Tyler Turnbull and Dheeraj Sinha of FCB speak to Neeta Nair of IMPACT Magazine

0:04 I have two gentlemen here with me uh one who's globally well known as fcb's turnaround man and second who in his last interview told me that he'd love to be referred to as uh the serial builder of agencies let me welcome uh Tyler turnul uh CEO of FCB Global and uh FCB India CEO D sa thank you so much for joining me thank you it's a pleasure you know two big developments have happened uh in India Tyler after your last visit uh one is of course the's appointment and second is swati's departure uh I want to understand from you on Hind side do you feel uh that every CEO really needs to find his own partner to create that magic and for FCB it would have been sort of tough to recreate that Swati Rohit magic again well listen let

0:50 me just start by saying I am incredibly proud of the agency that Rohit and swatti and our entire team has built over the years I mean some of our most globally recognized work came from that team H but I also believe that change is a positive thing especially in our business and in our industry I think clients look for it and I think creativity thrives on it and so I could not be more excited that DJ has chosen to join us I think his first few months at FCB have been incredible and I know that he's going to build a phenomenal Creative Group and a Phenom phal team who can keep up the Legacy that I think SWAT roit and many of our people created

1:35 over that time so very excited and feeling very good you know D for you I mean on one side you obviously Brick by Brick built uh Leo Bernett into a force to reckon with on the global stage and Swati sort of carved that debut for FCB India on at the cans platform and plastered it there year after year uh now that you know she's not going to be around you know does her absence kind of put more pressure on you at this uh this year at can and are you hopeful of a big victory again so I think as Tyler said uh the work that uh Rohit and Swati and the entire team uh the work they did for FCB built a great pedestal and a great platform for us and a lot of that team

2:20 in fact uh stays on and Carries On the work right people like ntim Rakesh gorov Y andila and so on and so forth so the large parts of the team uh that powered the leadership is is still here all right uh as far as scan SK I never take can as a pressure I feel can is a measurement of a great agency and and a great organization and that's what we are focused on I think all of us in our lives as individuals and as organizations have won enough Camp uh not to worry about winning another 12 of them uh so if we win we are happy uh if we don't win it's fine we are for focused on building an organization a creative culture making a client successful that's what I'm truly focused

3:06 on right now so no pressure but you have a great lineup waiting for you we have a good lineup I think a lot of the can contenders this year are coming from the work which has happened uh last year uh there's a lot of more work uh which is in the pipeline for this year uh and T and I keep talking about we are never in a hurry uh to meet a candid line uh we want to do things right right uh we want to win big on our big Brands uh and uh once that kicks in you will see that the organization the energy of the organization is kicking in brands are kicking in and glory is kicking I think it's one of the outcomes or measurements of how the organization is doing it's not something that I want to engineer

3:51 artificially Susan credle who I know you know our Global chair has always said that you know our Focus needs to be doing our best work on our biggest brands and over the last seven years she's built up an incredible Global creative Council that I think has been focused on doing just that so as DJ says that really is our first bar of success the outcome and the recognition that that work may receive at can or at other shows is always a cherry on top at a great benefit yes but it's it's our our goal is never that our goal is to drive economic growth for the brands that we work with and if the work is recognized as a result of that growth we're we're proud and you know talking about growth I think FCB has managed to grow even during the peak of the pandemic if I remember correctly got to 2023 a lot of

4:38 agencies are struggling uh but even ipg for that matter has seen an organic uh drop in uh their growth I think 0.1% uh and FCB has managed to uh see a 5% growth uh so I have two questions uh how much has India grown in that 2023 period And what really is the secret ingredient that kind of helps go against a DI well first of all we can't share specific numbers about India but what I will share is that India for us has always been an incredible growth driver for FCB overall the dynamic nature of the market here of talent of our clients has been incredible and I think that stability and that energy is something that we've seen in our results year in and year out certainly in

5:24 2023 getting to your second question the overall growth of FCB and I think the abil that we've had to counter some of the industry Trends as it relates to creative financial performance has really been built on this idea that we fundamentally believe that our product is our creativity and that that creativity needs to work in service of clients growing and I think today across our industry it can sometimes seem that creative is a variable within a wider mix a wider media machine or rather a wider data or targeting kind of lens but I think all of us who choose to work at FCB really believe that it starts with an incredible creative platform or idea and how that then gets distributed and Amplified through new technologies new

6:10 platforms Builds on it but we have to always have that at the Forefront at the core because attention has never been harder to get today uh and you know that as a journalist I think many of us do in the industry and so having ideas that break through in compelling ways are more efficient and more effective and I think more and more CL are coming to us around the world who believe the same thing another question on growth I think I um not specifically growth but I want to know how much does India contribute to the global revenue of uh FCB at this point Yes again I can't fortunately share too many details on that but I would just say outside of North America India is our biggest region uh so it's of critical importance to the global health of FCB and I think you can see that here with the group of agencies

6:56 that we have from an India perspective I mean across CB India and interface obviously Alco where we are today and and connect we have such incredible teams that I think have all succeeded and are all growing in a very special way and part of what D Rajai spoke about when he decided to join us a few months ago was the potential for where we could take India from an FCB perspective and I think the last time we spoke I shared with you how much I believe in the country and the market and I've never believed in it more than I have now I think that it will become more and more important to FCB going forward uh not just within our local India market but globally as well you know Das coming to you I remember reading one of your interviews

7:41 where you mentioned that the world will be divided between people who will be rallying behind creativity and uh humanity and those rallying behind data technology and AI now FCB has traditionally been you know inclined towards the former but now with you coming in are we going to see a major change in track you know more more focus on data numbers that kind digital yeah I think this obviously focus on data and Tech and all of that but we feel and I believe personally that all of that is to the service of creativity right and I think has become so important now because there is a crazy Mad Chase for everything data or everything tech for the sake of it or there's this crazy Mad Chase to turn everything that creativity

8:28 does into a machine and and lots of output oh my God where are my 100 social media posts but how much of those 100 social media po are being liked or shared or doing any impact right so I believe that we have to get away from that bad rush we have to go back to the core of the fact that creativity can solve business problems right and when I say creativity I mean it more than just advertising and print and TV work but creativity in its own way right could be a product solution it could be a platform it could be a campaign a project to bring back something uh right and that true definition of creativity to solve client problems I feel it was never more important than in these times when there's such a crazy rush for

9:15 attech and and mtech and so on and so forth uh so that is the core of our business that the core of the way we think at FCB and then everything else data AI is to the service of that we have huge Investments on data in fact we just launched the IND data Coe Center of Excellence uh with kect at the heart of it uh we are making lots of investments in that in terms of people resources access to data for everybody in the group so huge amount of Investments on that but all of it to the service of creativity okay interesting and I'd be very uh Keen to find out what are the new areas that you kind of explore uh to tap all of this uh another thing I think

10:01 um ipg CEO spoke recently about how the agency of record trend has kind of seen a downfall I mean um lot of uh clients are not really sustaining that kind of relationship with agencies anymore and that's seen led to a decline of revenues overall in contrast I think FCB has had very long relationships I think decade long I think we we were discussing you had a 60 old relationship I think our oldest relationship in the world happens to be here in indiaia oh w okay very So that obviously is um a big chunk of your revenues coming from there but with regard to New Age clients what what is the what is the percentage uh today and are they mostly Project based or a retainer so it's a mix right I mean

10:47 uh we have a huge exposure to clients uh which are directly linked to India's growth economy India's consumption expenditure so we are big on Automotive sector we are big on sector we are big on cpg uh which means that if India grows we grow as well and and you can't go wrong with that story SP time in India and we are lucky that most of those relationships are are a they are long-term relationship based uh we do projects even with the new age CL such as Uber for example we have a long-standing relationship they're not Project based relationships uh at the same time we are open to projects we do a lot of projects from many clients right now there not a huge part of our

11:32 Revenue but it will it will grow as a as a share to our over by certainly I mean when I look around the world we have many agencies where you know 60 70 80% would be project-based business and I don't see that as a bad thing yeah I think that in many cases a lot of our clients and a lot of our new business has shifted into projects versus pitches to start with and I think that gives clients the ability and frankly us the ability to understand how our clients work to understand whether we're going to be the right fit and then grow from there and I think coming from a digital background like I do projects were the normal right it wasn't kind of a status and I think having a mix of model for us is the best way forward and

12:18 to not have a one- siiz fits-all relationship because I think look many of our clients want different commercial models and different ways of working with us I think our Focus has been really how do we make sure that we are getting compensated for the value of what we drive to their business uh and that our model matches the outcomes that they're trying to drive as well you because you touched upon healthy mix uh does it also make business uh good business sense to kind of have a good balance between uh you know Legacy clients and also New Age clients and or do you think being Legacy heavy can actually take uh FCB into the future as well see I I honestly never look at the market as Legacy versus r i look at the market versus which is the client where we can make the Maximum Impact right

13:05 where can we solve a problem where can we help creativity build economic multiplier which is what our core is so honestly when I put a filter to what business we want to go after we're not seeing it as Legacy versus New Age we're seeing as where can we make the Maximum Impact uh really and on on projects I feel that I mean what we've done well in my past life is Project based relationships so those are relationships as well right it's just that you come and you do a project and then go away and you come back and do another project right so I I call them relationships as well yeah I just want to build on that because I think that when I think about our best Partners our best CEOs and best CMOS I think about their mindset more as Legacy or new aged and I think the

13:51 majority of the partners that we have have a very new aged mindset which to me means that they want to disrupt the status quo they have a challenger Spirit within them whether they're 151 year old brand like fcv is or they are a new startup that just started last week and so that's the type of partner and mindset that we look for and then I think we look at okay what is the reality of the brand what's the DNA and how do we drive that disruption that they want from there another aspect I want to touch upon is Acquisitions and fcbs not really big been very big on Acquisitions in India uh I think uh baring Kinnect of course you try to build capabilities within which is I think FCB India was an in-house brand and you brought FCB 6 I mean to India as

14:36 well so how has that really worked out and what is the advantage of having that kind of an approach one of the things we like to say at FCB is we're truly local up versus global down and I think what that operating model has allowed us to do around the world is experiment in different markets with different Services capabilities perspectives and when we see something working in a market Market bring it to others so FCB 6 is a prime example of that right uh an agency and a brand that was started in my hometown of Toronto uh and then expanded to you know now eight markets around the world uh including most recently India and I think within India it's one of our fastest growing units by far in the last 12 months what growing from within I think

15:21 allowed us to do is we understand the proposition of the agency the core capabilities and the road map on how to scale and grow and also we know culturally exactly how to the type of people that we're looking for to bring into that unit the type of um work that we want to create and so I think it's it's been helpful to grow organically in that way but obviously when we see something that uh could help our clients and our capabilities we will acquire and I think connect is a prime example of that is is something on the guards at this point I mean Which F maybe AI into something in AI or gaming or e-commerce something happening on those lines listen we're always looking I would say and always interested in in options out there uh but I think right

16:07 now at least from an India perspective what I know DJ is focused on is is helping our clients I think have true endtoend capabilities I think most of our clients around the world now and certainly in India want to simplify their relationships with agencies and I think they want an agency who is more accountable to delivering that growth across every aspect of their marketing ecosystem and I think we're very well positioned now with our assets to do just that yeah I think with K coming on board I think I would say that we are the largest integrated cretive company in the country uh so we can go from very high in strategy uh to Mainline to digital to social to CRM right all the way down to production right and say about six years back or five years back clans were excited of that getting

16:53 between 17 agencies and they like oh my God like now I have a social agency I have a sports agency and I have a uh CRM agency and so on and so forth and now when I'm meeting client say can you can you can you give me one one one one to choke right uh so we are in and and that's where our power comes right because we have the ability now in one pnl to drive the full funnel right and that to my mind is a lot in terms of what we have at our hand right now if you're able to accelerate this in a in a good way a good game going you know integration I think FCB 6 also was kind of broughten with the same kind of a thought and I remember initially U the idea was to maybe tap into your existing

17:38 clients for the first few quarters uh and then kind of see how it goes so today now I think we are a year old I mean the agency is a your role in India now do you think it has independently created that cloud that you know you can do the pictures and you can get in get on board uh get clients on board independently without other agency support yeah so both both is happening India U if you look at our top seven top 10 clients they are integrated through so they integrated which which of these most so so say for am we doing work across kect and and ulka and so on and so forth with tataa motors we doing work across band so most of our clients are are integrated right uh on some clents we went to Media with ipg media brands

18:24 for example we do everything including uh media right so the integ story is playing out well and at the same time between connect and FCB 6 they are winning huge mandates on their own as well so both are fighing simultaneously okay interesting and also at a time when uh agency margins are suffering across board I think a Beacon of Hope sort of has been production uh a lot of uh big networks have woken up to it I think oil has publes or ex agency Leo Beret I mean they had prodiges at that point um how soon will we see fuel content which is something that you know FCB launched in 2018 uh kind of grow in scale and you know really contribute to a sizable revenue of uh you know FCB and India

19:11 yeah look I mean I think globally from an FCB perspective just for a moment we uh launched 456 Studios which is our kind of enterprise-wide production solution of which fuel in India is a part of but I think one of the things that has made our production solution unique to some of our competitors out there has been we wanted to build the a production solution that the world's best creatives love and again going back to that kind of machine mentality that we talked about earlier I think we've seen a lot of content high volume high efficiency Production Solutions out there but I would argue that many of those Solutions are not creating great work they're creating uh work that we would say is invisible or ignorable and so working with uh Carrie Hill who leads

19:58 our production who leads 4556 globally who has an incredible experience working with some of the top ccos in the world like Andreas and and Susan and many others we've been able to start to build something that has attracted amazing talent into the production mix who understands how to work with great creatives to make that work Thrive uh and so from an India perspective we certainly see it as an opportunity for growth to your point moving forward but again in service of the creative product not as a separate Standalone Solution that's production only my brief to fuel is I want it to be the best production house in the country working with the best directors I want our Trad folks and our CLI to have the best experience uh from fuel not just because it's an uh

20:45 in-house Production Studio so we will accelerate it in the right way uh you know so that the experience is fantastic and the value that our clients get is the best not just because it's the captive set you know you have I think Kinnect also had a production uh unit before you acquired all fuel okay okay now connect is another agency which has been which has steadfastly been gaining uh I think uh recognition worldwide I think it's one couple of can Awards last year as well so do you think today uh kect is more popular on the world stage than the three FCB agencies India interface and ulka I mean do you think it's got that kind of a potential and what are really your plans for connect in the coming year listen let me just start by saying Rohan

21:31 and sha D you know the founders of connect 2 we obviously know incredibly well I think are exceptionally talented I think they are a big reason why we wanted to partner with them in the first place because they created something I think very Innovative and very special when I look at the recognition that connect has been able to drive um both locally and globally what really excites me is that was done in collaboration with many of our other FCB agencies around the world so if take chipad as an example you know that was done in partnership with FCB and Chicago uh as well as connect and I think that type of collaboration moving forward is going to be something that we continue and as I said it started with our Global creative Council and what Susan had curated um over the years on that front and it's going to continue across our CEOs our

22:18 csos and many other places so I think it's a very special brand but I I'm biased I think all of our brands are quite special uh but I know we're going to have amazing work coming from connect as well as interface and ala and India uh in the months to come all all fundamentally very strong Brands I'm very proud of connect and what we have uh in terms of connect but in terms of all other brands they're doing some amazing work on their businesses and when I look at the dashboard of growth they are all growing very very well so the whole growth that we've managed to build last year or this year first quarter is coming from all the brands and and that's really the path of the group yeah and I think Kinnect is one place where the leadership is sort of stable right now and I think across the other agencies

23:04 there's a lot of movement that we are seeing we just saw someone coming in from Leo banet um at FCB India and uh I think FCB ulka is obviously there is missing a cc at this point so that still needs some work some parts but I think largely if you ask me I think the leadership is very very stable so Nan who has led ulka all the while is is there with ulka and he's now helping with the group as an executive director ship of the the direction of the group kulvi is a CEO of hulka he's joined as as management traine is now the C of ulka huge amount of stability there within ulka we have very senior executive CR directors who been with us for at least a decade each and they are powering the work on a day-to-day basis

23:49 the CCO is a gap in temp in temporary time period and that's getting filled very very soon uh right interface has got very strong uh uh leadership right Rakesh been with us again for the longest time joined us as Management training part of the campus program St one program is now the chief credit officer so uh you know he's in the saddle and gorov in fact you know came here and joined the agency as a test case before I joined so G is now being promoted to co4 interface uh right so in that sense the way I see it is very very stable top leadership also I want to know how you see something else uh you know I remember I asked you this question when you joined uh FCB and I think it was too soon to answer that now you're 6 months into the job what is

24:36 that one USP of FCB and what is that one downside now you can answer this see uh I think the biggest thing which attracted me to FCB was this whole conversation that in today's time when everybody's losing faith in creativity and running to become a software company here is one company we are very very bullish on the power of creativity uh right the conversation that I have with Tyler and Susan on creativity being the economic multiplier and I be believe very strongly in that whatever I built in my past life was based on this principle of of being creative at the core and then everything to the service of creativity and I'm enjoying that piece right we are accelerating the FCB group India positioning around that investing heavily into creativity and

25:23 everything else which helps that come across so to my mind that's the very simple very clear focus and the biggest advantage of this group Al which have been the big account wins in the past year and especially after you took over yeah so I think lots of them so we were just doing a review and I think we've won about 20 plus uh clients uh right to a tune of $25 million plus uh Revenue uh and some of the key clients would be sketches BBS and many many and it's a huge list which I can't give out some for various reasons but the new business performance squ has been fantastic yeah and so has been the organic growth so I'm just yeah I because that's one of the big focuses

26:09 and that's something I'm also learning a lot with FCB and with Tyler because we have strong Brands here and the fact that we're learning with current Brands is a is a bit big okay what what is the expectation from D at this point uh and you you mentioned that you know India is the second biggest market for you cross how soon do you want to make it the him to make it the first well listen I mean one of the things I think as an industry we haven't done well necessarily is give great leaders time to build and you know this is my 10th year at FCB and I think over that time I've been able to with ipg's support build great teams in markets around the world and so DJ has time to build something very special and

26:55 to continue the M momentum that we have and I think when I look at our growth rates now when I look at the quarter that we've just had we are exactly on track of the trajectory that I can see us going on uh which is to I think solidify India's position even more in the importance to FCB globally and to create an abundance of great work that really helps us to prove the proposition that we have for so many of our clients around the world around the power of that creative so I wouldn't say there's a there's a a deadline in my mind uh I think for me it's just about making sure that we have examples of that momentum day in and day out and DJ and his team have done just that I I remember you were given the Herculean task of turning

27:41 around one of fcb's worst performing markets yes and you did it beautifully I think uh Rohit kind of proved that you know you can you know actually grab the awards and not f with it what what do you think you want to be uh known for at FCB I think it's that I think uh a couple of things one is obviously we keep talking about our best work has to be in our biggest brands uh right and growth for our clients and for the organization and for the people who come here and do the best work of their lifetime okay yeah those are three things I would say and also the remember you were very excited about reporting to a global boss and Tyler yeah I hope you're still excited so what is the best piece of

28:27 advice that Tyler has given in this in the past 6 months and what is the most uh difficult part about leading one of the uh best performing markets uh for FCB I mean what is the biggest challenge associated with that so I think I mean the good thing is that D speak very frequently uh you know sometimes I call to crib sometimes I call to fness break but I have time on his calendar all the time that I need it uh and he's a continuous conversation continuous guidance because I mean I'm completely entering a new space here so I call him very very often I mean some of the things that I'm learning one is how do you grow organically right because in my past life we grew a lot through new business acquisition here we have very very solid relationships we have a full funnel uh you know product to have just

29:14 the amount of growth we can do and we're already doing just to cross sell upsell doing more for our current plants uh so that's the muscle I'm growing and that's a muscle which is proving very well second is I what T always says that everything is point in time right and and everything changes take your time do it well uh so unlike many other systems there is no pressure inordinate pressure uh to to engineer things in an unnatural way and I like that also one last question to both of you uh you know just like Tyler has Susan on the global level who are we going to see as your partner n FCB India I mean uh who's going to join you as a CCO group CCO in India structuring India where we have four agencies uh and four Brands uh and the

30:02 structure is we have four cosos each Co there coo for each of the brand and the CCO for each of the brands uh and that allows us to you know have so many clients across each of the brands it also allows us to have peak level talent in each of these Brands and we can focus because as an agency and they're working on say 8 10 brands together we can focus and give time to Our Brands uh in a good way uh and that's the structure going forward so there will be four cosos and four ccos and will there be a group ccos I'm not sure about that right now okay we hope to hear about that soon you'll be the first to now we have that on record super thank you so much for a very candid chat and yeah wishing you all the success at can and more thank

30:50 you so much [Music] [Applause]