Creative Profile: Preethi Mariappan

From designing apps that think like art curators, to fridge magnets that order pizza, Preethi Mariappan, ECD of Razorfish Germany, is all about pushing the boundaries of digital. Having won awards from Cannes to the Clios, she is well placed to judge the Cannes Mobile Lions category at this year’s event and here talks to Simon Wakelin about her thrilling quest to explore today’s new worlds of creative technology

Preethi Mariappan’s expertise in the digital and interactive marketing space has taken her to posts all over the world. Already having notched up an impressive 13-year career working in digital and product design around India, Singapore and then Dubai, where she set up the digital division at MEMAC Ogilvy, in 2010 she launched TBWA’s Digital Arts Network in the Middle East, producing campaigns for clients including GE, Nissan, Standard Chartered Bank and Unilever. In 2012 she won four Lions for her Push For Hunger campaign for Dubai’s Red Tomato pizzeria, which involved the development of a handy fridge magnet that employs Bluetooth connectivity to double as an emergency pizza-ordering device.

While in the Middle East, Mariappan also founded and managed the professional forum, Adwomen, a community of women dedicated to mentoring young female talent within advertising, business and technology. “It was a little bit of modelling that I wished I’d had when I started out,” she explains. “I ran it for four years on a voluntary basis. It was hard work but one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. We had many women go off and start different initiatives, and that for me is success enough. We profiled a lot of successful women, following how they built their businesses. It was also fascinating because I don’t really think enough women talk about their work.”

Also in 2012, a busy year for Mariappan, she took the role as TBWAGermany’s digital ECD, helping to grow the digital cultures of top brands, and also founding the CREATE lab in Berlin, working with start-ups focussed on service design. “I’ve spent most of my working career with TBWA in one form or another,” she explains. “We’ve had the ability to drive amazing ideas rapidly upstream. Digital has been distributed evenly throughout the agency and it never sat alone. We got to push out some exceptional creative work.”

Mariappan’s latest move has been within German borders, jumping from Hamburg to Berlin to join Razorfish Germany as ECD in January 2014. “I thought it would be an interesting time to work there,” she says. “Razorfish defines what it means to be creative in a very cutting-edge way.”

One of Europe’s fastest growing hubs for tech startups, Berlin is also the perfect location to realise the potential of new tech and media: “The bulk of media business has traditionally come out of Hamburg, but Berlin is the start-up capital of Germany, and a better space to be if you are handling creative technology,” she says.

Mariappan is in her element navigating uncharted ad territory for such clients as Audi, DHL, IKEA and UBS, and is excited that advertising is increasingly becoming a business that effectively uses data to map success: “It’s having the analytics in hand to see what drives people’s behaviour that allows us such rich insight into design and meaningful experiences. We are able to constantly switch up and change our approaches to better engage the audience.”

Connecting big data to big ideas

Exemplifying this approach is the Planet Art app, created for investment banking company UBS. Designed to bring contemporary art news to a global audience, the app collects and distills the most relevant trending topics in art around the world. By analysing and indexing thousands of articles it then presents the most relevant information to its users. “Planet Art is a really interesting example of big data work,” Mariappan says. “We designed the app to think like an art curator to really get the pulse of the art world. The app uses unique algorithms to read and index information from a vast number of sources to present top-ranked news within the art world. UBS is one of the largest collectors of contemporary art in the world so it was the perfect match.”

Recent work for Audi also inspired an audience to test drive its new A3 model through a simple yet effective mobile app. Users were required to point their phones at the sun, allowing geo location and live weather data to book the perfect day for an A3 test drive. The app garnered immediate appeal with hundreds of test drives booked across Germany after its release. “We do a lot of work on Audi,” explains Mariappan. “In terms of social media engagement I’d say it’s one of the top five media brands in Germany. There’s a lot of strategic thinking behind their work and, as a result, we’ve seen a strong fan base develop.”

Both of these campaigns illustrate the power of technology and how effortlessly it becomes part of people’s lives. “The possibility of connecting products and services to people is a very exciting field to be in,” she says. “Look at the mobile phone, it’s the universal remote for everything.”

With Razorfish noted as a digital leader in China, I ask how the Asian market differs from Europe? “In terms of audience engagement it gets a much higher response when you run social media campaigns,” she answers. “Europe has a more evolved brand market so there’s a lot more emphasis on privacy. You don’t experience the same kind of barriers in Asia because people aren’t thinking about why you’re selling to them – but in Europe you’d better have an excellent reason for talking to just about anyone. You can’t just run a contest on Facebook and expect a million people to respond.”

Response is key, especially when modernising a brand’s identity. Mariappan recently updated IKEA’s iconic catalogue, which was first published in 1951, successfully turning it into a social digital magazine online. Hej is a unique social media platform showcasing real IKEA products in real people’s homes. Users upload a 3600 view of their dwelling before designing it with IKEA products. “We do a lot of content creation and audience engagement work for IKEA,” she explains. “In the end it’s also about bringing utility to even the most basic advertising, making it relevant and meaningful for people. Hej featured photos and films showing authentic and genuine ways to use IKEA products. What’s great is that it’s not a catalogue, but real examples of people styling their homes in inspirational ways.”

Opening up new vistas

With the role of technology increasingly a crucial part of branding, Razorfish must continually come up with creative innovations in strategic consulting, experience design and technology platforms. With so much transformational work being created, I wonder what the mood in the Berlin office is like? “Working here is like operating at the edge of chaos,” quips Mariappan on agency culture. “It’s a little bit like space exploration to be honest. Our services are very diversified with specialised teams that make for a very complementary mix. We like to cross-fertilise strategy and technology, whereas most digital agencies are more one dimensional. There has to be a good ratio of diversity and stability. It’s about discovering opportunities and future platforms for brands that they didn’t know existed.”

Being surrounded by so much stimulation and action on a daily basis, does she find it difficult to keep her focus? “I love the energy here,” she answers. “It’s exciting to come to work every day. Technology opens up new vistas that we haven’t seen before, uncovers new ways of doing things that you thought were impossible. From one day to the next your whole world can change. I could not think of doing anything else. I walked in to my first job and said I’d give it a week – and here I am 17 years later.”

I ask her how she thinks the markets she has worked in might differ to the American advertising industry. “I would say that, culturally, there is a lot more risk-taking in America, especially with technology,” she says. “It’s an entrepreneurial culture there and I think that that is its biggest plus, as it changes the way people approach the work and how ideas get realised. It’s not just about the hardware and software but the culture too.”

Inventing the future

Back in Europe, Cannes Lions 2015 is on the horizon and Mariappan is itching to get on with judging the Mobile Lions category this year. “I’m so excited to be on the jury,” she explains. “They couldn’t have given me a better slot than Mobile. I have a lot of respect for Cannes. You have to give it to them for reinventing the festival, changing it from an old-school classical format to a new stage recognising creativity, technology and strategy. I think it has a huge impact on those who attend and is a marker for where we are in the industry today.”

Ask her about the road ahead and there’s nothing but a thirst for discovery: “I think I’m a bit of a futurist,” she answers. “How many of us really want to live in an agricultural society? I love the promise of the future, and can’t wait for flying cars. I love this space, and love where it’s headed. I get to invent part of the future which is truly amazing. How many creatives get to do that?”