says.

Going into 2009, W+K Delhi are apparently confident. “Until now, the Indian client used to worry that pure creativity is at the expense of being able to work on big brands. W+K hopes to change this mindset and prove that great work and skill are not mutually exclusive and that both can be achieved. W+K hopes to show the sheer quality that an independent agency can deliver, which I believe can change the face of the business,” says Jayal.