'In our quest for communicating on behalf of our clients, we forget to do it for ourselves': Digitas' Amaresh Godbole

Campaign India's countdown to the end of the decade will feature leading names from the marketing and communications fraternity. We ask senior executives from the advertising, marketing and media fraternity about the last 10 years and the year to come.

 

Here's what Amaresh Godbole, CEO, Digitas India, had to say:

 

One piece of work created by a competitor in the last decade that you wish you had created/worked on?

 

For me, it’s the Flipkart Hagglebot by Dentsu Webchutney + Google because it combines foundational advertising principles with new-age thinking. 

 

It’s a testament to the fact that a human insight is still relevant in a digital world. But it also demonstrates the power of technology to engage with the consumer in new and amazingly creative ways. And the partnership with Google speaks to the criticality of collaboration to succeed in today’s world.

 

If hindsight is 20/20, what is the one thing that you could have done differently in the last decade?

 

We’ve had a hell of a decade at Digitas, growing from a virtual start-up into one of the country’s leading agencies with 500 people. But we only started telling our story to the industry in the last couple of years. In hindsight, I would have started much earlier as it’s a point of pride for our people and attractive to potential talent. Sometimes in our quest for communicating on behalf of our clients, we forget to do it for ourselves.

 

One skill that you would want to pick up in 2020 and why?

 

An organised framework for continuous learning. The world is moving and changing so fast, that you can’t be sure what skill you will need to stay relevant tomorrow. The only safeguard against becoming redundant is continuous learning.