Visuals: https://getbehindthebillboard.com/episode-96-ajab-samrai

Episode #96 features Ajab Samrai, Ex-CCO of Ogilvy Japan, who not only brought incredible stories of nearly four decades in the business, but two enormous bags of apples from his orchard in the Malvern Hills.

We discussed how Ajab started his career at Saatchi & Saatchi in 1987 as one of the first British born Asians to break into the industry, creating the iconic Commission for Racial Equality poster campaign. He became one of the youngest Creative Group Heads in the history of Saatchi’s going on to work on some of the world’s biggest brands.

We discovered why he decided to ‘frighten himself’ after his long tenure at Saatchi’s to take up the challenge of Ogilvy Japan, an agency in a different country, with a different culture and different language. Plus the agency was stuck at the very bottom of the Ogilvy league. No pressure then!

His story of success is a lesson in perseverance and belief with some incredible OOH projects for Tokyo FM and Uber Eats, helping Ogilvy Japan become agency of the year and Ajab was named Japanese creative of the year. This success helped push his awards tally to over 300, winning major honours at every show in the world.

Listen to the craft that went into the Sagawa soy sauce campaign, where all the imagery was created by an artist using soy sauce. And hear how the Condomania campaign flirted with suffocating the cast on what must be one of the most insane shoots ever. We even had time to cover the Mount Fuji Rubbish Billboards which were anything but rubbish, cleaning up the mountain and at awards shows alike.

Ajab thank you so much for being so generous with your stories (and your apples!). It was a real pleasure.

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