DDB Mudra Group has onboarded Shashank Lanjekar as its National Strategy Head. Lanjekar brings over 25 years of experience in advertising, brand management, and strategic planning to the role and will work out of the Group’s Mumbai office. He will closely work with Rahul Mathew, CCO of the Group, to focus on advancing the agency’s strategic offerings across disciplines to further solidify it with strong creative fundamentals.
Rahul Mathew
Said Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group: “We believe in strategy that has the power to move the work and the consumer. Not a strategy that merely sits pretty on PowerPoint slides. Shashank embodies the same belief. He will also help us strengthen many of the rigours needed to have a strong strategic backbone. Really excited to work with him again.”
Clean & Clear, teen skincare brand, unveiled its latest digital film as part of its ongoing campaign ‘Pimple Hi Toh Hai’.
Sharing the inspiration behind the campaign, Manoj Gadgil, Vice President of Marketing & Business Unit Head, Essential Health & Skin Health, Kenvue said: “Pimples unexpectedly disrupt a teen’s life. It not just affects them socially but also deeply impacts their confidence. As a leading teen skincare brand which is trusted by millions of girls, Clean & Clear believes in clearing such momentary small distractions from a teen’s life and their skin so they can focus on the important things that matter. Our new and improved Clean & Clear Foaming Facewash® offers unmatched results by providing an effective solution to wash away their pimple concerns while retaining 99% of skin’s natural moisture 4 their skin. Now teens can embrace the unwanted surprises, and never miss out on life.”
Added Harshada Menon, Group Creative Director, DDB Mudra Group: “While our last campaign addressed the teen’s social anxiety around pimples, this one takes the idea further, and challenges the entire narrative we’ve built around pimple. We want to give teens their confidence back and show them how a pimple isn’t the end of everything.”
Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer of DDB Mudra Group, Avinash Pandey, CEO, ABP Network, Malvika Mehra, Sudha Natarajan, Director Response in Times of India Group and Tista Sen join as jury chairs for Brand Activation and Promotion category, Broadcaster category, Young Maverick Abby category, Publisher category and Green Abby category respectively, at The Abby Awards 2024 powered by One Show.
The Abby Awards, part of the annual Goafest, are scheduled to be held in Mumbai on May 29 to 31, 2024.
Integrated marketing media agency – MudraMax – has promoted Deleise Ross as Senior Vice President and Head of Business. In her new role, Ross will be reporting to Rammohan Sundaram, President – Integrated Media, DDB Mudra Group and lead business operations for West as well as the South division.
Said Sundaram: “We are seeing tremendous growth in our media business and so structures become important which only helps teams to focus better and deliver better. It is also about leadership attention that teams require when in hockey stick growth phase. My belief has always been to groom available talent from within and we are excited to have Deleise take on larger responsibility.”
Indian Creative Women (ICW) has partnered with DDB Mudra Group and D&AD for the fourth edition of Portfolio Evening, sponsored by McDonald’s.
Two winners will earn an all-expense paid trip to the D&AD Festival in London. Note: this is not to be confused with Portfolio Night, the event that has been organised by One Clubfor many years, and the 2023 edition was hosted by DDB Mudra
Call for portfolios is now open with the virtual event scheduled for Thursday, December 7, 2023 and the in-person event is slotted for Friday, December 8, 2023 at the Omnicom House, Mumbai. Application deadline is Monday, December 4, 2023. To register, please visit: bit.ly/3SPL8GG
Said Sakshi Choudhary, Founder, Indian Creative Women: “Despite the growing focus on DEI in the industry, there’s still not much action on ground. Indian Creative Women is committed to making the Indian ad & design industry more diverse through actionable solutions. Portfolio Evening, supported by D&AD, our local long- standing partner DDB Mudra Group, and sponsored by McDonald’s, serves as a key initiative to nurture a pipeline of strong female talent. It’s time our industry accepted the influence women bring to consumers, brands and the business of creativity.”
Speaking on the sponsorship, Rajeev Ranjan, Managing Director, McDonald’s India added: “As a proud advocate of creativity and diversity at workplace, I am immensely thrilled to witness the transformative journey that Indian Creative Women (ICW) is forging in the advertising and design landscape. At McDonald’s India, we value the pivotal role women play in improving the quality of business outcomes not only by bringing in diverse perspectives and brilliantly executing unconventional breakthrough ideas but also by leveraging and shaping consumer trends and narratives. Women today represent a significant economic force. The success of our communities in many ways depend on the success of our women associates. The ICW Portfolio Evening is a testament to the brilliance and untapped potential of female creatives across India. We are honored to support ICW in celebrating and elevating the voices of women who are the architects of tomorrow’s most compelling stories and campaigns.”
And this is what Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group, said in a communique: “We’re excited to partner ICW for yet another edition of Portfolio Evening. This is an important initiative to help the industry move forward. And to have D&AD and McDonald’s join us in this journey makes this edition of the Portfolio Evening, bigger than ever.”
22feet Tribal Worldwide has unveiled a new campaign for Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI), Krafton India’s battle royal game, titled ‘Wear Your Cred’.
Said Srinjoy Das, Associate Director of Marketing, Krafton India: “At this point, the Royale Pass in BGMI has become a massive sub-brand if you look at the sheer volume of YouTube and Instagram content around it. So with the third iteration, the RPA3, we felt it was imperative to showcase the class and awe it generates when you don a RPA final out-fit in game. You see someone in the lobby wearing the final RPA3 outfit and you can instantly recognize that they have crossed all 100 levels. It’s a mark of respect, of awe, and above all, a recognition that it’s no longer cool to be default. We hope our fans love this amazing film as much as we loved making it.”
Added Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group: “BGMI isn’t just a game, it’s a community. And to announce this edition of the Royale Pass, we wanted to add some serious flex to it. In machine-gun mouth, we played with an audio disruption, this time we have a visual disruption.”
Volkswagen India rolls-out its new brand communication ‘You’re in a Volkswagen’ that captures the true emotion of owning a car.
Conceptualized by the DDB Mudra Group with media planning by PHD, the new consumer-friendly campaign takes a brand-first approach to build a robust emotional equity in the automobile market. You’re in a Volkswagen is inclusive: It’s about people & their families, the human moments that make Volkswagen, a Volkswagen. One must experience it, to understand the beauty of it.
Ashish Gupta, Brand Director, Volkswagen Passenger Cars India, said: “Our new brand campaign is centered around a simple yet powerful idea – ‘the quintessential moments experienced by our customers in a Volkswagen’. It is a celebration of the passion, exhilaration, freedom and joy that’s experienced from being behind the wheel. The unforgettable journeys and memories that make every drive extraordinary in a Volkswagen. It’s a promise that we as Volkswagen offer our customers, German-engineering, safety and a fun-to-drive experience.”
Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group, added: “When you make cars for the love of driving and for those in the cars, then you become more than just a car – you become a feeling. And Volkswagen has always embodied this. It was now time for us to come out and say it – You’re in a Volkswagen.”
Johnson’s Baby skin care products launch its latest brand campaign.
As a brand which has partnered with parents for generations, Johnson’s Baby recognises their promise to help protect their baby’ skin from day 1. The brand’s latest marketing campaign, ‘Promise, Pehle Pal Se’ captures this unwavering commitment ‘Designed with Only (Sirf aur Sirf) “Baby Safe Ingredients’ to help protect baby’s delicate skin from day 1.
Reinforcing the brand promise, Manoj Gadgil – Business Unit Head & VP Marketing – Kenvue said: “Ahead of the campaign, Johnson’s® Baby reached out to over 15000 mums from every part of India, different cultures and backgrounds to understand their promise to their little ones. There was one resounding promise which went beyond boundaries and cultures, a promise to protect their baby. Based on this common purpose, Johnson’s® Baby strongly commits to mums to help fulfil their precious promise to their babies.”
Godwin D’Mello – Executive Creative Director, DDB Mudra Group added: “The birth of a child brings out the optimism in every parent to create a world full of positivity for their little one, where only good things exist. This observation, delivered through the emotional hook of the mother’s promise on day 1, helped us talk about Johnson’s role in helping her keep that promise.”
Hi Pratap, the world just lost you today. You were so well-known and I’m sure many will be feeling your loss from now on. I have been feeling a bit depressed for the past few weeks from the time I came to know about your diagnosis. Now since you have bid goodbye to us all, I will try and write a few words about how I knew you and the effect you had on a fellow professional from the industry. Here is my ode to you Pratap. I hope you will agree with the words that I write as you smoke your ubiquitous cigarette and look out of your office window telling me some adventurous things that you did. So here it goes….
Pratap’s entry into DDB-Mudra Group was an epochal event. After he joined Mudra, the grapevine in the industry for sometime began to refer to O&M as Ogilvy & Mudra! And, why not? He had fallen out with the top management at Ogilvy on some financial practices that he wasn’t supportive of and walked in with some 40 professionals from Ogilvy into Mudra. Those were the days!
It was quite exciting and breathtaking for us minions in Mudra for the next few months. So many new faces all around us who had come in to give a major push to make Mudra look and feel more western/contemporary (for want of a better word) in its outlook. In those days, Mudra had created a niche, known as an Indian agency for Indian brands. From the faraway perch that I sat within the Mudra ecosystem, I think he was instrumental in convincing Madhukar to make the merger of Mudra with DDB and Omnicom lock, stock and barrel. Those days, both WPP and Omnicom, were serenading Anil Ambani to join them and he was caught in two minds. This dilly-dallying had continued for quite some years with Sir Martin Sorrell from WPP making it a point of having breakfast with Anil Bhai whenever he stepped into the shores of this country. But I think Pratap had experienced everything that had to be seen and known about WPP and in his mind, he wanted Mudra to join the Omnicom bandwagon. Surprisingly, this happened soon enough just a few months after Pratap came into Mudra! Of course Madhukar was the one who had to convince Anil Ambani but the man who persuaded Madhukar to pick up the gauntlet would have been Pratap.
Pratap was seeped in the Ogilvy culture and he wanted to imprint his style into a more conservative Mudra ecosystem. Pratap would have come in with his brigade (Yes, it an army brigade wanting to change things within Mudra in double quick time) without knowing fully well the cultural disparity that one could expect when one moves from a place like Ogilvy to Mudra those days. For example, when he came to know that the top echelons of Mudra who grew up in the Ambani ecosystem were used to calling Mrs Tina Ambani as bhabhi j, he and his team would have been shell-shocked. I reckon that when they would have heard that this was the norm a war room would have happened to strategise on what needed to be done on this issue. He was expected to follow this norm but he never did.
Another thing that amazed us was that he was the only guy who was allowed to smoke inside Mudra offices. His room used to be filled with cigarette smoke whenever we went in for a meeting. I used to almost choke when I entered his office and therefore dreaded such occasions, but conversations with him while he stood outside with his gang where everyone smoked away as if there were no tomorrow was fun-filled and memorable.
He kind of thought that I was the resident doctor as I was heading the healthcare advertising division then, and whenever he had a niggle or any health issue, he used to conspiratorially discuss with me. In fact I used to take him to Kokilaben Hospital quite regularly along with his wife for his yearly check-ups as that hospital was my client for most of my time in DDB Mudra.
In fact, I remember clearly that his first meeting with the executives in Kokilaben Hospital wasn’t really good. I could sense his discomfort while sitting in a meeting with them. In fact the room had a senior person from the hospital who was a Malayali and spoke in Gujarati only in a manner a Malayali can for one whole hour. All the time a TV was on behind us which was displaying the stockmarket prices on that day. My sixth sense was alive, and I began to scheme our escape from that room as quickly as possible before Pratap let off steam!
Will miss you, Pratap. Feel sorry that we lost touch when you got diagnosed with this disease known as the emperor of all maladies! Be happy wherever you are!
Soumitra Sen worked for DDB Mudra Group and many other agencies like Contract, Havas, Madison etc. These days he runs Storytellers, a behaviour change consultancy in the area of development communication.
DDB Mudra brings onboard Saad Khan as President and Managing Partner – Growth & Strategy. He will lead business and build on strategic capabilities for the West region of the Group.
Commenting on the new appointment, Rahul Mathew, Chief Creative Officer, DDB Mudra Group said: “For us, strategic thinking and creativity aren’t departmental functions. We’ve always believed our core to be great creativity built on strong thinking. And Saad embodies the same and will strengthen this belief; not just in the kind of work that we do, but in the conversations we have.”
DDB Mudramax boosts its media expertise with the appointment of Sarfaraz Ansari as Senior Vice President – Integrated Media. He will be responsible for leading strategy and ideation for integrated solutions across media platforms.
With over 17 years of experience, Ansari has worked across industries like FMCG, financial services, telecom, and worked with brands such as Johnson & Johnson, Spotify, Mahindra, Hershey’s, Finolex Pipes, Marico among others. His previous stint was as the buying lead at Lodestar Media.
Speaking on the new appointment, Rammohan Sundaram, Country Head and Managing Partner – Integrated Media, DDB Mudra Group said, “Sarfaraz’s calm and composed demeanour backed with solid conviction and science makes him one of the best in the business. Especially with some of our large clients, where we needed someone who can fit into our culture and at the same time solidify our leadership in strategic buying across all media. To that effect, he is perfect and has already impacted positively to our setup at Mudramax”
DDB Mudra Group appoints Binodan Sarma as Executive Vice President – North. In this role, Sarma will lead the digital business for both DDB Mudra and 22feet Tribal Worldwide for the Group’s Gurugram office. Sarma’s appointment will be instrumental in inspiring the teams and clients to visualise digital as an ecosystem to deliver full funnel marketing solutions.
Speaking on Binodan’s appointment, Ashutosh Sawhney, Managing Partner – North, DDB Mudra Group said: “DDB Tribal – the amalgamation of DDB Mudra & 22Feet Tribal Worldwide in North is coming of age. The idea of blurring the lines between digital and mainstream is a reality today and I am proud to say that at DDB Tribal, we are at its leading edge with clients like Royal Enfield, One Plus, Mars Confectionery and many more. In Binodan, we found not only a digital transformer but also an advertising professional with an astute sense of business and most importantly, a thirst for creating big, creative ideas.”
Another thing that amazed us was that he was the only guy who was allowed to smoke inside Mudra offices. His room used to be filled with cigarette smoke whenever we went in for a meeting. I used to almost choke when I entered his office and therefore dreaded such occasions, but conversations with him while he stood outside with his gang where everyone smoked away as if there were no tomorrow was fun-filled and memorable.
