MxMIndia

Tag: Ujaya Shakya

  • To offer data-driven marketing in Nepal

    Outreach Nepal joins hands with ADA

    By Our Staff

     

    Outreach Nepal has partnered with Kuala Lumpur-based ADA to introduce data-driven marketing practices in Nepal to both global and local brands. Operating pre-dominantly in South and South-East Asia (not India), ADA is a data-driven integrated digital marketing solution provider that designs and executes digital campaigns for a wide variety of brands.

     

    Speaking on the partnership, Ashraful Haque, Managing Director of ADA in Bangladesh said: “I believe this association with Outreach Nepal will be a giant leap towards providing unique data and analytics driven solutions to our prospective clients in Nepal. It widens our horizons as an organization and cements our vision to go far and beyond when it comes to ensuring data-based business solutions.”

     

    Added Ujaya Shakya, Founder and Managing Director of Outreach Nepal: “We always take pride in bringing many new innovative advertising and brand marketing practices in Nepal and adding to the same tradition, we have partnered with ADA to witness a new and dynamic data driven strategic approach, which would adapt global marketing way forwards for the brands and help achieve realistic business goals. This will also help to attract younger minds to our business of advertising which is now getting more digital-savvy”

     

  • The message has been replicated in five countries (other than Nepal) – Brazil, China, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh –and across seven languages

    Outreach Nepal curates multi-country campaign on #BasicHumanity

    By A Correspondent

     

    Ujaya Shakya and his team from Outreach Nepal initiated a simple exercise to take forward their meesage of empathy and share with the world simple things like sharing food recipes, a book one has read or even the best films one has watched.

     

    The message has been replicated now in five countries – Brazil, China, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh –and across seven languages.

     

    The first country to adapt the idea is Brazil led by Daniel da Hora, Chief Creative Officer, DH, LO Creative Boutique. He reached out to Shakya and said: “The pandemic made us reflect that we, as humanity, are deeply connected to each other. What affects one, affects us all. Besides, the lack of equal opportunities and access to the basics is also a global threat.” He further added, “Empathy is when you put yourself on the position of another person. In a times such as this we see so many privileged people sharing their quarantine routine, so full of everything and so easily because of having everything can be a trap in a world so full of inequality.”

     

    Added Rashid Khan, Founder and CEO of Creato from Bangladesh: “#ORNKnowledge is a knowledge platform initiated by Outreach Nepal who lifted this campaign to raise empathy in current pandemic situation which is worth to support.”

     

    From China Dr Owen Jia, President of the ECI Awards, voiced his support and said: “In fighting this Covid-19, the common viral enemy of mankind, this movement is very timely, reminding us that human beings must care for each other, help each other and be friendly with each other no matter whatever language, faith and race they belong to.” And from Sri Lanka, Rohith Hettiaratchi, Director Business Strategy and  Planning at Media Factory wrote: “This campaign opened up the insensitivity of such uploads encouraging people to be more humane. The problems are the same across the sub-continent in terms of food availability and scarcity, hence it is very relevant to our market in Sri Lanka.”

     

    From India, Prof Ujjwal K Chowdhury, Pro Vice Chancellor of Adamas, Protik Basu, Managing Partner, Weaddo and FMCG consultant Jitendra Gupta spoke in glowing terms about the Outreach Nepal effort.

     

    Said Shakya who is Managing Director, Outreach Nepal: “At Outreach we believe advertising now has a bigger role to play. And we thought that in these uncertain times, we need to be more empathetic, more humane towards the less privileged. Our small initiative is simple, just a reminder of the basic humanity which we all have inside us. This campaign is not meant for those who are actually suffering – they might have little access to social media in these tormenting times. On the contrary this is meant to sensitise us, the forgetful privileged. The team at Outreach is very happy that people across countries are reacting positively to the message. The new normal will makes it necessary that we have new insights and new visions. And now we know that there cannot be a bigger insight than ‘Empathy’.”

     

     

  • Outreach Nepal has won a Bronze Abby award in the Still Print category

    Nepal wins a Goafest Abby!

    By A Correspondent

     

    As a policy, we do not normally carry reports based on individual win communiques we receive from agencies or advertsiers. But this one deserves coverage as it’s from a leading Nepal advertising agency that has won an Abby at Goafest 2018. Outreach Nepal bagged a Bronze in the Still Print category and has also won three shortlists across categories.

     

    Said Ujaya Shakya, Managing Director, Outreach Nepal: “It is a recognition for the good work that is now happening in Nepalese advertising fraternity, and of course, this is a remarkable achievement to win beyond the borders.”

  • A quick Q&A with Ujaya Shakya, founder & MD of Nepal's Outreach group which bagged for the first international recognition in advertising for his country

    Riding high in Nepal

     

    Ujaya Shakya is Vice-president of the Advertising Association of Nepal and Founder and Managing Director of the Outreach Group. With over 15 years of experience in the field of management, strategic 360-degree communication/ branding and social communication development, Shakya

    heads one of the largest communication groups in Nepal, with dedicated vertical units in activation, rural communication and visual merchandising, digital and social media optimization, PR and event management. With much new innovation to his credits, he has been able to made a name for himself in both corporate and development sector communication alike. He has assisted several brands to establish successfully in Nepal. His first book, ‘Brandsutra’ on branding and advertising was published last year.

    Last week, Outreach bagged a bronze at the Campaign India Agency of the Year awards. A quick Q&A with Ujaya Shakya…

     

    Congratulations on winning a bronze for the South Asian Independent Agency of the Year.  It’s the first big award for a Nepal agency, so what does it mean for Outreach Nepal and the Nepal advertising industry as a whole?

    Thank you on behalf of team Outreach. This is definitely a big recognition for our advertising community in the region and I would like to share this achievement with our team, clients, media partners and Nepalese ad fraternity. This award is not just an achievement for Team Outreach, it marks a beginning for the Nepalese advertising industry in the international arena. The award has boosted our morale and motivated us to work even harder to make our mark further in the region.

     

    Although we have had many ad industry folk visiting Nepal for the various events some of which have been organised by you, we don’t know too much about the industry in Nepal? Can you give us some idea of the scene there?

    Nepal is a very young country with over 72% population below 35 years, who are open to new ideas. They like to accept new trends in communication. The media landscape of the country is also drastically changing and it is an exciting time to showcase your creativity and the right strategies. There is more audience segmentation today than there was before with more specialised media content. There is 90% mobile penetration and it is increasing every year with a rise in the demand for smartphones. Internet penetration is almost 40%, one of the highest in the region with data prices going down and soon 4G service is expected to get launched. We have about 6.7 million Facebook users registered from Nepal and Viber already has about 4.5 million registered users in Nepal. With these changing dynamics, Nepal’s advertising industry is up for a radical change in the near future and I see a future for media neutral ideas where the key strategy will be to integrate different media to arrive at impactful results.

    At the same time, rural opportunities are not to be neglected. As much as 80% of the population resides in rural Nepal as per the government census figures and the recent spurt in the increase of rural household income, particularly owing to the rising contribution of remittance which is more than 25% of Nepal’s GDP today, is leading to rising aspiration for a higher standard of life among the rural people. Increasing lifestyle orientation of rural audiences due to media penetration within Nepal and the exposure received by their family members now residing in the Middle East or Southeast Asian metropolitan cities further activate this consumerist demand for a higher lifestyle.

    Other factors like relatively high inflation in agricultural products and increasing literacy level is also helping the rural people to increase their purchasing power. To top it all, increasing road accessibility is helping brands to reach them and high penetration of mobile phones is also turning them into a vibrant consumption segment of the country that cannot be neglected by any national-level brand. All these provide a background for the positive trends in our vibrant advertising economy in the coming years.

     

    Why do you say that your advertising industry is still so small there?

    Nepal is largely a trading-based economy, which make it obvious for most marketers to think tactically and less thematically. But, things have been changing lately and many domestic brands and even key multinational brands now want to invest in creating brand stories that are relevant to Nepal. There are examples of a few groundbreaking works in recent times, which are based on enduring partnerships between clients and their agencies. So this is an exciting time for our industry.

     

    Is it also a function of talent… save a few like you, most of the bright media professionals leave the country for the West or for India?

    Right, talent is always a problem and there is a culture of young minds leaving the country. But many new youngsters are also getting into entrepreneurial ventures, which is very good for our business. We regularly approach B-schools and other institutes within Nepal to hunt for next bright mind to join us in our team. In fact, a bunch of youngsters have joined our team after studying in the UK, Australia and India. We have also been providing internship opportunities for young students to work in our organisations at regular intervals.

     

    Is the local industry and are marketers confident of the creative output, or will we see Indian ad professionals being taken there to produce?

    There are a couple of advertising professionals from India, who have been working in Nepal for sometime now. But I feel that now that we have a crop of youngsters interested in making their career in the local advertising world, many of whom are educated outside Nepal but are joining the Kathmandu advertising circle, the future is bright for their leadership. There are already many films being produced here locally for multinational brands.Also many new campaign ideas, which are relevant to Nepal, are being executed with great success.

     

    Tell us more about Outreach Nepal. Who are your key clients, since how long have you been in existence, agency size and where you stand in the pecking order in Nepal?

    Outreach Nepal is an advertising agency with the prime focus of providing “Business Driven Creative Ideas”. The team comprises experienced, committed and dedicated young minds with a firm belief in teamwork, sharing thoughts and generating creative ideas that sell. The agency has a proven track record of producing and facilitating business ideas and strategic inputs for clients since 2003.

    We are among the top agencies in the country with a full-fledged team structure in placed to provide solution in creative, strategy, media, digital PR & events. Our team believes in media neutral ideas that can bring discernible positive results for our clients’ business.

    Unlike traditional agency practices, we have many examples in our portfolio where we are involved in the strategic planning process with the client as their true brand custodian. To compliment and seize the opportunities, we pioneered in starting new trends in advertising business by introducing dedicated vertical units specialised in activation and visual merchandising, Digital and Social Media Optimisation, PR & Event Management and as Outreach Group we have over 110 full-time employees.

     

    What are your plans and targets for the next year? Any plans for affiliations/joining hands with international agencies?

    I am currently trying to enhance the exposure of my team to global trends so they can replicate similar success stories for our clients in the Nepal market. I strongly believe that if we have the opportunities to keep updating ourselves, we will learn many new things. Learning is a major KPI in our team’s performance today.

    We have been holding discussions with some key international agencies for some time now. We are open to any idea that will be a win-win proposition. We have local expertise and a huge amount of experience in this market, which will definitely have a multiplier effect.