Tag: Anand Mahurkar

  • Abhinav Verma to lead new data intelligence unit at Whyness Worldwide

    By A Correspondent

     

    Abhinav Verma

    Whyness Worldwide announced the launch of a new business vertical that aims to be the meeting point of both the future of marketing and data intelligence. Whyness has a strategic alliance with Boston-based Findability Sciences, a SoftBank portfolio company a leading data specialist. Together, they envision a seamless merging of marketing strategy, creativity and content with the action-oriented insights of big data.

    To kickstart this process, Whyness has brought on board Abhinav Verma as Director – Digital, Data and AI. He has previously led the digital marketing mandate at Airtel. He is also a Hyper Island alumnus and was also associated with Wieden+Kennedy, Whyness Worldwide, Geometry Encompass and Babajob.com (now bought over by Quickr) in the past.

     

    Said Ravi Deshpande, Chairman and Founder, Whyness: “The fusion of creativity and data gives clients a sophisticated marketing suite that gives much greater understanding and insights into consumer behavior. That means greater accuracy in communication and thus more bang for your buck. At Whyness, we are constantly changing ourselves with every progress in the digital ecosystem, and therefore we’ve appointed Abhinav, who I believe, has a natural flair for data, digital and AI and having him onboard adds great value to the Whyness-Findability alliance.”

     

    Added Anand Mahurkar, CEO, Findability Sciences: “Globally, we have experienced that every CMO is wondering how to make use of AI in the marketing function. With our Whyness collaboration, I say we now offer AI Inspired Creativity! Abhinav brings a combination of creativity and understanding of modern technology applications to the marketing function. We are very excited to have him onboard and offer one of the best solution to CMOs worldwide.”

  • Ravi Deshpande sets up Whyness

    By A Correspondent

     

    (left to right): Anand Mahurkar (Founder and CEO of Findability sciences, Boston), Clement Derock ( Founder and Creative Director, Seenk, Paris ), Ravi Deshpande ( Founder, Chairman and CCO, Whyness) and Frederic Lalande ( Founder and Creative Director, Seenk, Paris)

    As he made the rounds of various industry events over the last few months, Ravi Deshpande would assure us to hang in there for the big news. The design school was functional and the trade was abuzz with the news that the former chairman and and chief creative officer of Contract India was up to something new.

     

    Enter Whyness Worldwide with three offices: Mumbai, Paris and Boston. Mr Deshpande has chosen two strong strategic offshore alliance as it has tied up with Boston-based big data tech firm called Findability Sciences and a branding and design company called Seenk from France.

     

    Said Mr Deshpande, who is designated founder, chairman and CCO of Whyness: “We are an integrated communications agency for the new world. We address brand challenges with solutions that combine human insights, creativity, design and technology. In a sense it is an agency that bridges the gap between traditional agencies and digital agencies.”

     

    So why Whyness? How will it different from the others? “Whyness was to take the next big step in seeking answers on how to communicate to the people of the new world. We redesigned the way we work, right from our structure and alliances to our talent strategy. We were convinced about the kind of work we want to do. And it matches with the kind of work our clients and marketers are asking for. We wanted to mix up things and produce surprising results that actually work for brands and companies. Design and Strategy combined with technology, Creativity mixed with Algorithms.”

     

    Whyness will work with Findability Sciences and Paris-based Seenk closely and ’employ’ graduates from the ‘Ecole Intuit Lab’ school of design set by Mr Deshpande to add fresh perspective to design.

     

    It maybe remembered that this is Ravi Deshpande’s second attempt at being entrepreneur. In 2001, he quit Contract to start Lemon. In April this year, he quit Contract as chairman and chief creative officer.