#SamosaTalks: I won’t be in this profession when I find that creativity is no longer relevant says Sumanto Chattopadhyay

Social Samosa caught up with Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Chairman  & Chief Creative Officer, 82.5 Communications, also a jury member of SAMMIE Best Social Media Brands 2019, to know more about the agency’s future holdings in the creative domain, emerging trends, and more.

Sumanto Chattopadhyay has been in the industry for nearly two decades now. He reminisced that years back it was a super glamorous industry to join. “You must have heard about these famous three-martini lunches. Of course, I used to wonder how anybody could work after three-martini lunches but we also had a lot of time to do leisure activities and meetings. I remember being taken to South Africa for a workshop by one of my clients. A few years later that same client took us to Lonavala. So, there has definitely been a change”,  he laughed.  

But in all seriousness, Chattopadhyay thinks that the advertising industry has become a lot tighter. Clients increasingly want more and more for less and less money which means that they don’t get to go to South Africa for workshops anymore neither the three matinee lunches.

He likes to tag himself essentially as a creative guy and for him its about creativity, it was then and is still. He added, “The mediums have changed dramatically and technology too. But for me at the heart of it should be about creativity. I won’t be in this profession the day I find that creativity is no longer relevant. I don’t think the day will ever come”.  

82.5 Communication was launched to cater to the needs of the Indian entrepreneurial brands, Chattopadhyay termed it as their USP too. “Tata Motors and Himalaya Personal care are one of our clients. So they are massive Indian entrepreneurial brands. But they are not exactly emerging. At the same time, we have worked on an e-pharmacy startup. Now we are working on ‘Sabka Dentist’ which is another startup”.

Also Read: #SamosaTalks: India has an extremely strong creative foundation: Ross Jauncey, Google

“In the last 6 months to a year I have learned very simple
things, for instance recently we used gifts as a communication medium. These
are the kind of things I am being exposed to right and it’s a really
interesting journey,” he exclaimed.  

One big trend or learning for Chattopadhyay would be the growth of short-form content and platforms like TikTok. He explained, “I think everybody is aware of TikTok. Before TikTok it was said of Indian consumers that they are sort of passive consumers on digital –they will like and watch it. But now we are seeing this huge trend of user-generated content which previously felt that it was something that Indian consumers won’t do. But now GenZ is doing it in a huge way. TikTok alone has some 30 million active users every day. I think there I a huge opportunity for short-form content- 15-sec videos globally but also in India”.