Kiran Khalap

“Creativity is the category benefit. It’s not unique to any advertising or brand consultancy firm. As Arthur Kossler puts it, creativity is about combining two frames of reference to create a third. We ascribe to the same theory. We also feel that all branding occurs behind the scenes. We don’t aspire to draw attention to ourselves.”

Kiran Khalap, Co-Founder, Chlorophyll



In a conversation with Anushree Madan Mohan of exchange4media, Kiran Khalap (Co- Founder, Chlorophyll) discusses his journey as a brand consultant, the aspects that differentiate his start-up from an ad agency, and the problems inherent in the advertising fraternity.



Q. How was Chlorophyll born?


A.
There’s Mr X working in a particular agency, who forms rapport with a client; then he decides to start his own set-up and takes the existing client with him. Advertising start-ups generally begin this way. But when we began with Chlorophyll, we didn’t feel the need to snatch existing business from any particular agency. Madan Behl, who initiated Chlorophyll along with me, stood by me and offered encouragement for the kind of unit that I had envisioned. Since we were starting off as brand consultants, there was a need to imprint the image of our brand at the very beginning. With Chlorophyll, we didn’t have any case studies to refer to; there was only self-referential development.

We identified three specific attributes for Chlorophyll. First was efficiency, creativity was the second, and keeping ourselves in the backdrop was the third. The first aspect is critical since there is a certain amount of competitive edge in the market, and everything has to be managed on time. Again, time to market is becoming less and less, and clients need to act fast on account of competition.

Creativity is the category benefit. It’s not unique to any advertising or brand consultancy firm. As Arthur Kossler puts it, creativity is about combining two frames of reference to create a third. We ascribe to the same theory. We also feel that all branding occurs behind the scenes. We don’t aspire to draw attention to ourselves.


Q. Why Chlorophyll?


A.
If you examine the three attributes that I just mentioned, you would find that there is a certain fit between what we stand for and the name. The Chlorophyll molecule is extremely efficient; it uses light in addition to water to create something new and yet, it fades into the background. Chlorophyll is so intrinsic to life yet it doesn’t stand out.

When we started out, it was never with an aim to act as a substitute for an ad agency. To be frank, in the cases where we have tried to do the same, it has not quite worked out for us. It was in the first year of our existence that we realised that we mustn’t get into relationships where we could be seen as a substitute for an ad agency. We can compliment the efforts of an ad agency but that just about sums it up. As a unit, we started off with five members and we have not allowed ourselves to grow perennially. We also take on clients who respect our views and we don’t come up with solutions just to please the client.


Q. What, according to you, are the problems inherent in advertising today?


A.
In bigger outfits, it is seen that people at the top do less and less of ideation and strategy, and are more involved with management and day-to-day affairs. CEOs of agencies are unclear about basic fundamentals such as the difference between the brand personality and the personality of the consumer. As a brand consultant, I have had the misfortune of sitting on agency presentations (as a member from the client’s side) and observing that all too often there is almost no differentiation between these presentations. The agency tells the client that you must build differentiation for the brand. Yet, differentiation amongst agencies is all too superficial.


Q. At the Business Today Cross Fire session, you mentioned something about larger outfits losing their conscience in the long run. What did you mean by that?


A.
What is the ultimate agency dream. They want to sit with the top management from the client’s side and be seen as partners in communication. In the creative camp, there is this unbelievable thirst for awards and peer approval. How many creative guys are there who actually measure the effectiveness of their advertising and compare it to a brand’s success in the market? What really goes on is that I come and pat your back; you come and pat mine. And everyone’s happy.

The fact remains that somebody’s shelling out crores of rupees, obviously to get something in return. You are supposed to address consumers in the bargain and generate genuine value. If as an agency person, I don’t really sit and reflect on where all that money went, would you call me a person with a conscience? But what most creative guys are really worried about are things like ‘Will I win at the Abby’s? Will I make it big at Cannes? What does X person say about my ad?’

I call it the ‘Look London, Talk Tokyo’ syndrome. All I do is to think about awards, and yet I am supposed to be building a brand in the market!


Q. According to you, what should be the credentials of a good advertising professional?


A.
Honestly, would you really call advertising a profession? What is the definition of a profession? A doctor, an engineer, a lawyer – they all need some kind of qualification to make it into the profession. If it is a profession, where is the great learning body? Perhaps this is one reason why the advertising industry is losing more and more ground to public relations. What you are really saying is that anybody and everybody can make it to the industry, with a self-proclaimed claim to talent!


Q. Is advertising more about individuals than about team effort?


A.
Let’s talk about team effort. How can you expect team effort to exist in advertising, when it doesn’t really exist in any other sphere of life? Indians can’t really operate in teams. In fact, until a year back, the Indian cricket team was quite devoid of the term ‘team spirit.’ The Kannadigas would sit in one corner, the Bombayiites would sit in another corner and the UPiites in a third corner. This business is about ideas, and ideas come from individuals. You can’t possibly have a collective idea.


Q. Does team effort play any kind of a role then?


A.
To a certain extent, yes. At Chlorophyll, we have a term called the ‘Principle of Motherhood’, which denotes that in the gamut of procreation, you need the necessary participation of a man and the unique responsibility of a woman. Similarly in advertising, the creative guy must seek the help of the account planner (as he is the person who directly comes in contact with the consumer) and share ideas with him. That’s team effort for you.

Until some years ago, the advertising scene in HTA would work in such a way that the copywriter would write the commercial, his secretary would put a sheet under the art director’s door and then the art director would create the end product. Advertising thus has gone way ahead in the current day. Yet media agencies are a separate entity altogether, a fact that needs to be addressed. Teamwork as a concept is still undergoing evolution. And individuals still manage the reins.


Q. How does Chlorophyll stand out from the rest?


A.
Well, we build a brand from scratch. Nearly 70 per cent of our revenue comes purely from creation of brands. The launch of Taj Group’s Indione is one such example. A newspaper report stated that Chlorophyll as an outfit is going to handle this brand from the Taj table.

But the fact is that we had been handling the brand for a year, before the report came out.

We were working with the client on segmentation, naming, design, etc. We don’t feel the need to announce the businesses that we have procured, simply because it’s irrelevant. Why should we? What would it prove?

We are not worried about whether a brand advertises itself or it doesn’t. I don’t have panic buttons going on all the time. We managed Hindustan Lever as a brand on campus for around four years. No mass media, but focused communication.


Q. Is there a lot more to branding than what meets the eye?


A.
There is so much more to branding that meets the eye. Mass media is just one aspect of it. A name like DHL may spend Rs 4 crore as its advertising budget, but for you and me, it is the guy who delivers the parcel at my door that creates the face for the brand. If the guy wears rubber chappals, or has body odour, that’s the image that I would carry of DHL.

Again, if I see an ad of Lyril Baniyan on a water pipe between Bandra to Matunga, the choice of the medium tells me it’s a cheap brand. The choice of the medium is extremely crucial; after all SMS messages have been known to bring down governments.


Q. In that case, what do you think about Internet as a medium?


A.
There are the three ‘I’s that make Internet special. It’s an instantaneous medium, besides being interactive and international in appeal. There is so much you can do on the Net, but unfortunately, the advertising industry has not woken up to the fact as yet. Partly, the fault lies with large FMCGs who devise a me-too TVC, run it a trillion times and get away with it. They haven’t yet learnt to capitalise on an opportunity called Internet.

Interestingly, this medium affects consumer behaviour in more ways than one, like consumers have been known to reject products that are animal tested just because they came across an incriminating report online. Here, they have not rejected a product because it lacks quality, but because their belief is at loggerheads with the philosophy of the company. Thanks to Internet, the consumer has access to every piece of information about your organisation.


Q. According to you, is mass mentality leading to crass ads? Are we really trying to address the least common denominator?


A.
If you are talking about a brand like Coke and the current ‘Wakao’ craze, you must understand that they have a clear stance and they are aiming at conversion on a mass scale. Their objective is to convert the water drinker into a Coke drinker. Plus, we Indians are loud people with a powerful oral tradition. Why do you think we still have ‘Horn Please’ inscribed behind every vehicle? We are a country of ears and not eyes. In India, we use television sets like radio sets. Most families when they get together have the television set blaring. Not many people are looking at the television set but they are absorbing a lot that’s being said through the audio. A word like ‘Wakao’ or a ‘Hoodibaba’ is a sure way to attract attention.


Q. How did ‘Halfway Up the Mountain’ come about? Is there any other book on the cards?


A.
I think I have always been a writer. Back in college days, I used to write short stories for magazines and newspapers. I once wrote a short story which I sent just for the heck of it, and it won an award. Which is why, I decided to pursue the interest. ‘Halfway Up the Mountain’ is an idea that germinated in my head, it’s a tale about mediocrity, and not just in the professional sphere. You could be doing very well professionally, and yet be a shallow, mediocre person. Perhaps someone like Pablo Picasso who was a brilliant artist yet an abysmal human being. When I showed the book to Jayapriya Vasudevan, she tried contacting various publishers and then requested me if she could publish it through her own set-up. I said, go ahead. And the rest is history.

Right now, I am working on another book; it should materialize in some months.