- Index hide
The new creative leader spent 26 years at the McCann agency before joining Ogilvy two years ago.
Devika Bulchandani is the first woman to take up the role of CEO at the agency.
She is an Effie winner for excellence in marketing and an AdColor Innovator award recipient.
Devika Bulchandani she is a woman more impressive than impressionable, her passion and curiosity grow as she talks about her plans as the new global CEO of one of the most important agencies in the world and, above all, in a land that reminds her a lot of her native India and that promises grow in investment, creativity and innovation within the key sphere of ogilvy. During her visit to Mexico, as part of the “creative route” she is carrying out to meet her operational team, the woman shares exclusively for Merca2.0 some points to consider in the industry that could mark a new purpose for brands and a new way of doing marketing and advertising.
Devika has forged her leadership under important social precepts, fighting against the gender gap, discrimination and equality. “Creating a positive impact on society through the power of creativity” has been her motto and she has etched it through branding efforts, such as ‘The Fearless Girl‘, in 2017, which challenged the symbol of Wall Street (the famous statue of the bronze bull charging a girl) and left a new concept about women in business, becoming one of the most awarded campaigns in history.
Now, the talent of McCann he will take the agency’s history to start with his own business plan, thus ensuring that the agency’s work will further integrate its clients into the projects and, with that closeness, new creative goals will be dictated. And it is that two months ago he became the face and mind responsible for all aspects of the business of the creative network, with a presence in 131 offices in 93 countries, ranging from the Advertising area to Public Relations, Experience, Consulting and Health.
The appointment of Devika Bulchandani comes at a time when the CEOS of the advertising market giants are recognizing the evolution of practices and tools and setting an optimistic tone for the immediate future, improving their respective organic growth forecasts for the end of 2022.
For example, WPPthe British holding company that owns companies such as Wunderman Thompson, GroupM Y ogilvyshowed in its latest results report how disciplines related to personalized communication, media service and brand experiences, applied in all regions of the world, manage to enrich the most active advertiser sectors, from healthcare to technology.
Among many things, the advertising group registered revenues of 6 thousand 775 million pounds (about 155 thousand 687 million 670 thousand 750 Mexican pesos) in the first half of the year, which represents an increase of 10.2 percent compared to the same period of 2021. This sets a precedent for industry leaders to really have a favorable estimate despite the inflationary outlook that the world is experiencing.
However, for the new CEO of Ogilvy, this is not the only horizon that CMOs should consider when investing in ideas that sell, as Bulchandani is sure that the sector should act as a “collective industry” where they really connect with human beings and it is understood in the business-brand relationship that the history of advertising communication is changing and is heading towards the emotions and values of final consumers, perhaps, beyond their own needs.
“The story of forming that connection between the business and the brand and the human beings on the other end, is connecting those two things in a meaningful way. My biggest piece of advice to everyone is to say: let’s not get obsessed with the means of connection, because what we do so often is forget the fundamentals and forget that the other end of a metaverse or that the other end of a technology platform is a human being and all our work is to make sure that that connection between a brand and a company and the end consumer is as powerful, as potent and as meaningful as it can be.”
Ogilvy’s global leader places special emphasis on social and cultural values that, she considers, become an obligation of corporations, so part of her personal stamp will be to promote work aligned with creative solutions in multiple formats and sizes, but above all Everything that moves the world forward. She promises to make special plans for her clients that create passion for her brands and business, as her loyalty is really important to her as opposed to simply acquiring new accounts.
Devika Bulchandani: “Data is not the goal”
Taking into account the context in which she operates and the history of her personal and professional development, Devika Bulchandani has a projection that moves ideas to political influence, since she believes that advertising campaigns have the power to ignite the digital conversation and influence global decision-making that promotes equal rights.
However, one of the most important remarks that the CEO of Ogilvy makes is the concentration of these ideas through technology and how known practices should begin to act in relation, without losing sight of important traditional foundations. The digital solution for brands, in her opinion, goes much further than the data thrown in a certain trend, something that should make the entire marketing industry think.
“Tomorrow there will be another metaverse, I don’t know what it’s going to be called, but we are going to have new technologies, we are going to have new technological platforms, we are going to have new ways of connecting with people and we have to be in all of them, but we cannot forget who is on the other side Data is not the goal, it is a means for us to have a vision of human beings, so that we can have deeper connections.… I think we tend to forget that and get so enamored with everything, including the shiny new object, that we totally forget our true purpose.”
“Every company that is going to market something to a human being is ultimately trying to make someone’s life better, whether it’s through convenience or something much more meaningful, but now, given the world we live in, given the permission that brands have and given what brands and companies are doing to step up, I think all companies should look at what is the credible thing that they can do, they should not have an agenda, but what entitles them to to have a certain agenda that is linked to your business, right, because otherwise it becomes a laundering of purposes and it is only about marketing. This is not a marketing game, this is a real work of impact“he comments.
Merca2.0 – You mentioned that Mexico had something special because we are natural storytellers. I would say that there are many areas in the world that are very good storytellers, but do you think that Latin America has something special?
db- No doubt. My observation has been the incredible warmth in this culture. I come from India, so I identify a lot because, on an individual level, there is a lot of survival that happens on a day-to-day basis, but survival, and I feel it here, is not purely individual, it is always in the context of a ecosystem of “we”. That’s another really interesting kind of cultural tension and there are so many stories that come out of that.
I think this is an amazing time for brands to connect with people, despite all the headwinds we see or the mac situation, that’s happening post-pandemic and we have to play a big part in that because our business is not one-dimensional, we have a great digital business. Content is becoming king.
How do you connect with consumers? It is not like this? We have a very vibrant business when it comes to content studios and we do them in-house for certain clients and then we do them for other clients in our regions. So I’m very hopeful and we’re seeing it in our numbers. We are seeing in our results that there are many things going on in Latin America and, by the way, that’s why I’m here, one of my first visits to the market has been to Latin America and Mexico.
Merca2.0 – Do you think that Mexican and Latin American brands, in general, are positioning themselves for success in the next five or ten years? And the reason I’m asking this is because you have a lot of political turmoil, of course, in the Chile-Brazil area, with the elections last week, Mexico, with the elections in the next two years, but not only that, you have this trade war between China and the United States and inflation.
db- I’m going to dissect that into multiple parts, because it’s probably one of the biggest issues that we’re talking about globally, just the geopolitical tension that we’re talking about, inflation, and also the shift in global powers, like globalization. When you see this type of dynamic, all the markets are feeling it. So Latin America is not the only one going into geopolitical and electoral turmoil. I mean, you know what’s going on in the US right now. I just came from India and Asia-Pacific and there are many different markets and all kinds of trade wars between China and the United States. So the geopolitical context is a global context, the wave of nationalism is, again, something that happens on a global level. That is inflation, the world has never seen inflation the way we are seeing it now. And all of us, by the way, the leaders, have never lived in an inflationary environment like the one we have today. So it’s new to everyone running a business today, because we’ve had, what, 20 years of a non-inflationary economic environment? So that’s, again, something that’s shared around the world, even when talking about the shifting powers of globalization.
That being said, this is what I would say about Latin America. Can brands be more successful here? I would say yes. Culturally, Latin America is different, the people are different. And we come back to this notion that storytelling and creativity are so central to culture that it gives them a new differentiating meaning.
Market 2.0 – What would be your advice to the younger generation on how to be successful, not only in marketing, but in life?
db- I am an immigrant in the United States and I was not born there, I did not grow up there, and I think I spent too many years as an outsider-…I should have embraced the place and said: “I am Indian and this is America”. I shouldn’t have held on to my Indian status, being 100 percent Indian, even now, I was so busy forming my own career line that it took me longer to assimilate the culture and adjust, but when I did it was the most magical.
I say this to each one of my young people: “don’t wait, don’t get so attached to the thought” and that’s all I tell my children: “okay, you can change something. Don’t be so rigid about things that I was rigid about, one thing in particular that took me the longest to assimilate in the United States.”
Finally, the new global CEO of Ogilvy asks young people who want to do marketing to know, first of all, the truth with which they want to mark their lives and, then, to learn to speak. And it is that in his experience we are educated in many cultures to silence our dreams and our desires and, in such a digital age, the world can demonstrate that change is possible.
Now read:
Helped create “Fearless Girl,” is now the new Global CEO at Ogilvy
Cerveza Victoria and Ogilvy activate campaign to celebrate Day of the Dead
Marketing: OGILVY: JESSICA APELLANIZ DE LOS RÍOS
Ogilvy will no longer advertise with influencers who retouch their bodies or faces