Dentsu Creative India has announced the appointment of Sudhir Das as Executive Creative Director (ECD). He will report into Arjuna Gaur, Chief Creative Officer (CCO), Dentsu Webchutney and DentsuMB.
In his new role, Das will oversee and strengthen the creative capabilities of the agency’s Bengaluru office. Prior to this, he was with Leo Burnett as Associate Executive Creative Director (AECD).
Arjuna Gaur
Speaking on the appointment, Gaur said, “Sudhir Das is an experienced creative leader with some of the world’s biggest brands in his portfolio. He is as comfortable with mainline advertising as he is with new age forms and is an engineer to boot! A brilliant well-rounded creative, Sudhir will be an invaluable addition to the team.”
Added Das: “The Cannes jury has confirmed what we knew all along – this is the best agency to be in. I am super excited to be joining this bunch of incredibly talented and hard-working people and aim to continue their awe-inspiring trajectory of success.”
Dentsu India has announced the appointment of Arjuna Gaur as Chief Creative Officer (CCO), Dentsu Webchutney & DentsuMB.
In his new role, Gaur will work towards expanding the creative mandate for both the agencies. He will lead creative thought leadership across the network and combine the expertise of Dentsu Webchutney and dentsuMB to deliver future-forward creative solutions for clients. Gaur will report into Ajay Gahlaut, Group Chief Creative Officer India (GCCO), Dentsu Creative India.
Commenting on the appointment, Gahlaut said: “It is a privilege to have yet another brilliant creative onboard as part of the team. Arjuna is a rare creative person who is equally adept at traditional and new age media. Apart from being an advertising creative, he is a musician skilled at playing multiple musical instruments. He also restores old computer systems. He has added great value to the brands that he has been associated with. We are looking forward to him significantly raising the creative quality of our output and adding even more value to the solutions that we provide to our clients.”
DentsuMB, the integrated communication agency from Dentsu India, has bagged the digital creative mandate for Social Alpha, a multistage innovation curation and venture development platform for science and technology startups. As per the mandate, DentsuMB will develop the communication framework and create campaigns that showcase the initiatives across Social Alpha’s social media assets. The focus will be on the core mission of the brand, which is to create social, economic, and environmental impact through the power of innovation and entrepreneurship.
Indrajeet Mookherjee
Said Indrajeet Mookherjee, Managing Partner, DentsuMB: “We are honoured to partner with Social Alpha in their mission for bringing about change. It will be a unique journey given the nature of services that Social Alpha provides and the divergent startup sectors it works with. At the heart of Social Alpha, is a clearly defined purpose ‘of making a difference to the lives of millions’ and we hope to collaborate on bringing these beautiful stories of impact and change to a larger audience.”
Manoj Kumar
Added Manoj Kumar, CEO & Co-Founder, Social Alpha: “At Social Alpha, we work with innovators who are on a mission to solve some of the most complex challenges of humanity with entrepreneurial risk-taking. While we take extreme pride in what our startups do, we needed help in communicating the inspiring work of our portfolio companies with an intent to attract more innovators and enablers to this emerging sector.”
Vishal Nicholas, Planning and Strategy Head at DentsuMB (earlier Dentsu India) will now also lead strategy for Dentsu Impact. Under this expanded mandate, Nicholas will manage planning and strategy for South, Mumbai and Delhi for both agencies. He will continue to report into Sidharth Rao, CEO, DentsuMB Group.
Sidharth Rao
Speaking on the elevation, Rao said: “As we continue to strengthen and reshape our creative offering in the Indian market, we needed a planning leader who has experience with both traditional and new-age businesses; and Vishal was the obvious choice to steer the strategy product for both DentsuMB and Dentsu Impact.”
Added Nicholas: “Ever since I joined Dentsu, I’ve always been excited about the Eastern approach to building brands with simplicity and second-order thinking at its core. With DentsuMB, the combination of the East and West make it even more compelling. And with Dentsu Impact’s fantastic roster of clients, I look forward to achieving greater business outcomes for them.”
DentsuMB, the integrated creative agency from Dentsu India, has bagged the mainline advertising mandate for the newly launched, TVS Raider. As per the mandate, the agency will handle the strategic planning and creative duties for TVS Raider in India.
Aniruddha Haldar
Commenting on the win, Aniruddha Haldar, Vice President Marketing – Commuters, Corporate Brand & Dealer Transformation, TVS Motor Company, said: “The TVS Raider is targeted at Gen Z. With dentsuMB as our creative agency, we have built signature brands like the TVS NTORQ 125 (Sporty Scooter) and TVS IQUBE (Electric). We look forward to delivering a compelling brand experience for TVS Raider in line with its outstanding product offering.”
Samrat Chengapa
Added Samrat Chengapa, Executive Vice President, DentsuMB: “We’re absolutely delighted with this latest win, and look forward to creating some great work, which is worthy of the trust TVS Motor has placed on us.”
Dentsumcgarrybowen (DentsuMB) has promoted Indrajeet Mookherjee to the role of Managing Partner. The agency is part of the larger, newly formed DentsuMB group, which houses a cluster of creative agencies from within the Dentsu creative service line of business. Under this fresh structure, the agencies that will report into Sidharth Rao, CEO, DentsuMB Group, are Dentsu Webchutney, Taproot Dentsu, Dentsu One, DentsuMB and Dentsu Impact.
Mookherjee will now lead the agency nationally and will also report into Rao. Prior to this, he was President – South, DentsuMB where he led operations for offices in Bengaluru, Chennai, and Kochi. He joined Dentsu India as Executive Vice President (EVP) in 2016.
Sidharth Rao
Speaking on the elevation, Rao said: “As we continue to strengthen and reshape our creative offering in the Indian market, we needed a leader who is experienced, connected, and understands the nuances of the communication landscape. Indrajeet, with his experience in managing brands and categories across South and Southeast Asia, was the perfect choice to helm our operations. The DentsuMB group of agencies, which already boasts iconic Indian agencies like Taproot Dentsu and Dentsu Webchutney in our stable, are growing at a rapid pace, and I look forward to Indrajeet and his talented Dentsumcgarrybowen team, strengthening our creative offering even further.”
Speaking on his new role, Mookherjee added: “I am honoured to join the leadership team of DentsuMB India at a very exciting time where our business is seeing unprecedented change. However, the one constant is the power of ideas and how we deliver business outcomes for our client partners. And that’s where I am hugely inspired by the global legacy of DentsuMB as a creative powerhouse and develop work that wins in the world and leads to better business results for brands. I am looking forward to working with our talented team and group leaders to build and create a truly integrated agency.”
There’s a hardly a day or a week when we don’t receive a communique from Dentsu India. Like this one which informs us of a new structure for its creative service line in India. The restructure will bring together the creative agencies along with their digital and PR capabilities – all from the house of Dentsu – under one umbrella with an aim to provide a more collaborative and aligned offering to clients. The brands that will come together as part of this redesign as Dentsu Creative include Dentsu Webchutney, Taproot Dentsu, WatConsult, Perfect Relations, Isobar, Dentsu One, Dentsu India and Dentsu Impact.
With the eventual consolidation under the two strong global brands – Dentsumcgarrybowen (DentsuMB) and Isobar, Dentsu Creative will provide digital-native, brand-led, customer-centric, creative, and strategic solutions to clients, effortlessly.
In India, the Dentsu Creative service line will be led by Amit Wadhwa as its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He will be reporting into Anand Bhadkamkar and the regional dentsu Creative leadership.
Sidharth Rao
Sidharth Rao, in addition to his current responsibilities, will now also be in charge of the brand DentsuMB Group in India as its CEO. He will work with the leadership team on DentsuMB’s brand strategy for the market. Shamsuddin Jasani, who continues to oversee the Isobar brand in South Asia as its Managing Director (MD), will also take on an additional role at Dentsu Creative. He will now work with the regional and global leadership teams to support the Isobar practice area and will work closely with the Isobar Global leadership team on the same.
Anand Bhadkamkar
Speaking on the new development, Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO India said: “This global restructure is about consolidation of capabilities across our brands and businesses with an aim to bring the best of our services to our clients and provide those specialisms without any hassles. The idea is to ultimately stand true to our #OneDentsu strategy and thus, transform into a sharper and leaner business partner to brands. The changes in the India leadership team only reflects a step ahead in bolstering and scaling up our market ambitions. Amit, Sid and Shams are amongst the strongest creative leaders not just within Dentsu but across industry; and with the kind of experience and knowledge backing them, I am certain that they will steer Dentsu towards excellence not just in India but beyond.”
The network has elevated Narayan Devanathan as President – Strategy & Integration for India, in addition to his current role as CEO, Dentsu Solutions. He will continue to report into Anand Bhadkamkar for his additional responsibility as part of the India market leadership team. Meanwhile, Devnathan will now also don a regional hat as APAC Head for the Dentsu Creative Strategy & Consulting practice.
“Narayan has been instrumental in driving integration across our units and, as part of the South Asia integration initiatives, he will be supporting the Sri Lanka team in strategy and integration across the two markets. He will now be moving away from his current additional role as Chairperson, Creative Service Line for India and will take up a regional leadership role as APAC Lead – Strategy & Consulting Practice in the creative service line. In this role, he will be working with the Regional and Global leadership teams within the creative service line to help develop the area of Strategy & Consulting Practice in the APAC region,” Bhadkamkar added.
