Executive Dossier

Adman Sumanto Chattopadhyay discusses his creative journey and rewinds ‘The Good Times’

Published

3 years ago

October 12, 2022

Mumbai: One can’t match his English skills and the research that he puts into defining every idiom, metaphor, and phrase with so much ease unless you are a walking-talking-living version of a Thesaurus yourself! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we are talking about the much-proclaimed ‘The English Nut’ aka long-haired Sumanto Chattopadhyay (also fondly known as Sumo by his advertising fellow mates).

Very recently, Sumo (as I address him as well because I have known him since I started writing about the advertising and marketing segment in 2006), who had been holding the fort at 82.5 Communications as chairman and chief creative officer for the last five years, hung up his boots. He had been associated with the Ogilvy group for 30 years.

At 5:30 p.m. on his last day at the agency, 30 September, Sumo was asked to unveil a book. To his surprise, it turned out to be a comic book called “Fearless Sumanto.” It was created by 82.5 Communications’ co-chief creative officer Mayur Varma with inputs from many colleagues at the agency. It brings to life a few incidents that reveal facets of Sumo’s personality and working style. Guess, Varma just thought that turning Sumo into a comic-book superhero would be a nice tribute to him.

With an MBA from McGill University, Montreal (Canada), Sumo began his career in advertising at Response in Kolkata, in 1990. After a short stint of two years, his tryst with Ogilvy began. After joining the agency in Kolkata, he moved to the Mumbai office in a couple of years. He climbed up the various rungs to the creative director position – in those early days, becoming a creative director was a really big deal. A few people made it to that level. It took him a long time to get there. In those days, there wasn’t the so-called ‘designation inflation’ that we see now.

Sumo was finally pronounced executive creative director of South Asia at Ogilvy where he spent 25 years before he donned the hat of chairman and chief creative officer at WPP’s Soho Square in 2017, which was later rebranded to 82.5 Communications in 2019.

A man with a creative predisposition, he has dabbled in various forms of art from modelling to acting and also has an alter ego which he is famous for on social media – The English Nut. The English Nut is a celebrated video work of English idioms, metaphors, synonyms, phrases, etc., by Sumo wherein he decodes the English language in a simple manner, more in the form of educational content. He scripts, produces and enacts in these videos. The English Nut will take the form of a book soon!

Sumo has been bestowed with national and international recognition at Cannes, the Clios, the One Show, the London Festival, the Abbies and Kyoorius, and has been privileged to work with some of the best and most influential brands in the country.

Sumo in a conversation with Indiantelevision.com, discusses his experience of setting up 82.5 Communications (previously known as Soho Square), his three-decade-long journey with the Ogilvy group, his mentors at the agency, The English Nut and so much more.

Edited excerpts:

On his 30 years at Ogilvy

One of the things that attracted me to advertising was the casual dress code, especially for creative people. But I took it a step further and started wearing shorts to work. It was not a done thing in those days. I remember one of my seniors asked me if I found the weather exceptionally hot. And once, I was stopped from entering the Hindustan Unilever (HUL) office. The security guard called my client and said a ‘chaddiwala’ had come to meet him. My client had to come down and get me in! It’s these kinds of incidents and memories that make it fun to look back at the past.

On the brands and campaigns, he worked at Ogilvy which are dear to his heart

I worked on a lot of HUL brands—Dove, Pond’s, Lakmé, Sunlight, Comfort, etc. In the early days, the Ogilvy office was at Churchgate and the HUL office was a short walk away. Because I worked on so many of their brands, their office became a second home. Years later both companies relocated to the suburbs and we were relatively close to each other again.

I have also worked on brands like Maharashtra Tourism, Diu Tourism, Star Plus and The Economist—which have required me to wear completely different kinds of creative caps.

On even though it is the same group, what is it that made him switch from Ogilvy to 82.5 Communications (the erstwhile Soho Square)

It was the challenge of trying to make a success of a new entity that made me take up the 82.5 role. And the realisation that hit me was that while I was at Ogilvy a large part of the status that I enjoyed among clients was because of the Ogilvy aura surrounding me. Though 82.5 was an Ogilvy company, it had to prove itself on its merit. As its chief creative officer, the same principle applied to me. This lesson made me a little humbler and wiser.

On the thoughts and goals of putting 82.5 Communications in place

82.5 degrees east is the longitude of Indian Standard Time. We gave ourselves this name because we were going to work mostly with Indian brands. Also, as our slogan says, we are about ‘ingenious Indian ideas’.

On the memorable brands and campaigns that he worked on at 82.5 Communications

The most famous campaign by 82.5 is the one for Bisleri. I have been closely involved with the work on Himalaya, LAVA, Ghadi, Slice and Havells among others. I also enjoyed working on the branding of 82.5 itself.

On his experience in the advertising industry and movie business

I’ve lived and breathed advertising for all these years. It’s been an exciting profession to be a part of. I think there was more room for having fun back in the day. Or maybe I just feel that way because I’m older. Perhaps the youngsters of today are having as much or more fun. One should ask them!

I love acting too and I have done a bit of theatre and acted in a few films over the years. But I can’t say I know much about the movie business. Though as a viewer I can see that OTT has transformed the kind of movies and serials being made; it has broadened tastes. There’s a lot more diversity in what’s hitting the screens today.

On how he has seen the advertising industry take shape in the last three decades

It was all about TV, print and radio when I started. Print is something that has experienced a great decline – not just in terms of the money spent on it but also in terms of the ideation going into it. Today you still see full-page ads – so it means that money is being spent on the medium in spurts – but the ads are usually tactical or offer-led and often don’t have a creative soul.

Coming to digital, while some people may feel that it’s only about algorithms and data, I think that the future will show that it is only when these things are combined with a great idea that you will have breakthrough communication. You don’t even have to wait for the future. Cadbury’s Diwali communication with Shahrukh Khan (SRK) has demonstrated it beautifully. Ogilvy India chief creative officer Sukesh Nayak, who was a key player behind this campaign, used to be a key player in my team. I’m proud of his work.

On his mentors at Ogilvy and 82.5 Communications

Piyush Pandey is a mentor for the entire Ogilvy group. At 82.5 the other person who played a special role as a mentor to us is Madhukar Sabnavis—the man who initiated and developed the planning function in the Ogilvy system. There are others as well—Zenobia Pithawalla, Hephzibah Pathak, VR Rajesh, Prem Narayan, Sujoy Roy, Mayur Varma to name a few who have always been there for me.

On the reason for his retirement from the Ogilvy group and what is that he seeks after this

I’ve had three wonderful decades with Ogilvy. It’s time to explore the world beyond it. I am waiting to find out what new adventures are there around the corner.

On the story behind ‘The English Nut’

The English Nut started as a ‘side’ hustle in 2019. But it has become a special part of my life. It has received a lot of love from the people who follow it. I would like it to continue for as long as possible.

About the book, somewhere along the way a publisher discovered ‘The English Nut’ and asked me to write a book along similar lines. I started writing the book a while back but could not finish it because of work commitments. I hope to complete the book in the next few months.

On whether we will get to see more of him in the movies and his plans

R Balki, Pradeep Sarkar, Shoojit Sircar, Amit Sharma, Anvita Dutt, Juhi Chaturvedi, Kopal Naithani and all the other directors who know me from advertising—I’m waiting for them to cast me!

On his favourite memories of his stay at Ogilvy and 82.5 Communications

The years have been punctuated by some wonderful events. I played David Ogilvy in one such event. In another event, I played the Love Guru. Getting to interact with colleagues informally on these occasions, revealing other aspects of our personality, helped strengthen the bonds. It’s the strength of these bonds that made me want to stay all these years.

On the learnings that he carries further with him

For me, it’s always about the people. And it’s about loyalty. I hope I have been loyal to those I value. Because there is nothing I value more.

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Executive Dossier

Game on, fame on as Good Game hunts India’s first global gaming star

Published

3 weeks ago

January 27, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Game faces on, pressure high India’s gaming ambitions are levelling up. Good Game, billed as the world’s first as-live global gaming reality show, has officially launched in India with a bold mission: to crown the country’s first Global Gaming Superstar.

Blending esports with mainstream entertainment, the show brings together competitive gaming, creativity and on-camera performance in a format that tests more than just joystick skills. Contestants will be judged on gameplay, screen presence and their ability to perform under pressure, reflecting how gaming has evolved from pastime to profession and pop culture currency.

Fronting the show are three high-profile ambassadors: actor and entrepreneur Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Indian cricket star Rishabh Pant, and gaming creator Ujjwal Chaurasia. The winner will take home Rs 1 crore ($100,000) among the largest prize pools for any Indian reality show along with the chance to represent India on a global stage.

Backed by a planned annual investment of up to Rs 100 crore, Good Game is also courting brand partners, promising a minimum reach of 500 million among India’s core youth audience. The creators position the show as a bridge between entertainment and interactive culture, offering long-format content, community engagement and commercial scale.

Auditions are now open to Indian citizens aged 18 and above, inviting amateur and professional gamers, creators and performers alike. Shortlisted candidates will be called for in-person auditions in Mumbai on 14 and 15 February, and in Delhi on 28 February and 1 March 2026.

With big money, big names and even bigger ambition, Good Game signals a shift in how India views gaming not just as play, but as performance, profession and prime-time spectacle.

Digital

SpotDraft hires new CMO and CFO to fuel global push for its AI contract platform

Published

2 months ago

December 3, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

INDIA: SpotDraft has strengthened its senior ranks as it gears up for faster global expansion, naming Alon Waks as chief marketing officer and Amit Sharma as chief financial officer. The appointments follow the firm’s $54 million Series B round earlier this year and mark a push to scale across the Americas, EMEA and India.

The AI-powered contract-lifecycle-management platform has posted 100 per cent year-on-year growth in customer acquisition, counting Apollo.io, IPSY, Mixpanel, Oyster and Panasonic among its global clients. The firm processes more than one million contracts annually, with volumes up 173 per cent and nearly 50,000 monthly active users.

Waks, a veteran of Kustomer, Bizzabo, CreatorIQ, LivePerson and ZoomInfo, will steer global marketing and category positioning as legal teams adopt AI-driven tools. Sharma, who has led finance across scaling tech firms since 2016, will guide financial strategy, investor relations and market expansion.

Both hires aim to sharpen SpotDraft’s bid for a larger slice of the fast-growing legal-tech market, expected to exceed $63 billion by 2032. Co-founder and chief executive Shashank Bijapur said the company is focused on scaling go-to-market operations in the Americas, deepening leadership in EMEA, and accelerating AI capabilities for general counsels and legal-operations leaders.

Clients report shorter deal cycles and better alignment between legal and business teams. “What used to take weeks now happens in days,” said Abnormal Security senior legal operations manager Susan Koenig. DeepL head of legal operations André Barrow, said SpotDraft has helped reframe legal “from a cost centre to a generator of revenue”.

Executive Dossier

Outdoor Ads Get Smarter as LOC8 Shifts OOH from Visibility to Attention

Published

3 months ago

November 28, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Out-of-home ads were once the wallflowers of marketing seen by everyone, noticed by few. But in an age where attention has become the world’s most fought-over currency, even billboards are getting a brain upgrade. Enter LOC8, OSMO’s AI-powered attention engine, quietly reshaping the old OOH playbook by measuring not just who could have looked at an ad, but who actually did. The shift is subtle but seismic: impressions are out, impact is in and data, not gut instinct, is calling the shots.

In a landscape where marketers question every rupee spent outdoors, LOC8 is turning lampposts, flyovers and traffic islands into precision-mapped attention laboratories. By crunching dwell time, visibility zones, perceptual size and real-world obstructions, the platform is dragging OOH into a future where creativity meets computer vision and where the best ideas aren’t just eye-catching, but eye-measured. From automotive facelifts to FMCG novelty and real estate trust-building, the message is clear, outdoor has stopped shouting and started listening. Indian Television Dot Com explores more about it in an Interview interview with OSMO co-founder Nipun Arora.

On how OSMO is shifting outdoor advertising from a visibility-led medium to an attention-led one through LOC8.

Traditional OOH has long been measured by visibility and impressions i.e how many people could see an ad. OSMO, through its proprietary AI platform LOC8, is shifting that narrative more towards likelihood of being noticed. Using computer vision and machine learning, LOC8 analyzes real-world video data to measure visibility zones, obstructions, dwell time and perceptual size; bringing precision to how attention is quantified outdoors. It moves the focus from mere impressions to quality of impressions, making OOH a data-verified, attention-led medium comparable to digital in accountability.

On how marketers can use LOC8’s dwell-time, visibility and perception insights to craft more effective, emotionally resonant OOH campaigns.

LOC8 helps brands understand how people truly experience outdoor media how long they look, from what distance, and under what conditions. By quantifying dwell time, visibility duration, and perceptual size; marketers can plan campaigns that align with real human viewing behavior. This empowers creative and strategy teams to design emotionally resonant storytelling where messaging, visual hierarchy and placement are optimized for how people actually notice and process OOH creatives.

About what LOC8 has revealed through campaigns like Renault Triber and Namaste India on how categories such as auto, FMCG and real estate use attention metrics to drive outcomes.

Each category uses attention data differently but all share one common goal: to convert outdoor visibility into measurable engagement.

• Automotive | Renault Triber

For the new Renault Triber facelift, bold creative met data-led planning through LOC8. By analyzing on-ground video data, LOC8 measured real audience attention across placements factoring in visibility zones, obstructions, traffic speed and perceptual size. This enabled Renault to identify corridors that delivered maximum reach, saliency and engagement, optimizing media efficiency and ROI.

• FMCG | Namaste India

In OOH, innovation is the hook and assets are the bait. But bait often hides the hook. With Loc8’s attention metrics, we ensured the bait wasn’t a hurdle, rather it became the perfect stage for innovation to deliver its full impact! The insight proved that creative novelty, when validated by attention data, drives deeper engagement and measurable brand lift.

• Real Estate

For luxury and real estate campaigns targeting HNI/UHNI audiences, attention patterns differ especially between front and rear passengers, who are often the core audience segment for premium sites. LOC8’s ability to distinguish rear vs. front visibility plays a critical role here. It helps identify sites that offer longer viewing windows and stronger perceptual dominance from the rear seat where decision-makers are most likely seated making it a key differentiator for premium and trust-led categories. Together, these insights prove that auto optimizes for impact, FMCG for recall, and real estate for trust visibility showing how attention metrics adapt to category goals while ensuring measurable outcomes.

On how attention analytics will shape the future of brand storytelling and media planning as OOH becomes more digitised and data-driven.

As outdoor digitizes, attention analytics will inform not just where to advertise but how stories are told in public spaces. This evolution transforms OOH from a static broadcast channel into a dynamic attention ecosystem, where creativity is optimized through evidence-based insight.

On how LOC8’s data-led framework helps marketers quantify OOH impact and make outdoor a more accountable, ROI-driven medium.

LOC8 bridges the gap between intuition and evidence. By quantifying metrics like visibility duration, attention opportunity index, and visual saliency rank, it allows brands to benchmark site performance and justify investment. This data-led approach brings transparency, comparability and ROI measurement to a medium historically driven by perception.

On how OSMO ensures AI and computer vision enhance creativity rather than reduce it to numbers.

OSMO believes that technology should enhance creativity, not overshadow it. LOC8’s attention models reveal what naturally draws the human eye helping creative teams refine design cues, contrast, and visual hierarchy for greater impact. By merging art and science, LOC8 empowers creativity with intelligence.

About the creative best practices and design cues LOC8 has uncovered regarding what truly captures consumer attention outdoors.

LOC8’s visual cognition analysis has surfaced clear patterns across campaigns:

• High contrast and minimal messaging outperform cluttered designs.

• Motion cues draw significantly longer dwell times.

• The first two seconds are critical, creatives must establish focus instantly.

• Contextual alignment between the creative and its environment increases attention by over 30%.

These learnings offer a scientific foundation for creative effectiveness helping brands design OOH that’s visually magnetic and emotionally memorable.

On how attention metrics will integrate into omnichannel planning where OOH, digital and social work together for unified brand impact.

Attention can become the unifying KPI across OOH, digital and social to creates seamless storytelling continuity, where outdoor triggers digital engagement. The future of omnichannel planning lies in attention-led integration ensuring that campaigns don’t just reach audiences everywhere but truly capture and hold their focus.