Prem Mehta, CEO Lowe

Is this the new Lintas? it couldn't be. The same lifts. The same floors, 13th and 15th, in Mumbai's Express Towers. The same chief: Prem R. Mehta. The same suits: Pranesh Misra, Shahrook Munsiff, Fali Vakil, and Ashish Bhasin. The same Interpublic Group ownership. And the same advertising accounts. But the agency interiors look kind of different, and the visiting cards say 'Lowe'.

Could it? The ads aren't the same, nor is the strategic thinking. Has the agency really morphed into something else?

Mehta, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, would rather restrict himself to the numbers. ''As per our estimates, we've crossed the Rs 1,000-crore mark,'' he says, of 2001-02 billings. Don't miss the implication. ''Advertisers across a spectrum of industries continue to repose their confidence in the Lowe Group.'' The tone is measured, almost as if to draw a spreadsheet in the air. Characteristic of a man who's spent a career emphasising the business of advertising. ''We've just grabbed new accounts worth Rs 60 crore,'' he says, ''and these include blue chip clients like British Gas Broadband, SBI Mutual, Berger Paints, and Caltex.''

Contrary to industry buzz, heightened by the poor performance of its top client Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL), the agency has been able to stretch growth into double digits. Yet, if Mehta sounds a wee-bit defensive, it's perhaps because he knows deep down that the agency has long lost its status as the Indian ad industry's prime mover. Even taken in isolation, observers haven't been awfully bullish on it-notwithstanding the frequent adworld barbs about creative accountancy being its real core competence.

Shareholders aren't complaining though. Lowe, with its high billings-per-employee figure, is fairly efficient too.

But advertising, ultimately, is about creativity. About gee-whiz ideas, the stuff that agencies are paid for. This is the reason for an agency's very existence. The reason that advertising is doomed to fail when handled by an in-house department in a stiff-collared corporation with unending corridors and long boardrooms. ''Would you visit a restaurant where the food is bad?'' asks the head of a rival agency, ''I mean ambience and service may be important, but they're secondary.''

'Balki' (right) and K.V. Sridhar: Lowe's two-man creative army is game

Scribble 'image problem' under diagnosis. Not that it's a feeling unfamiliar to Lintas, which has always been trying to fight some image or the other. For decades, Lintas struggled to shrug-off the image of being a Lever in-house agency (it started life in the 1920s as an acronym for Lever's International Advertising Services).

But the past eight years have been particularly piquant. HTA for ad muscle. O&M for mind-blowing creativity. What about Lintas? It was...

Past-tense superlatives. Not very pleasant to hear, particularly not for an agency that was once in serious contention for HTA's No 1 mantle, but ended up under threat of being overtaken by O&M.

Ever since Mehta took charge of the agency from the charismatic theatre-man Alyque Padamsee in 1993, he has sought to carve out a distinctly new identity for it. In the process, much of the past was dumped. All the same, the past lived on. Cherry Charlie, Surf's Lalitaji, and the Liril waterfall were so deeply imbedded in adworld consciousness, that analysts felt only a total reinvention would do it.

That's why Lowe's global merger with Lintas is now being seen as a perfect opportunity. Lintas doesn't exist anymore, you see. Lowe does. That's how it is. But names aren't everything, not even in a brand-obsessed industry. The question is: is it the same soul in a new avatar-or something entirely different?

First Transformation

The transition is not a period that Mehta remembers fondly. ''God-we had a real crisis on our hands,'' he recalls, of early 1994-95, when Lintas saw an exodus of talent. Mehta, with his 'managerial' style of functioning, came as a shock to the ponytails. Even client-servicing executives started fleeing to 'greener pastures'. But then, say some, there was nothing peculiar about it. Things were changing, thanks to globalisation, and this was the New Order. The days of admen-on-pedestals were over. With market forces gaining, the economic dynamics would favour professionalism over idiosyncracy, systems over chaos, hard-nosed strategy over wise-guy wizardry and teamwork over individual genius.

Still, clients secretly wondered if the agency would ever excel creatively again.

Of course, globalisation was also resetting the business-acquisition scales, to Mehta's advantage. MNC-owned brands were getting globally-aligned, so a large chunk of business (such as Uni-lever's) would always be assured by the agency's global-level relationships and exploits. Yet, there were disappointments too. Interpublic's McCann-Erickson, which was handling Coca-Cola worldwide, set up its own shop in India rather than let Lintas do the job. Unilever did a portfolio reshuffle, switching key accounts to the WPP group, which was getting newly energised to seize the industry's directional leadership.

The flurry of name changes complicated Lintas' life even more. In 1995, it was rechristened Ammirati Puris Lintas. In 2001, Lowe Lintas & Partners. And in 2002, Lowe.

Many of the important changes, however, were behind-the-scenes. And the recent past has seen the most significant ones. Take operational systems, for example. Everything has been reorganised around brands. Take the 13th floor office of Director Pranesh Misra, which has become a beehive of activity. ''At the heart of the new model is the brand,'' says Misra, a Lintas careerist of 25 years and consummate strategic planner. ''The small well-knit units, headed by a team leader, include members from the creative, client servicing and planning departments,'' he elaborates.

The objective: holistic servicing, with total dedication and better accountability from team members. Under the old system, a creative person would work on a variety of brands rather than focusing on one.

While HLL is undoubtedly Lowe's most demanding client, Lowe is also keen to show a declining dependence on the FMCG major. Eight years back, Unilever brands made up 70 per cent of its billings, a figure that has fallen to just 25 per cent. Client diversification provides a cushion against bad times. Similar logic applies to the service diversification moves. Mehta's dream has been to build a wide-spectrum communications company that is truly integrated. Lowe now has as many as 12-13 new cells, be it Initiative Media for media-buying, Pathfinders for market research, D'Cell for design or Linerland for rural communications. While Mehta won't disclose growth and revenue figures for each of these units, he says that they're growing faster than Lowe's core advertising business.

What's The Big Idea?

Yes, yes, yes, a lot has changed structurally. But what about the creative soul-any change? As far as the Mumbai office goes, yes. Make that capital 'Y' for Yes. In fact, there has been cold-sweat-inducing, blazing-furnace change, starting right from that very fundamental creative urge and reaching far into the agency culture.

Some years ago, in a desperate move to revive the agency's creative reputation, Mehta did something uncharacteristically rash. He airlifted a bright 35-year-old creative director from the Bangalore office to Mumbai, and gave him creative carte blanche. His brief was simple: ''Bring back Lintas' glory days.'' Recalls R. Balakrishnan (Balki), National Creative Director, the man in the hot seat: ''A lot of gods and demi-gods were brought down to earth... People who didn't know advertising and were calling the shots just by pulling rank and designation.'' Balki decided to empower his team the way he wanted. Some new minds were recruited and some booted out. Today, Lowe's creative staff is down to 100 survivors, from 150 a few years ago. Their lean, mean, and hungry mission: to give more bang for the client's buck.

Has it happened? Well, there's little doubt that the industry has sat up and taken notice of Lowe's recent campaigns, whether for Surf Excel, Britannia 50:50 or the controversial Bajaj reinterpretation of 'Hamara' nationalism. ''Our biggest achievement has been on these big brands,'' claims the 43-year-old K.V. Sridhar (Pops), who's part of the core team, ''brands that everyone said were saturated with no scope for innovation.''

Clients seem to agree. Even HLL, which has been rather sales-starved in soaps and detergents lately. Says Dalip Sehgal, Executive Director (New Ventures and Marketing Services), HLL: ''Our perception of Lintas as a full-service agency has always been excellent; in fact more so in recent times with the creative spark coming back.'' He is particularly pleased with the Clinic and Lifebuoy relaunches, as also the recent aggression of the Pepsodent 'dishoom dishoom' campaign.

Though Lowe hasn't won too many awards for its efforts, it has certainly gained peer appreciation for clever work on such brands as St-Gobain, which has used humour well to win quick brand recognition.

The flak that Lowe gets is mostly for brands such as Liril, the ads for which critics say don't sound or look appealing anymore. The original 'liberation' idea has been discarded, and despite the new attempted funkiness (example: the peeing-statue shower), the brand is in trouble.

Lowe And Passion

In general, it's always new brands that inspire the can't-get-you-outta-my-head sort of advertising that goes on to make history. The real test, say experts, is to place a completely unknown quantity into consumer mindspace. On this parameter, Lowe's most outstanding work of the past decade, strategically and perhaps even creatively, has been for lg. The brand is handled by the Delhi branch, which has seen its billings soar. From a few crore eight years ago, Lowe Delhi now bills over Rs 200 crore, with the roster flaunting names like Maruti and Wills Sport, apart from the mega-success in which it played a key role, lg.

No wonder Delhi branch head Preet Bedi, Director, Lowe, finds himself in charge of all non-Lever business-and also a front-runner in the race to succeed Mehta. ''Most of the new segments, be it telecom, FMCGs, cars, or it, have been growing at a furious rate and will continue to do so,'' says Bedi. ''This is as much a testament to the raw energy and enthusiasm of the Delhi office as the Lowe brand,'' he adds.

Grant Bedi his confidence. Lowe Delhi, with success writ all over, seems to have its own creative soul, fuelling suggestions that Lever should let it work on Liril at least. In any case, active idea-exchange between Mumbai and Delhi could only help the agency grow. And grow it must, if it is to avoid losing its industry rank to O&M.

Another way to keep O&M from edging it out of the No 2 position, though, would perhaps be a merger with Mumbai-based Enterprise Nexus, in which Lowe Worldwide currently holds a 40-per cent stake. If both agencies abandon all hang-ups and work towards commonality, the creative cultures could perhaps be fused without any mishap. However, Mehta categorically rules out any such merger in the near future, so that's that.

Or is it? Unilever, be assured, is watching the Indian market with the benefit of dispassionate lenses. Meanwhile, as you read this, Lowe's 750-odd employees are watching each of Mehta's moves closely. Right now, the agency is still undergoing an internal shake-up. Expect some more reshuffling and restructuring, as the agency strives to create a 'cohesive company' that meets client needs better. Eventually, promises Mehta, all this will ''dramatically transform the way we do business''. Is this the new Lowe? Don't bet on it, just yet.