I had the privilege of
working with two of the legends of Indian Advertising when I started my career
with Clarion McCann advertising way back in 1964, which laid a solid foundation
to my long advertising career. One was with late Subroto Senguta and another
with the `Icon of advertising in India, Tara Sinha. While Sengupta was a hard core advertising professional who
believed in systems and procedures, Tara Sinha had a brilliant creative mind
who was constantly innovating. If she thought she had a good idea she would go
all out to sell it to the clients. Very often some of the ideas would occur to
her a few hours or a few days before a major presentation and the entire staff
would have to gear themselves to junk whatever they had done until then and
start working all over again on her new idea. When somebody would take the
courage and point out about the paucity of time she would say` Don`t worry, I
have got one day extension from the client. We have extra 24 hours to work on
our new idea.`
Those were days when
everything had to be done manually- no modern technology to provide instant solutions to any problem you faced. But
the Team, inspired by her leadership would always deliver the goods.
As an innovator she had
contributed two big ideas to the industry. When she was in Clarion, Bombay, she
introduced the concept of Media Planning, for the first time in Indian
advertising, when media departments were handled by managers who were good at
producing media estimates with rates negotiated with publications. I remember
she persuaded Praveen Desai, who had introduced some innovative media ideas as
a media manger in LIC, to join Clarion
and head the Media Planning division.
When she moved to Delhi to head
ACIL (Advertising Consultants of India Ltd.), the new sister unit of Clarion, she was looking for people. She also wanted to experiment with her new idea of
separating planning and operations functions in the ad agency .Though ACIL was
formed primarily to handle public sector accounts, thanks to Tara Sinha’s
reputation and connections, ACIL had on its roster of clients, big MNC names
like Nestlé and Coke While I was working in
Grant K & E in Bombay, she persuaded me to join ACIL in Delhi as her first
GM(Planning). GM Planning was the fore runner to the concept of Account
Director which became very popular in later years.
A brilliant person who was
also a very demanding professional she did not tolerate fools and had no
patience for laggards. A tall & impressive Sardarni she would breeze into the office, always
attired in a graceful sari creating vibrations as she walked up to her office
room. As long as she was in the office there would be tension in the air. She
could be extremely charming when she wanted something tough to be done or
ruthless when somebody made mistakes or did not keep up promises. I know of
many executives those days who quit their jobs unable to take the pressure from
her.
I was one of the survivors. Impressed by my
man management skills she had promoted me as her Deputy Chief Executive within
a year of my joining ACIL. While I was delighted at getting an unexpected
promotion, when I was just 30, I was totally unprepared for her exit from ACIL within
a few months. After a confrontation with the Clarion Management she quit ACIL
to join Coca Cola, an important client of ACIL. Overnight my boss became my client.
Instead of filling up her vacancy with an outsider, the Clarion management
requested me to hold the fort, promoting me as General Manager/CEO of ACIL with
the mandate to ensure that no client or senior staff left the company. Stepping
into the larger than life shoes of Tara Sinha and occupying the corner room at
18, Hanuman Road in Delhi was initially very daunting. I managed to survive
those turbulent but very challenging two
years until the management decided to bring another senior manager within the
clarion group to take over from me and I decided to move to Chennai on
transfer.
Once during our travel to meet an outstation client, Tara Sinha advised
me on the type of girl I should marry. Because I was a successful adman and had
a bright future, she felt that my life partner should be a smart and capable
girl. She said, “Marry a girl who will be comfortable entertaining clients at
home. She must be sophisticated enough to be able to socialize with the wives
of the clients.” In other words, she wanted me to marry a girl who could
support my career. Ultimately, I decided to marry a girl of my parent’s
choice, who turned out to be a wonderful home maker but did not pass muster
with my boss on the social front.
I distinctly remember
the day in 1966, when she handed over a letter informing me of my first
promotion as an Account Executive in Clarion, Bombay and told me, `Rajan- So far you have been a back
room boy. From today you will be the front line man taking on bigger
responsibilities- All the best!` I never
realized that day that she would be
responsible for two other big job promotions in my life. The one she gave me when she made me
her Deputy Chief Executive and another, ironically and indirectly, by quitting
her job with ACIL to make way for me to occupy her position.
After I shifted to
Chennai in 1974, I lost touch with her. Over the years I would meet her in some
conferences or seminars but never kept in touch with her. She went on to leave
her footprints on the sands of time in Coca Cola, Clarion, McCann Erickson and
many other industry bodies. The only woman who probably wore a saree to work at
Coca-Cola's HQ. My autobiography `Courage My Companion` has a whole chapter
dedicated to my association with Tara Sinha.
In spite of many controversies surrounding her
as a professional, she remained a towering personality in the world of
advertising highly respected by the industry and revered by hundreds of people,
like me, whose lives she touched. I had learnt the important life lesson of
having the courage of conviction in whatever I did from her.
May her soul rest in
peace!
An edited version of
this article has appeared in the Hindu Business Line issue dated 14th
December,2019.
No comments:
Post a Comment