India's one of the most important places to be, says Bob Greenberg

Bob Greenberg, chairman, chief executive officer and global chief creative officer of R/GA spoke to Campaign India's deputy editor Bindu Nair Maitra in Cannes about the agency's expansion plans and more. 

On how R/GA is different

If you have the time I’ll recommend our website not because you’ve not been there but because we’ve added a number of films - videos to be specific, because we don’t shoot film anymore. We have one that talks about our vision. We have one that lays out our unique structure and how all the vertical departments are set up. We start with really disruptive advertising in the 1960s, which was television. We then move into our model, which is based on the internet and mobile. So many other things have happened in the meantime, like social media… it keeps changing.  LISTEN to more.

 On servicing India out of Singapore

It’s much closer than we are from any other office so we could do some work from Singapore, but we are not thinking of Singapore being an office to service India. Our plan is to open globally so there’s no way to avoid being in any significant country and India’s just one of the most important places to be. R/GA has to go to where our clients are asking us to be, and all are international clients and some are global. Once we get an opportunity to support the work that we do in India we’ll open there that could be any time. It doesn’t take us very long, you watched us open in London and San Francisco and now we’ve opened Singapore, Sao Paolo, Chicago and Buenos Aires and we’re going to continue to open offices as the need comes up from our clients. LISTEN to more

On expansion

We’re not going to sit around like other agencies and try to figure out how to restructure. We don’t have those meetings, we don’t have them internationally. Everything’s on our website. We have one minute films for every department and every offering and as we add additional departments and offerings, we will add additional videos.  LISTEN to more

On sponsorship of big ticket events

I think that it does make sense but what I think is problematic that consumers don’t necessarily understand who are the key sponsors, nor should they necessarily, unless the key sponsor does something unique with their sponsorship. You see that happen with the Olympics; Mastercard, our client, will sponsor the World Rugby competition that happens in new Zealand in 2012. LISTEN to more

On the iPad

I always find that Apple does things in such a certain beautifully designed way … and I think they’re brilliant.  LISTEN to more