Juhi Kalia’s post agency lifestories from Facebook and this year’s Clio Awards judging
Juhi Kalia was locked up for days in a room filled with clients but she never gave up hope. The location was the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Bali and the occasion was the 2016 Clio Awards judging where Kalia was joining the Brand Innovation and Integrated jury panel. Bucking the usual trend, this year Clio had invited some of the world’s top clients to join the jury. Following the judging Campaign Brief Asia sat down with the Kalia, Head of Creative Shop, India and Indonesia at Facebook, to talk about the experience and her work life after agencies.
Juhi Kalia left the ECD role at J Walter Thompson Singapore and joined Facebook in May this year as Head of Creative Shop, India and Indonesia. She is one of the exodus of experienced creative directors to turn their backs on the traditional agency model for the world’s largest social media network.
Her role at Facebook is to help brands and agencies in India and Indonesia, understand how to create the most original, impactful work on Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s also to show these brands what’s possible when you creatively combine mainstream advertising basics like insights, ideas and storytelling with data, technology, behavior on our platform and the social and mobile environment, said Kalia. “There is so much to love, so much to get excited about and so much to learn because it’s dynamic and constantly evolving. So if you thrive on curiosity and change then this is a dream job.”
It certainly seems to be a dream job as several of Asia-Pacific’s great creative minds have jumped ship and also joined Facebook in similar roles in different countries. In addition to Kalia, in Singapore Valerie Cheng (also ex J Walter Thompson Singapore), in China Kitty Lun (Mullen Lowe China), in Australia + New Zealand Rebecca Carrasco (Clemenger BBDO), in Japan Jun Fukawa (ex JWT Tokyo, Singapore & London) and just recently in Australia Andy Blood (ex Colenso BBDO, Whybin\TBWA Auckland) have been hired across Asia Pacific. So in what ways does working for Facebook beat working for agencies?
“I can’t speak for everyone else on the team but for me it was the freedom to create,” said Kalia. “I love the autonomy. I love that my learning curve has gone nuts. I love that I don’t know everything. I love that I can collaborate with any amazing creative team from any agency and I love that it’s still very much about what I’m dyed in wool to do. Also, people and culture matter more than you can imagine. I have tremendous respect for Fergus O’Hare (Head of APAC for Facebook Creative Shop) and he’s a huge part of why I joined. I wouldn’t be me today if it wasn’t for all the agencies and teams I’ve worked with over the years so I’m grateful for that journey. That said, this does beat working for an agency in many ways.
That said, it seems to Campaign Brief that great creative ideas on Facebook are, like traditional media, few and far between. Can clients/agencies be creative on Facebook?
“Being creative used to be and still is about the freedom to make mistakes, iterate, explore and experiment,” said Kalia. “I feel like we’ve lost so much of that in the industry for many reasons. The revenue model that’s structured around time sheets rewards effort not impact. And after 179 years of outdoor, 90 years of radio and 75 years of TV advertising, so much great stuff has already been done. But imagine if the TV had just been invented and no one had made a mind blowing commercial, a reality show, or a sitcom yet. That’s what Mobile advertising is like right now!”
“For Facebook, one of the places where one can really explore the edges of creativity is the News Feed. Engagement is key. If you don’t earn or keep my attention, you lose. Your ad is competing with all kinds of content – from your friend’s dog video to a 360 trailer for Benhur. So to be thumb-stopping and to reward people’s attention with emotional value, brands and agencies can and must be creative.
“Because it’s relatively new, I feel like we have more great work ahead of us than behind us and that’s the reason the team at Creative Shop exists – to help figure out what lighthouse work looks like. But there’s lots of stuff I’ve seen since I’ve joined, that I’ve loved. There is a Wendy’s piece for the launch of their BBQ burger, that used big data to uncover the fact that it was not the expected Southern States where this burger would be loved, but actually places like NY that were BBQ deprived, that would appreciate it more. This defined the entire idea of the launch – ‘BBQ inaccessibility’ and a spoofy public service tone to some hilarious spots which they then geo-targeted to cities that they hadn’t even considered. There’s another piece for Zolando, I like very much, where they got Cara Delevingne to announce the names of 60,000 ‘impossible to pronounce’ rural towns in Europe, where they now delivered. Then they cut the same basic ad but with 60,000 customised edits and served them to the right town, making each tiny town feel special. Personalisation at scale!”
When Campaign Brief Asia caught up with Kalia she was on the ground in Bali at the judging of the 2016 Clio Awards. Kalia had been invited to join the Brand Innovation and Integrated judging panel and it was a non-typical judging gig as five of the seven jury members were clients. She said her week of judging was a week full of stories.
“Tell me a fact and I will listen. Tell me a truth and I will learn. But tell me a story, and it will live in my heart forever.” Kalia quotes an old native American saying.
For Kalia stories can be transformational: “Stories are the way we make meaning and find purpose”, she says. “They help us understand our place in the universe.”
“Stories about elections in Africa, Stranger Things and 80’s sci-fi, geothermal heating, what went into making the switchboard for The Swedish Number, Jim Morrison’s last days in Paris, life in Ubud, Greece, Seattle and a man named Boris. We even crashed a big fat Indian wedding that was happening at the hotel and almost got caught. But that’s another story for another time.”
A week before the Clio judging in Bali Kalia was sitting with an old friend in Jakarta, listening to his story about the time he switched to a big agency and got a fancy title. ‘I got a big raise, but I felt poor’, he said as he drained his whiskey.
“These words stayed with me as I walked in, to day one of the Clio judging for Brand Innovation and Integrated, hoping to leave richer for the experience. Hoping to feel that electric high you feel when you’re surrounded by stimulating ideas and creative people.”
But she had her doubts, given that the majority of the judging panel were from the client side. “Clients kill ideas. Clients care more about sales than originality” these were stories Kalia had heard and internalized over the past twenty years as an agency creative, with some of the largest networks including JWT, Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy, McCann and Lowe.
“And so, with a fat dose of healthy skepticism and a room full of ‘clients’ barring me and Steve Vranakis, the jury chair from Google, it began. But the best stories are the ones that have the power to take you by surprise. The ones that transform your perception of the world. And surprised I was. The shortlist we had all arrived at was pretty close to what I imagine a room full of creatives would have arrived at,” said Kalia.
“Over the next two days as we debated, discussed and voted, my world view shifted even more. Whether it was Kathleen Hall who was behind the wonderful Women’s Day ‘Make What’s Next’ Microsoft stuff or Lars Terling, who made Van Damme’s ‘Epic Split’ for Volvo possible, I realized what a unique and unusual jury I was in. A jury of clients that was not judging effectiveness like they do at the Effies but creativity and originality at the Clios. And doing a damn good job of it.
“There were of course differences too. I got some powerful insights into how an analytical business-first brain processes things and reacts and responds to both ideas and case studies. How if it chooses to, it
can follow through, sweat the small stuff, ask real world questions and make a terrific idea even better.”
Kalia said as our job titles get big and our hubris bigger still, we must remind ourselves constantly that it is easy to judge, but incredibly hard to create. So it is always with great humility that she talks about stuff she liked or stuff that fell short.
She said of her Clio judging the most powerful ideas are a response to the world with a real problem to solve.
“Some of the ideas that were very creative but started with a solution and then went hunting for a problem, felt less authentic, less important, said Kalia.
“‘Awareness’ is a lazy goal. Don’t tell me about an issue. Solve it. Because ‘storydoing’ is even better than storytelling. Technology is not a story. VR is not an idea. The new UGC is inviting people to design product not content.
“Free media impressions don’t always make for compelling results. If your idea got famous or got press that’s fantastic but if you had set out to save lives, did you? If you had set out to change a perception, did you? If you had set out to solve a mass problem, did your solution scale? Did you manage to achieve what you set out to do in a demonstrable and if possible measurable way?
“Great creative makes real impact. But of course an average idea fantastically scaled or measured is still average.”
The ideas that were clear on their story were home runs for Kalia.
For Kalia judging work is always a process of asking questions: “What’s your story? If you had to tell it in one sentence what would it be? It may be an innovative solution, but do I care about the problem enough? Why are you telling this story? Does it matter? How is it transformational? Does it make new meaning? Does it change behavior? Have you earned the right to tell it? Is it yours to tell?’ Entries that had thought through all these questions, stood out for her.
“The ones that really stayed with me were Slow Down GPS, Save The World Brewtroleum, Social Test Drive from VW, Dot – The Braille Smartwatch, Lifesaver Backpacks, Van Gogh’s Bedroom Airbnb, Bus To Mars group VR, Unfairy Tales, Aid To Cart, The Good Note, Bonds Balls and The Swedish Number.
As the week ended, Kalia (pictured right with The Gunn Report’s Emma Wilkie, Cheil’s Malcolm Poynton and Clio’s Nicole Purcell) said she was leaving Bali with hope and heart and the realization that the stories we ought to pay most attention to, are the ones we tell ourselves.
“They become our reality. But one thing’s for sure, we can change the narrative. The world just needs more brave clients. Marketeers who don’t just appreciate or approve innovative ideas, but demand them.”
So does Kalia miss anything from her two decades of agency-life?
“I miss the big production budgets. A lot of brands are stuck in this mindset of ‘if it’s digital let’s do it cheap and quick’. While we spend our massive production budgets on our TVCs. ‘Epic split’ was not a cheap job shot on a 5D. Yes, there’s a lot of democratized creation now thanks to technology but it can’t replace talent.The quality of the talent and craft matters. And everything from the writing and the art to the production and direction needs to be invested in.”
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Juhi is an inspiration.