Mcgarrybowen India, the creative agency from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), which was earlier called Happy Mcgarrybowen has named Nishi Kant as its new President.
Prior to this, Kant was EVP and Branch Head, Dentsu Webchutney, Delhi and Mumbai. In his new role, he will spearhead the agency across its three offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. He will continue to report into Sidharth Rao, Chairman, Mcgarrybowen India & Dentsu Webchutney.
Sidharth Rao
Commenting on the elevation, Rao said: “In my 15 years of work experience with Nishi, I have seen him grow into a business leader par excellence from a mighty creative resource. He has successfully led Dentsu Webchutney’s offices in Delhi and Mumbai. Mcgarrybowen holds a great legacy globally and I welcome him to instil his values and lead the team, nationally. I firmly believe his insights will enhance the company’s brand value and empower potential growth.”
Nishi Kant
Added Kant: “I am honoured and energised by the opportunity to assume the leadership of Mcgarrybowen India in the midst of these challenging times. I have deep respect for all the work that has taken place to transform Mcgarrybowen as a global creative powerhouse. I am looking forward to working with our talented team and group leaders over the coming years to create a truly integrated agency. Together, we will capture the next wave of growth for Mcgarrybowen India by remaining laser-focused on serving our clients, crafting efficient creative work and providing best career experiences to our people.”
Dentsu Webchutney has named Gautam Reghunath as its new Chief Executive Officer. The news comes post the elevation of Sidharth Rao as Chairman, Happy mcgarrybowen (HMB) India and Dentsu Webchutney last week.
Prior to this, Reghunath was Executive Vice President (EVP) and Branch Head for Dentsu Webchutney, Bengaluru. In his new role, Reghunath will continue to report into Rao and will now lead the agency, nationwide.
Sidharth Rao
Commenting on Reghunath’s appointment, Rao said: “Gautam’s remarkable and much-deserved rise from within the ranks of Dentsu Webchutney is one of my favourite stories from the agency’s 20-year-old legacy. He started out as a junior servicing executive in 2010 and earned his stripes through sheer hard work and creative brilliance. He is a homegrown leader, someone whose impact on our people and business is unparalleled. Nothing exemplifies this better than our success with Bangalore – an office that he built from ground zero to the stature it commands, now. He understands our history. He cares for our legacy. He has more than an eye on our future. I am so proud to have him lead us on our next journey!”
Gautam Reghunath
Added Reghunath: “In my time at Dentsu Webchutney, I’ve had the opportunity to work with incredible colleagues who inspire me and, for us, to find purpose, success and joy in our work along the way. I’ve grown up here. I’ve had my best years here, and today, I’m so proud to be the leader of this remarkable group of talent. Dentsu Webchutney started the digital advertising market in India as we know it. Our incredible client roster with some of the most globally consequential companies gives us a foundation to continue industry-leading creative work across branches in Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gurgaon. Sidharth is a tough act to follow. But he remains a keen advisor, well-wisher and a mentor I’m thrilled to have as we take on our biggest years of growth.”
Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) India has announced the elevation of Sidharth Rao as Chairman, Happy mcgarrybowen (HMB) India and Chairman, Dentsu Webchutney.
With this, Rao, earlier CEO, Dentsu Webchutney, has expanded his role and responsibilities within the network. Notes a communique: The announcement also reinforces DAN’s legacy to retain all its agency founders who chose to partner and participate with the network through various strategic acquisitions.
Rao will continue to report into Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO, DAN India. He will work with Samarjit Choudhry, President, HMB India to accentuate the agency’s brand legacy in India even as he continues to oversee Dentsu Webchutney’s consistent performance and expansion across the country and beyond.
Commenting on the appointment, Bhadkamkar said: “Sidharth’s journey with Dentsu Webchutney is one of the most iconic stories of modern Indian advertising. It has been a joy to watch Dentsu Webchutney grow the way it has in the last six years. Considered to be one of the best digital agencies of the country today, Dentsu Webchutney is now also one of the finest creative agencies in the business. Sidharth is already an integral part of DAN India’s key leadership team and, as we strengthen our digital and creative credentials, I am delighted to have him take up this additional new mandate with Happy mcgarrybowen.”
Added Rao: “I am extremely honoured to take up this new responsibility. My first 20 years in advertising has been a ride; and now I’m looking forward to the next 20 with our wonderful teams at Dentsu Webchutney, HMB and the rest of the DAN family. HMB is a fantastic brand that comes with a great legacy. With the support of DAN, the Happy team in India and mcgarrybowen internationally, I am certain that our golden days are ahead of us.”
Greetings! It’s D-Day all over again. December 20, 2010. The day when we said we would announce the MxMIndia Mediaperson of the Year 2019. Unlike various other awards and presentations, this is done via MxMIndia, not through an event. So we aren’t dictated by the demands (and exigencies) of sponsors and the constraints that venues and budgets put us under. We like to compare it with the Time magazine’s Person of the Year. Just an online announcement. We are sure you will join us in the celebration of who our 2019 Mediaperson of the Year is.
First a quick look at how we are different from various other awards/title presentations:
First, it’s not based on a survey. It’s not based on any industry poll. It is based on a study conducted by us through the year. This makes the decision-making tougher, as we can’t pass the blame on to research. Or the collective view of the industry. Or of a jury.
Second, it’s an A&M industry study. Agreed CEOs of big clients are important, but we are looking at CMOs and not CEOs of well-marketed organisations.
Third, we look at performance through the year, and do not base it on the highs of the last two quarters of a year which tend to influence any voting-based process at the yearend.
Fourth, it’s about performance in the year. The highs and highs achieved in this calendar year.
Fifth, we give you a clear reason why we have chosen the winner
Sixth, we are as sincere and honest about the awards as one can get. A few years back there were suggestions that we should make it an on-ground event. But then that comes with its own set of issues (and compulsions). We even had one large media group expressing its interest four years back. But we think it could’ve influenced our decision-making.
So: the MxMIndia Mediaperson of the Year 2019 is an online presentation. It’s an accolade that’s for the truly well-deserving. And for the True Achiever of 2019 in the Indian Media, Advertising & Marketing arena.
With the backgrounders done, here’s how we went about our task.
We maintain an online notebook that records important developments of the year. It’s also a drill that ensures one can do recaps etc with ease.
For the Mediaperson of the Year, one reviews names, quarter-wise. This ensures the choice of the winner doesn’t suffer from the recency factor.
We looked at various names. We couldn’t miss the achievements of the various media biggies as they went on consolidating operations.
We had also asked our readers for their nominations, and we added these to the come to a shortlist of five.
Ladies and Gentlemen, We have great pride in announcing that the 2019 MxMIndia Mediaperson of the Year Award is:
Sidharth Rao
CEO and Co-Founder, Dentsu Webchutney
Sidharth Rao
He was all of 19 when he started a digital agency called Webchutney. He was its co-founder and CEO. Six years back (in 2013), the agency was acquired by the Dentsu Aegis Network and hasn’t looked back ever since.
Dentsu Webchutney was the most-awarded Indian agency at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in 2019. And has won numerous awards – at the Goafest Abby, at the Kyoorius Awards and almost everywhere else. The year also saw the release of Rao’s book ‘How I Almost Blew It’
Rao is also an angel investor, was the co-founder of Network Play, which became one of the largest brand ad network in less than three years and was later acquired by European media conglomerate Bertelsmann AG.
So how did we arrive at our decision:
The year 2019 has been pretty horrible for the media, advertising and marketing ecosystem. Achche Din didn’t happen. In fact the line that’s used is: Burre din kab jaayenge.
This state of the economy has had a huge impact on the business of media. Profits are down, work has reduced and the bottomlines have been severely impacted.
So we looked at all the small, medium-sized and large companies that did very well in the year. While there has been a fair amount of great work done despite all the odds, we didn’t find an individual’s achievement striking enough for being a ‘Person of the Year’. There is of course the argument that the very ability to navigate and profit in a tough year is by itself an achievement.
We couldn’t agree more. So to the media and advertising industry and all the professionals who are part of it: kudos. You are all super-achievers.
But in all of this, we found Sidharth Rao’s achievements stand out. Digital has been growing over the years, but one of the reasons why it hasn’t grown enough so far is because it’s always been compartmentalised and hence never considered as mainstream advertising.
Rao’s achievements of the year have changed that. And will do that forever. He’s not your pinstriped suitwallah adperson. He’s not a turtle neck T-shirt wallah techie. He belongs to the breed of industryfolk who have done things quietly and have done it over the years.
A truly deserving winner of the 2019 MxMIndia Mediaperson of the Year title.
DAN Programmatic along with Amnet has announced the launch of DAN Vision for Creative, a machine learning- and neuroscience-based engine that delivers new insights into the predicted performance of a creative even before the creative has actually run.
Commenting on the launch, Sidharth Rao, CEO and Co-Founder of Dentsu Webchutney said: “One of the biggest gamechangers in modern marketing is the use of data to better the decision making capabilities of professionals to yield better outcomes. Creativity without data is a shot in the dark. Even when a creative professional claims to follow his gut, he or she is in reality analysing data generated through experiences for a particular outcome. Having co-founded an agency that deploys new age solutions to solve common problems, ‘DAN Vision for Creative’ is just the right weapon to solve the age old creative problem of “Why are certain creatives performing better than the others?.” It is creating for us a unique differentiator by providing a justification or even starting points for our creative approach to deliver brand success.”
Added Gautam Mehra, CEO of DAN Programmatic and Chief Data Officer (South Asia) at Dentsu Aegis Network: “Today, creative testing is about determining which creative is performing better for which audiences. This involves testing 100s of creatives. The byproduct of this is, lots of budgets invested into creative production, time spent to create them, marketing budget spent towards testing them and the time involved to get a confident decision. All of this deters most marketers from doing comprehensive creative testing. To top it all, even after this, all we get is which creative is performing better, and no clue on which element is influencing it to perform better or worse. By combining advanced AI techniques such as RNNs (recurrent neural networks), Computer Vision and NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), we are now able to provide predictive intelligence for the creative even before it goes live. This shortens the creative testing cycle and saves on time and money for our clients. Additionally, DAN Vision for Creative provides clues to the “Why” of the creative; making the future creative cycle even more sharper and focussed,”.
Dentsu Webchutney Research Labs has unveiled a report titled ‘The Politics of Twitter’ unveiling the top 50 politicians on Twitter and the engagement strategies used by them to incite Twitter users. Through this research, thousands of original tweets of 50 political leaders were analysed. The report measured the performance of the political leaders on Twitter and mapped their civic engagement.
Basis the report, the Top 5 profiles of politicians include Subramanian Swamy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Rahul Gandhi, Smriti Irani and Maharashtra CM, Devendra Fadnavis.
Commenting on the findings, Sidharth Rao, Co-founder and CEO, Dentsu Webchutney said: “Twitter is the most useful online public platform for representing the politics of building a brand for politicians. While Twitter is mandatory for leaders representing the public, other leaders have used it as a means to raise their profile in a new medium altogether.”
Truecaller has announced the significant gains that brands have seen on its advertising platform. Truecaller Ads not just captures the attention of users without invasion or interruption, but also eliminates the appointment viewing condition for brand visibility. Its programmatic advertising strategy has generated a repeat customer rate of 70 per cent among existing advertisers, helping companies reach their audiences.
Talking about his experience, Amit Tiwari, Vice President Marketing, Havells India Ltd, said: “This is the first time we used Truecaller as an outreach platform. It provided us with a large-scale India-wide reach of over 40 million unique users in a single day. We used it as a platform to connect with our potential customers and received genuine responses from quality audiences.â€
Commenting on his interaction with the platform, Sidharth Rao, CEO, Dentsu Webchutney, added: “We have always recommended Truecaller to our advertisers and have consistently seen the platform over-deliver its commitments. With the help of Truecaller, our client’s messages have been delivered to their users through a brand roadblock with absolute simplicity. We’ve had a remarkable experience in marketing several product categories such as automobile, OEM and consumer tech to name a few through this platform. We believe Truecaller will play an integral part in our media buys for the upcoming festive season of 2018, with more of our clients looking to showcase their own unique stories.â€
Speaking on the adsales foray, Tejinder Gill, VP Sales & Head of India Operations at Truecaller: “Our advertising platform has achieved some great feats since its inception, especially since the unique ad delivery system which enables a brand visibility after every call from an unknown number. With marketers and CMOs shifting their strategies from mobile first to mobile only, advertising platforms such as ours are best placed to help achieve their objectives. Around the festive season when audiences have their eyes wider open than usual, we must work together with our partners to overcome our hurdles and achieve our objectives together. Needless to say, our advertisers have been overjoyed with the results.â€
Dentsu Webchutney, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has announced its newly established Business to Business Marketing Division. It will be headed by Samera Khan, EVP – Strategy, Dentsu Webchutney.
“The line between a customer and a consumer is fading day by day. Globally, B2B brands have the largest audience on LinkedIn; they have 36 times more followers on LinkedIn than on Instagram but 20 times more engagement on Instagram than on LinkedIn. The users’ browsing and search behaviour is the same through the day and that’s what we want to own with our B2B division. We want to remove the boring from B2B,†said Sidharth Rao, CEO and co-founder at Dentsu Webchutney.
The new division is poised to help businesses targeting other businesses across categories and industries. Businesses that work with Dentsu Webchutney will have specialized services available to help them with Online and Offline Marketing, Market Research, Publicity, and most importantly, a focus on Content Marketing and Distribution Strategy.
Added Khan: “Our strategy is to focus on B2B with experiential content marketing across the various touchpoints that the customer already exists on. We pride ourselves on understanding what moves the Indian consumer. Now it’s just about using that same understanding for a business decision maker. Even though our starting point is B2B, our goal is to think of it as H2H (Human to Human), to humanize this crucial relationship.â€
Dentsu Webchutney has roped in Anil Kumar as EVP and Brach Head. He will be based out of Delhi and will report to Sidharth Rao, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder, Dentsu Webchutney. Anil will lead key accounts like Airtel, IndusInd Bank, Canon, Tetra Pack, Hike, Payback, DS Group and ITC amongst others.
Speaking on joining Dentsu Webchutney, Kumar said, “For a marketing professional, Digital is the ultimate delight because of its tremendous ability to sharply identify and establish the shortest route possible to the target audience; and what better place than Dentsu Webchutney, the pioneers in digital, to immerse oneself into this arena and explore.â€
Commenting on the appointment, Rao said::With years of mainline advertising experience coupled with extensive hands-on marketing experience, Anil presents a combination that can help our teams appreciate the real-business issues more holistically and recommend solutions that can positively impact our client’s bottom lines. ”
Dentsu Webchutney has roped in Samera Khan as EVP- Strategy and Planning. Â Samera will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Sidharth Rao – CEO, Dentsu Webchutney.
As part of her new mandate, Samera will head creative strategy and planning for the agency across its offices in Mumbai, Delhi and Bengaluru.
Commenting on her appointment, Samera said, “I am excited about this new role that I take on with Dentsu Webchutney. They have a unique way of approaching digital advertising with a spot-on understanding of culture and technology. And to partner with a distinct set of creative and strategic talent makes this even more exciting and challenging.â€
Sidharth Rao
Commenting on the appointment, Rao said, “Dentsu Webchutney has entered its next phase of growth and it’s absolutely essential for us that we use the right kind of partners to steer this growth forward. Samera has immense international experience along with advertising experience in India on some of the biggest brands in the world. This gives her a unique edge on strategy and understanding of the human mind. This will add to the strength that holds the Dentsu Webchutney fort together. I am extremely happy to welcome her on board.â€
With more than 12 years of experience, Samera has worked with agencies including Ogilvy, DraftFCB and Havas Worldwide.
Dentsu Webchutney has strengthened its leadership team with the promotion of Gautam Reghunath as Senior Vice President and Branch Head, Bangalore. He will lead the 40-member-strong team in Bangalore, overseeing clients including Flipkart, Dailyhunt, Helpchat and Quikr.
Reghunath, formerly Vice President, will report directly to Sidharth Rao, CEO, Dentsu Webchutney. As the branch head, Reghunath’s key role will be to further build on the Bangalore office’s business success in addition to strengthening the agency’s creative and content production capabilities.
Sidharth Rao
Confirming Reghunath’s new assignment, Rao says, “Under Gautam’s leadership, our South India business continues to evolve at tremendous speed, having grown 200% over last year. From what was a five-member office in early 2015, we are now a 40-people-strong team in Bangalore. It is imperative that we have the strongest possible leadership there to take us to new heights. Gautam has an ambitious vision for the company and is a powerful advocate of putting young talent at the forefront of our business.â€
Talking about his new role, Reghunath says, “I am Dentsu Webchutney through and through, and this is a responsibility I am proud to be tasked with. The last one year has been great, being ranked number 1, great new clients and moving into our new space in Bangalore. We have embarked on an ambitious growth path, not just from a business perspective but also as individual creative professionals. The agency is brimming with young creative and leadership talent and it will be a privilege to lead them in our endeavor to continue evolving as a new-age agency – relevant for 2017 and relevant for our clients.â€
Reghunath joined Dentsu Webchutney’s Mumbai office in 2010 at a junior servicing position and over the last two years had been tasked with building the agency’s Bangalore operations. He was recently named in Social Samosa’s ‘Top 30 under 30’ list and has previously worked with L&K Saatchi and Saatchi.
Denstu Webchutney, the digital agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has won the digital mandate for the Indian chat app Hike. The account was won after a multi-agency pitch. As part of the new mandate, the agency will be handling the digital creative services for the brand. The account will be handled out of the agency’s Delhi office.
Talking about the future of Hike with Webchutney, Vidur Vyas, Vice President, Marketing, Hike said, “Hike is a fun, innovative and young brand with 90 per cent of its 100 million users below the age of 30. Building Hike further into a power brand will need trusted partners who share our vision and values, and bring with them a deep understanding of youth in India who are increasingly going ‘digital only’. We are delighted to partner with Dentsu Webchutney as we build brand Hike together.”
Commenting on the win, Sidharth Rao, CEO and co-founder, Dentsu Webchutney said, “We are delighted that Hike found value in our offering and appointed us to partner them in their digital and creative endeavour. The idea is to synergise together towards building effective strategies for better customer engagement. It’s the age of digital media, and a strong digital presence is the need of the hour. ”
