Indian agency: Creativeland Asia

Size matters, says the young creative who’s taken up a childhood dream of running his own country and applied it to running one of India’s most dynamic indie agencies. Udita Jhunjhunwala meets the main man behind an Asian sensation.

Sajan Raj Kurup declared his ambition at the age of 11 by announcing that he wanted to start his own country. In 2007, he took the first step in doing that when he quit as creative head of Grey Worldwide to set up Creativeland Asia. After 16 years of working with agencies such as Mudra DDB, Leo Burnett, Orchard, Lowe and Grey, independence was paramount for Kurup. Just over three years after founding his agency, Creativeland Asia’s mantle already boasts three Cannes Lions (for Frooti, Medimix and Café Coffee Day) besides a host of other accolades.

At his office close to the Mumbai airport, with the occasional sound of a passing airplane, ask Kurup how his ‘country’ is doing and he says: “Very well. I am overwhelmed with the response. We started work with four people and four Mac machines on my dining table in June 2007. Today we are 72 people across two offices in India, nine alliances in Asia and are setting up offices in Singapore and then London next year.”

Creativeland Asia started with one brand – Appy Fizz. Today their client list is 19-strong, including FMCG brands, automobiles, jewellery, soaps, financial brands and a national café chain. The agency has been rated among the top 10 most creative agencies in India, and Cannes Lion rated it at number four. “Not bad for three and a half years,” adds Kurup, whose focus has been to “create a culture of creativity and do things that work for the brand”.

Kurup repeatedly emphasizes the importance of creativity. Even the name of the agency was strategically thought out to reflect its ethos and ambitions. “I believe in the business of creativity, not in the business of advertising, design or communication. We added Asia to the name because we are focused on Asia and the name does make people ask the question – which gives me a chance to state that focus. Also, I wanted to create a place which reflected some sort of stature. I don’t want to be a boutique agency. The name gave us size even when we did not have it.”

His motivation was to set up “a contemporary agency that could do justice to marketers and what they wanted”. He says: “I am a great believer in creativity. It is not just about coming to you with a fantastic idea. Being in control of the destiny of that idea is more important. Marketers are evolving much faster than agencies. They are looking at integrating, and I felt the need to start something more integrated.” One of the most prestigious accounts they bagged was Audi, which has been a huge confidence booster for Creativeland Asia and its citizens.

Kurup believes there is enough business in India for both the networks and the independent agencies to coexist. “It is not easy in a country like ours to be independent, but it’s an interesting time to do this and only getting better. Today, clients are at least willing to talk to new agencies. In the long term networks are dead. Like the dinosaurs that were too huge with too little intelligence and became extinct, that is what will happen to networks. The idea is to be nimble-footed and to be careful how much you grow.”

From that 11-year-old boy to the chairman and leader of this notional country, the most important thing, Kurup feels, is “to create a sense of belonging; to stand for a culture and run something – as leader, player or participant”. He describes the level of creativity in Indian advertising as “insane” and the industry in India as “interesting, exciting and diverse”.

However, he adds that while the ideas are fantastic, execution is a stumbling block. “We compromise too much; there are too many prima donnas and too much complacency. In terms of new media and digital, we are far behind in the application of technology. Aesthetics, interface design and user design are not up to the mark. We have the ideas but do not know how to package them.” According to Kurup, the biggest challenge facing Indian advertising is a lack of cohesiveness. “Too many suits spoil the broth,” he says. The future, he acknowledges, is in the growth of cross-media campaigns. Citing the example of Frooti, which started as an outdoor idea and then became a direct marketing, digital and television commercial idea, he says: “Cross media is the only way to go. Marketing was a linear function 10 years ago. Today it’s a cross-media function and needs to have multiple touch points.”

For Audi, Creativeland Asia is devising a totally integrated campaign with each media melding into the other to give a singular experience. Kurup is clear about the direction he wants to take his country. “One day we will be a huge country where people will have a real passport and people who believe in creativity will build a small house and settle down and see the world in ways we always wanted them to look at it,” he says. In order to do that, reinvention and freedom are buzzwords at Creativeland Asia.

“I want to do things correctly and on our terms. I don’t want to wake up in the morning and say ‘what the hell am I doing?’. If it doesn’t work the way we wanted it to work, I have no qualms about locking the door and going home. We are focusing on leaving behind a legacy and a culture that more and more people believe in,” he adds. More than a stack of awards, the 820 people on the waiting list to join Creativeland Asia is reassurance enough that they must be doing something right.