By Rayomand J Patell
Taking off from where I left off in last week’s column, about ‘Advertising being a Discipline’, not a medium, it may seem strange for a Creative guy to lament the lost generation of Suits who enforced that discipline most, but I do.
If you flung a stone down DN Road in the 90s, chances were, you’d hit a great Suit stepping out of the Jehangir Art Gallery as much as you’d hit a richly-awarded Creative person lurching out of Gokul.
Do that today in the mofussil areas of Saki Naka where many agencies inhabit the ivory towers of today, you’d be hard pressed to find one wincing in pain, their copy of the Harvard Business Review crumpled upon the ground.
Nostalgia is a longing for the past when the present becomes unbearable to paraphrase Woody Allen in ‘Midnight In Paris’. So rather than whine about the golden eras of the past, I’d rather leverage the past to create an even sunnier future.
And so I really have to ask, what happened to the Suits. This week’s article is part requiem, part instigation for a new generation of cub Suits to find their mojo again.
For aficionados of Mad Men, Roger Sterling was the absolute perfect Suit to Don Draper, Creative Director extraordinaire. Yin and Yang, balanced perfectly (even if Don wore suits all through, he was a Creative legend in part inspired by the guy who created the Marlboro Cowboy.)
For those of us who grew up in the 90s advertising era, Mad Men isn’t a TV series, it’s a documentary. And though it was set in the Swinging Sixties, we had those larger than life figures from the IIMs in every desi agency too.
I can trace the decline and fall of the Suits quite clearly. It began in the mid 90s, with the whole Harshad Mehta scam, when the economy tanked. After that, in 2004, another whole bunch of blue blooded Elder Suits moved on and then the 2008 crisis completely erased their breed.
Due to this disruption, and loss in transmission of knowledge and passion, today’s baby Suits seem to be entirely unclear about the role they should be playing. There’s been a self loathing set in of the ones facing the client today. That shouldn’t be the case at all.
As a Creative who will be the first to admit the invaluable difference a great Suit can make, here are a few things I’d like the baby Suits out there to mull over. So, here goes in no particular order.
You don’t have to wear a Suit to be a Suit. The Lord knows agencies don’t pay enough to get you buying five of the finest from Canali, but there was an immense pride among every Suit I’ve known about their sartorial appearance. They were always the best face of the agency, the ones clients felt comfy enough with, so that when the scruffy hippies showed up (read Creative) they didn’t baulk at them.
A Suit is the first line of defence in an agency. And the first Suit is the baby Jr. AE and despite the diminutive designation, I’ve known some Jr. AEs to be absolutely fantastic future CEOs. Here’s looking at you Tejas Mehta.
So, what is it they’re defending? They’re defending the “what is it to be said?”, they’re defending the time it’s going to take, they’re defending the profitability of the business for the agency and above all else, it sounds counter intuitive but the best Suits, have the sharpest nose for the best ideas. You don’t have to sell great work when it’s on brief, it simply works. But you can find them defending the ‘how it’s said’ with more vigour than even the Creatives. Something the more introverted among us will fervently wish for.
They know what it takes to distil information galore from the client and then chisel away at crafting that magical proposition that turns into a bridge between the brand’s product feature that appeals to the emotional benefit a consumer is sure to resonate most with. As Arvind Vinayak, the legendary Dean at XIC used to say, “we have transitioned from the era of the good brief, to the good grief brief.”
The best Suits know they work for the agency first and foremost and that therefore their relationship with the client is on an equal footing not a subservient one. This power dynamic has been completely inverted in present times, creating a sort of Stockholm Syndrome. This needs to end pronto. You do yourself no favours pretending otherwise.
Their ability to insulate the Creative guys from the pressure of business as well as pressure from the client is fuelled by a strong belief in the power of their Creative partners to knock it out of the park. This has earned them the most respect in the past and it will always hold true. Don’t be a doormat, don’t be a postman forwarding client emails, have a view towards improving the work not approving it and your Creative partners will want to partner with you most. Any damn fool can have an idea. Making it happen, on time, on budget and keeping the agency in clover, is what true Suit DNA is all about.
There has been a tendency for clients to want to talk to the Creative guys for the last decade or more. While that certainly is good for my breed, the last thing truly Creative people want, is to be the quasi Suit. A great Strat, one that sings to the high heavens with a proposition so sharp, it cuts to the core faster than a Samurai’s sword, is the Holy Grail for Creatives who just want to be left alone in a corner staring out of the window lost in thought to come up with something that truly does justice to a deadly brief.
I have had the fortune of working with some of the absolute best Suits anywhere, and while their names would fill a column, I think I just must celebrate two of the finest from the past.
The first being Ajay Chandwani, President of SSC&B Lintas, the first agency that won a gold Lion at Cannes. He is the finest example of a Creative’s Suit. Ajay’s uncanny ability to take strategy to a point where the best creative work would literally pour out like a waterfall, was unprecedented. His start points were so much further down the chess board than anyone else’s, they made us in Creative a sure to succeed bunch. There were so many occasions over five years our minds would explode with ideas even before leaving the conference room. I have never come across a mind like his again.
The other being Umesh Shrikhande, who is in my humble opinion, the Suit’s Suit. We worked together for over 12 years and from Umesh, I learned a deep respect for the discipline of Account Management. Contract ran a tight ship, at the helm, he kept a metronomic drum beat often felt not heard, to the wild guitar solos the Creative would belt out. Truly, the wind beneath our wings and I pray that someday, you meet a true Suit like that. It will change your career, I promise.
If you’re a young Suit in an agency feeling crushed from all sides, rise up and change the game. You are needed, you are wanted, you just must bring back the lost glory of your tribe. Agencies are built in large part by the foundations laid by the Suits. Your true power, does not come from being a deadline person, it comes from being a warrior for the agency’s creative product. Better work drives higher revenue. Something every Suit, can really be proud of.
Rayomand J Patell is an advertising veteran and InspiRAYtion is a weekend column on everything about advertising and marketing.