"India has a long history of advertising driving enterprises; it is not like China"

At 57, Shelly Lazarus is old enough to have started at O&M when the legendary David Ogilvy still walked the halls (albeit, for three months a year; he was down to that by then). And she is young enough to believe that she can go on in her present role as Chairman and CEO of Ogilvy & Mather, arguably the world's most respected advertising agency and part of wpp Plc, as long as she wants to. Lazarus, who sits on the board of several organisations including ClubMom and General Electric, was in India to speak on brands at sessions in Delhi and Mumbai and chair the regional review meeting of O&M in Kerala. She spoke to BT's R. Sukumar. Excerpts:

You've been to India before. What changes do you see around you?

I always tell this story about how I went to see, on one of my first visits here (1997), the Indian finance minister. We were just about to get the assignment to help build the India brand (Lazarus often tells the story of how P. Chidambaram gave her the perfect one-line brief: when I say India, I want them to think software, not elephants)...

Mr. Chidambaram, coincidentally, happens to be the Finance Minister now...

(Smiles) That's right, and I have never got quite as crisp a brief.

I think, in 1997, people were still thinking elephants. And in 2005, we are beyond software. I think the change in the perception of the country is remarkable. I was just telling John Goodman (O&M's India CEO) when I arrived early this morning-I am coming in from Davos (the World Economic Forum, January 26-30, 2005)-and I don't think more than an hour went by without someone talking about the potential of India. It was all a dream in 1997 when I first came, and here it is, India is well on its way to being everything people believed it could be.

Taking off from everyone talking about India, do you see a difference between the external perception of India, and what's happening here?

No. I don't think it is a perceptual issue; it is about whether people feel positive for their own global companies over what is happening in India, or do they feel threatened. That's more of what I sense: if you listen carefully, there are companies that feel threatened by India.

So, do you feel positive about the advertising business and O&M in India?

First of all, whenever you have growth in an economy, advertising does well (smiles as if to say, 'See, it's that simple'). It just follows.

I also think India is a country that has had a long history of advertising driving enterprise. It's not like China; advertising is totally new to it. They don't quite know what to do with it. They know it is important, but they haven't had the experience to see how you can invest in advertising, and it drives the enterprise. India has a traditional history of advertising having driven brands and grown companies. If the Indian economy grows, the immediate follow on for advertising is obvious.

"I think there is huge potential in sourcing studio work out of India for the world"

There's also an understanding in India of how important brands are, that it is important to build brands. And as we understand that brands are built from things that go way beyond advertising, and as we at Ogilvy take it as our business strategy to develop the strongest possible offering in all those pieces of the communications mix, our business continues to grow not just as a function of the growth of the economy, but as companies wake up to the value of the internet, public relations and events and all those things. We have Ogilvy offerings in each of those, and they are growing even faster than advertising.

Do you think one reason why India is so far ahead of China in terms of advertising is because the Indian industry has always been global? In many ways, it was one of the earliest industries to go global.

I think that is right. It is a question of experience. If you believe that advertising works, which I obviously do, the more experience you get in seeing how to use it, and also being plugged in to how it is being used in the rest of the world. Having that window makes you more of a believer.

Tapping new markets is one of the things that comes with globalisation. For lots of other companies, GE for instance, sourcing is a big globalisastion driver too. They source components from countries where they are less expensive to make, and put them together. Do you think there is any such way in which advertising can go global?

Back when Ranjan Kapur was heading Ogilvy India (between 1995 and 2004; he is now Country Manager, WPP India), he was trying to see whether we could do all the studio work we do in the world in India. Ranjan said-I think the figure was at the time-that it cost one-seventh what it cost in the United States, for instance, to produce material for advertising in India. Ranjan also said, given the time difference, "we work as the rest of you sleep". I believe in that and I continue to see whether we can do things in this area.

The problem I have is that creative people are very reluctant to give up the control they have. They like knowing-even though it is all electronic now; its just in the mind-that they can go down two floors and wring the neck of the guy who didn't prepare the art well. You don't want them to give up ownership; that's what gets great craft and work. On the other hand, I think there is huge potential in letting a lot of the studio work be sourced out of India for the world.

Are you planning to do this?

Absolutely. I tried it once and I will continue to try. When things are emotionally hard, you have to come at it from four different ways and then make it. That's the plan.

There's a feeling that the future of television, at least in urban areas, will be more hard-drive based, to put it simply (televisions are connected to, and people record programmes on, hard-drive based devices, leaving out the ads, and watch it later, making it, for instance, possible to pause live coverage of a football match). That's anathema for advertising, isn't it? You are just out of the system.

You have to pay careful attention to what's happening. We actually got into a huge debate in Davos over this question. There is no question that there will be changes in the way people consume television, but lots of consumers watch television because they want to be passive. It's a lean-back medium, as opposed to a lean-forward one. And lots of people in Davos were saying, 'Wait a second; I do not want to interact with my television'. And interacting all day long!

"The truth is, women do not need remedial help; they just need an even playing field"

I do not know how it is actually going to pan out. DVRs (Digital Video Recorders) will be available to the majority of people with time; how they use it is the question. Two things occur to me: the first is, the advertising is going to be more compelling, more charming, more informative, more entertaining than it has ever been, but that has always been the goal, because (pauses significantly), there are people who like to watch good advertising. The second thing is, there are probably ways of using the whole mechanism of DVRs that will lend themselves to some advertising. Having made it potentially possible to eliminate all advertising, TiVO is trying to figure out how to sell advertising in a way that will bypass the system (chuckles).

I have been in debates with people who believe that this is the end of free television as we know it, because if advertisers no longer get value, because people are no longer consuming advertising in large numbers when they watch television, then they will stop supporting the production of free television, and then the only people who will get television will be the rich. You can do that doomsday scenario, but I just don't think it will happen.

Let's move beyond advertising to the other thing you are pretty passionate about, women in leadership positions. Do you see more of that happening within the O&M system? Your predecessor was a woman too (Charlotte Beers). Did that make things easier for you?

People have said to me, because I am a woman and my predecessor was a woman, half jokingly, that David Ogilvy must have really liked women. The truth is, he did, but that is not why there are women in leadership positions at Ogilvy. One of the things David Ogilvy created was a true meritocracy, where people get ahead because of what they can contribute, what they deliver to the company, and it has nothing to do with where you went to school or the country you are from or whether you are a man or a woman.

Women don't need remedial help; they just need an even-playing field. And so, if you say, 'we are going to judge everybody based on the real contribution they make to a business', women naturally rise up. That's what I believe. The new head of Ogilvy One in the United States is a woman. The new head of Ogilvy Philippines is a woman.

Once I know that anybody who performs and is talented has the opportunity to be the leader, I actually do not pay attention any more to whether they are men or women.

Did you have to do something to create such an environment?

David did it. I inherited a wonderful culture: values-based, well-articulated, and all I had to do was continue to drive it forward. At the heart of that culture is the concept of meritocracy. He who can do it will get the job. Or she.

You sit on the GE board. For a long time GE did not have too many women in senior positions and they still do not. Why, and do you see that changing?

There are many more women in leadership roles in GE, but there's the fact that-you know, I have an MBA from Columbia-a bit of this is a numbers game and a time game. When I went to get my mba at Columbia, there were four women in a class of 300. That was 1970. And it takes a while to become a CEO.

As the pool of the available talent becomes more even between men and women, I can only anticipate that there will be even more and more women in leadership roles. There are more women in leadership roles right now.

You have been in advertising, pretty much all your life...

Pretty much; I was a client first.

So, what do you plan to do when you retire?

(Laughs out loud). I am having too much fun. I don't know. I have actually said, from about the third year I was at Ogilvy that 'The moment I get bored, I am leaving', and you know 30 years later, it is still as interesting as it was.... It is probably more interesting. That probably sounds trite and naïve, but there's so much more going on. It's a long journey ahead.