I thought I'll quit in a year's time: Shashi Sinha, AAAI’s 2023 Lifetime Achievement Awardee

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) is presenting the AAAI Lifetime Achievement Award for 2023 to advertising veteran Shashi Sinha. This is the highest honour given to an individual in India for contributions to the advertising industry.

Sinha, who has spent nearly four decades in the advertising industry, is a seasoned professional much loved in the ad fraternity. But back when he joined the industry, he never imagined he would spend such a long time in it. “I thought I'll probably quit in a year's time,” said Shashi Sinha, in an exclusive chat with Storyboard18.

Sinha joined advertising in the 1980s as an account planner. “I was in sales in UB (United Breweries), and my boss back then (DD Saxena) moved to advertising. So, he asked me to join. I took a 20% salary card cut to join advertising. And when I came in and moved out of Bangalore, I was reporting directly to Bal Mundkur. Mundkur didn’t understand what account planning was all about, so he asked me, ‘What will you do?’ I said, ‘Good question; you tell me what I will do’ So, I was doing all sorts of odd jobs. It went on like this for two-three months. Then I went back to DD and said, ‘What is this? You got me into this. I'm not enjoying it one bit.’"

But Sinha soon realised it was a great learning: “Because of doing this variety of odd jobs, I used to get to meet senior people.”

There is one story that Sinha never tires of telling. It is about his first encounter with Dr. Verghese Kurien, known as the ‘Father of the White Revolution’ in India and the man who transformed India’s dairy industry through Amul. “I joined in February and June-July there are heavy rains in Mumbai, so the entire senior leadership team at Ulka had gone on a holiday to London. There was no one in the office. At that time Dr Kurien of the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) came into the office, and I was paraded to entertain him. He spoke to me briefly and he said, ‘When the leadership team comes back, you bring them to the Anand campus.’ The leaders got excited because Amul was an iconic brand. So, we all went back there and fortunately, he took a liking and I stayed on. That was a big turning point for me.”

There are two people Sinha says had a positive influence on his journey in advertising. One was Dr Kurien. The second is legendary adman and former FCB Ulka Chairman Anil ‘Billy’ Kapoor.

Sinha was a part of Kapoor’s flamboyant team at Ulka, with the likes of Arvind Wable, Ambi Parameswaran, Niteen Bhagwat and Nagesh Alai. Sinha says that in his initial interactions with ‘Billy’, the latter came across as abrasive and a ‘Mr Know-It-All’. “Three or four days after Kapoor joined, five of us decided that we will quit. And the youngsters, including Nitin, had all started putting in their papers. He was very sharp. He took us out for a lunch that lasted eight hours. And towards the end of it, all of us stayed back.”

Sinha says Kapoor instilled confidence. “We could treat clients as equals. We would speak to clients as if they were our friends. He said, ‘Whatever you do, you must earn respect and that only comes from good work or good thinking or good strategy. Otherwise, in advertising, you always wind up hearing that the client is right.”

Kapoor also built his team. Speaking about the original ‘Ulka Gang’, Sinha says, “We were dramatically different personalities, but we got along well. There was a round table in his room where all of us would sit together, and each meeting would last 5-6 hours. ‘Ambi’ would call it ‘Pathshala’.”

In a leadership stint spanning 25 years, Sinha progressed from being the head of Media at FCB Ulka to the CEO of all media units under IPG Media Brands in 2013. It was in the early 2000s that he made the switch to the Media side.

“I loved media. So, Bal Mundkur asked me to run sponsored programmes. And I always enjoyed the media part of the campaign work that we used to do. Kapoor saw this. When he asked me to make the switch, I, in a way, resisted. Some of my closest friends said Ambi will get the main job and you have been sidelined.”

Sinha says that when he decided to make the switch to media, it was a very nascent segment. “So, I went to two or three key people, some stalwarts who were running media at that time. And I quickly realised that you cannot just be a department, you cannot be a service. You have to have scale, you have to be profitable.

As CEO, Sinha orchestrated a remarkable turnaround, transforming a little-known media group into the most respectable entity among all the IPG business units in India. “And back in 2004 itself, I realised that media was the future. Today, I am happy to say that amongst all the creative agencies in the group, we are two to three times the size in terms of revenue.”

Sinha has also played a pivotal role in the sevenfold growth of Interactive Avenues, a digital agency acquired during his tenure. He, in fact, states that acquiring Interactive Avenues was a big defining moment in his career. “The decision to acquire Interactive Avenues was I think really big because from a global system point of view, digital was a very big thing and they do contribute a lot. They scaled up our capabilities. A lot of work that we do for our clients—the ability to work with clients like Amazon—is only possible because of them.

Beyond corporate achievements, he is renowned for his active presence and guidance in various industry bodies, including roles as the current Chairman of BARC, former President of the Ad Club and former Chairman of ABC and MRUC. His involvement in ASCI, and contributions to IRS editions and AAAI exemplify his commitment to shaping the country’s advertising landscape.

“Because of Bhaskar Das (a media veteran), the first industry body that I got into was the Ad Club. All of us, we lack confidence. Bhaskar Das back then held my hand and got me in and I think that was a big thing, because dealing with disparate people, you learn so much,” said Sinha.

“So, today, because I am in BARC, I know it is a tough job, but I learn so much. I can challenge you. I know so much about television that most people don't know. I’m not saying that they are not competent—they are extremely competent, but their exposure is limited.”