In a Mediabrief exclusive, Neville Shah, FCB Kinnect’s new Chief Creative Officer, speaks of the importance of understanding team dynamics, identifying new creative and collaborations opportunities to foster strong agency-client relationships by enhancing projects, performance and deliveries overall. And more.
How has your transition into the role of CCO at FCB Kinnect been? What path or journey have you charted for yourself and your team as you take on this new role?
I’m not charting any specific journey here. It takes some time to get accustomed to the differences, as the two systems are quite distinct. Even within the FCB network, Kinnect stands out as the youngest but also the most dynamic.
It’s like a live wire, waiting to be activated, and I intend to do just that. The transition process is mainly about absorbing all the information before making decisions.
The clients are fantastic. Some are so attached to the agency that it can be a bit daunting, as it creates high expectations that we need to meet.
Winning the Grand Prix at Goafest for HDFC’s ‘Lulumelon’ exemplifies our strong client relationships. The connections within the FCB network present a different dynamic, especially when transitioning from WPP to IPG, which operate very differently.
So, there’s no rigid plan; the aim is to produce outstanding work, elevate FCB Kinnect’s reputation, and contribute to the global success of the FCB Network.
The true measure of success comes from two sources: a message from a family member saying “great work,” indicating popularity, and a message from a colleague or peer asking “How did you do this?” indicating exceptional quality. Those are the two benchmarks that matter.
How do you approach the assimilation process when joining a new team as CCO, and what strategies do you use to identify and address potential problems before they arise?
While the assimilation of knowledge is confidential, it primarily involves understanding how the system and the team function. An office or creative force is like a shapeshifting entity; you need to be aware of all the trigger points as you navigate it.
Assimilation is about grasping the nature of relationships, identifying existing problems, and finding the blockers.
As a CCO, every problem becomes your problem, not just those of the creative team. So, the focus is on understanding these aspects. I believe the real opportunities lie in building strong relationships and addressing issues before they escalate.
The best approach is to start producing great work. This will attract other clients who want similar results, and that’s the key. I’m optimistic that this strategy will be successful.
How do you determine when to incorporate AI into your projects, and what criteria do you use to evaluate its necessity and effectiveness on a case-by-case basis?
Everyone thinks AI is an idea, but it can’t be the idea itself; AI is simply a medium. It helps to create narratives, streamline processes, or surprise us by generating something that wasn’t easily achievable at scale before. AI is a tool, and if we accept, adopt, and use it wisely, it can be a significant advantage.
Having worked on and won AI-driven campaigns in the past, I believe it’s not a decision you can make in advance. We can’t plan to incorporate AI into everything we do; it has to be decided on a case-by-case basis, depending on the brief and the task.
We must evaluate whether AI is necessary, rather than using it for the sake of it. AI can certainly help set up processes and create better-looking pitch decks.
Some of our teams already use AI for specific social media clients who require it contractually, so the agency is already utilizing it to some extent. However, we haven’t made a conscious effort to integrate AI into every idea.
What are your thoughts on creativity as an economic multiplier?
The idea of creativity itself being an economic multiplier is just the fact that there are enough avenues. A creative idea doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a creative idea only from a communication standpoint. It can be a creative idea even when it comes to a process or in how we give briefs to people, how we present in meetings, in production, in processes or in accounting.
There’s several places and areas where you can use creativity to make sure that one is either saving time, saving money, saving resources, enhancing resources, enhancing opportunity and being more efficient. And of course, the idea itself, and being an idea first agency is what we want to be. And those ideas need to be creative across the board, so that’s really where and how we’re looking at creativity as an economic multiplier.
Creativity is our biggest asset and our biggest strength, ideas come from that, and we look at an idea or we look at creativity and know that it’s true potential is endless.
So creativity itself being used as a tool to make sure that you can open up or enhance any economic prospects, not just of the agency, but also of clients or of people, makes it an economic multiplier.
