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  • On Children’s Day, dentsu Impact’s chilling ode to ‘Chotu’

    On Children’s Day, dentsu Impact’s chilling ode to ‘Chotu’

    NEW DELHI: Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa, had once said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.”

    Children’s Day is celebrated to raise awareness about the welfare of our children. Yet, look around and you will witness that the reality is quite far from the truth. Children are suffering everywhere and they are abused daily. Their basic rights, education, dignity, hope, and most of all, childhood is snatched away from them, every single day. Currently, millions of child labourers in India are employed across the country in various segments like homes, factories, construction sites, and elsewhere. Popularly referred to as 'Chotu', these children often deal with menial, backbreaking, and dangerous jobs.

    In an ode to showcase this tragedy, dentsu Impact, the creative agency from the house of dentsu international, has launched an eye-opening film in association with My Choices Foundation and Saregama Caravan.

    The film #ChotuKaChildhood showcases various versions of Chotu and the hellish world in which they exist. It communicates their silent suffering, a voice that the world can hear. It also sends out a message that the next time anyone sees such heinous abuses around, s/he must report it and not walk away. Only then, we will be able to save the world, one child at a time.

    dentsu Impact managing partner and national creative director Anupama Ramaswamy said, “Seeing little children working to make ends meet is the worst form of pain. But we walk away, without reporting it. Why did we choose to launch the film on Children’s Day? We believe the contrast of using an occasion, which celebrates children to highlight their suffering, will make the bitter truth come to light more strongly. It is my hope that with more people understanding the message of the film, they will raise their voices against child labour, and help usher in change.”

    Ramaswamy shared that the My Choices Foundation wanted the world to note that there are too many children who still do not enjoy full rights and free choices. “The problem is, we all feel sad when we see a child working for a living, but nobody reports such instances. They wanted to bring to notice the violence, abuse, and exploitation these children go through,” she said.

    She further elaborated that every single situation depicted in the film is inspired by real life. The child labour problem in our country is because of child protection laws, organisations cannot ask people to click pictures or geotag the location, etc. “The only way is to urge people not to walk away. Not just empathise and feel pity, but to report. Every one of us needs to report such instances. In the last few days, a lot of eminent people have shared this film. The message is definitely being noticed. We cannot change the entire society, but even if a few people start reporting, I would like to believe our efforts paid off,” she shared.

    My Choices Foundation’s aim is to see the transformation of India into a safe place for children, and hope this film will help them do that.

  • Transformation is an on-going process, never complete: RD&X Network founder Rajiv Dingra

    Transformation is an on-going process, never complete: RD&X Network founder Rajiv Dingra

    NEW DELHI: Like most people around us, serial entrepreneur Rajiv Dingra counts himself among those who polished their cooking skills during the Covid-2019 lockdown. Now he can now make two mean recipes to perfection: masala paneer and masala chicken. However, unlike most people, that’s not his only achievement. He also happened to work on his new entrepreneurial venture, RD&X Network – a unique deep-tech network to drive brand, business, media, and data transformation that he launched on 27 October 202o. In a recent candid conversation with Indiantelevision.com’s Mansi Sharma, he spilled the beans about his new company, the culture he is expecting to create, and how his creator instincts prompted him to develop something dynamic. 

    On his exit from WatConsult 

    Dingra, who was associated with Dentsu International (then Dentsu Aegis Network) as the chief mentor and advisor for  WATConsult till January 2020, a company that he had founded 13-years back, said that resigning from the agency was certainly not a very easy decision, but he was willing to take the entrepreneur’s seat again. 

    He said, “I had given up my complete stake in WatConsult in December 2019 and within a few days I knew that I did not want to continue as another employee. I do not mean to say that the status of a CEO is anywhere lesser than an entrepreneur but it was more about who I really am. I see myself as a creator, someone who can bring different ideas to life. Also, I was very sure that we had created a brilliant team at WATConsult and nothing would go wrong even if I leave.”

    Another reason that contributed to his exit was the internal transformation that is actively happening across Dentsu offices globally. “I am a person who can’t do three things at a time. I have to disconnect completely from one thing to focus on another and that’s why I preferred to move out.” 

    Read more stories on Rajiv Dingra

    On starting RD&X

    However, when he had put down his papers almost a year ago, he had no idea what his next step would be. But the Covid-2019 pandemic gave him the opportunity to dive deeper into the data and tech space and create RD&X. 

    “I had no idea what I would be doing when I resigned from WATConsult, I just knew that I wanted to create something new, transformative, and disruptive. My last day there was in January this year when Covid-2019 pandemic had just started spreading, but it was nowhere in India. At that time, I realised that deep tech is going to be the next big thing, so I started exploring it. In another era, I would have taken more time to launch something of this stature and vision, but with the pandemic, I knew the time was just right and along with our core team, we worked intensively to put it together.”

    With RD&X, Dingra plans to create a global network of data and technology companies that are aiming to lead the next leg of development. He is already in advanced-level talks with a number of small and mid-sized companies in the US, SEA, and EMEA markets to grow the network and is expecting to make some big announcements in the coming six months. 

    “I'm open to investing in, acquiring, and even buying out some early-stage companies to fit in our larger vision. We are right now investing right now for skill and not for scale, so the core idea right now is to aid our inorganic growth and create strong teams across geographies and then focus on the organic part of it. At the same time, we are creating in-house flagship solutions and looking forward to expanding our India team.” 

    On offerings of RD&X

    For Dingra, the term RD&X is the amalgamation of three things; real-time data, disruptive technologies, and exponential growth and that’s what is on offer at his new entrepreneurial venture. 

    “We bifurcate our core services in four key areas: structured brand transformation, business transformation, media transformation (across buying, planning, and selling spaces), and data transformation. As we go along, we will further fine tune these areas and introduce better tools and technologies to achieve exponential growth for our clients,” he elaborated. 

    “We are going to leverage technology to create and aid new business models. The examples of these are companies like Urban Clap and TikTok. While the former used the latest technology to transform how business is done at salons or home cleaning services, etc., TikTok based on real-time data and technology, did social media in a completely new and unique way.” 

    On the brand identity of RD&X

    While RD&X stands for the exponential growth driven by real-time data and disruptive technologies, the brand name also signifies his own initials, and X stands for the x-factor of all entrepreneurs who are investing in the venture, quipped Dingra. 

    “The brand name signifies an entrepreneurial network which is transformist in nature, which has the attitude of constantly learning, evolving, and making new mistakes,” he explained. 

    The logo, designed by Dingra, hints at the constant juggle between market profits and losses. “If you look at our logo, it has three colours: red, black, and white. Black and red colours have a great significance in the business world; they reflex the profit and loss situations. For me, profit and loss are a unique matrix– for example, Kodak was in the black when it suddenly vanished, and Instagram had been in the red for the longest time but today it is one of the most popular social media platforms. So, it is all very volatile and it comes to the spirit of the team to take none of this seriously. The white stands for the canvas in which these other colours stand; means that no matter where you are today, you will always be on a blank canvas and have the opportunity to transform yourself for better.”

    He continued, “The infinity sign on our logo is not connected completely. It signifies that transformation is never complete, it’s ever going.” 

    On the geo-agnostic, remote-first culture of RD&X

    Dingra is excited to create a unique geo-agnostic work-culture at RD&X, something that has been made immensely easy by the pandemic-induced lockdown and the evolved work-culture. He foresees the firm as a completely employee-first organisation and has created a massive culture and people manifesto for it. “To me, being employee-first means giving up the blanket rules and regulations that we have for all the employees. We need to stop seeing them as another resource but rather as individuals and that is what is going to be our core focus at RD&X,” he said.

    Additionally, he’s willing to create a hybrid work model for the employees. “We will be investing in physical spaces, definitely, so that people have a place to get together and discuss ideas and work together, but we want to be remote-first. That means, people can work from anywhere they want; if they are comfortable at their own homes, they can choose to work from there, but if there are people who are more productive and comfortable in office-spaces, they can come and work from the office. There is going to be no compulsion of any sort for anyone.” 

  • Gautam Mehra gets additional role at Dentsu International

    Gautam Mehra gets additional role at Dentsu International

    NEW DELHI: Dentsu International has now entrusted Gautam Mehra, currently CEO, dentsu Programmatic & chief data officer, dentsu – South Asia, with the additional charge of chief data and product Officer – Asia Pacific (APAC) with immediate effect. He has been assigned to this new role with the intent to build a strong and unified APAC data and product offering across the dentsu network. Based in Mumbai, Gautam will report into Merkle APAC president Zhengda Shen for his additional role.

    Over the years, Mehra has been responsible for driving the data quotient for dentsu across India and South Asia, both internally andth clients. Notably, he led the creation of dentsu’s proprietary adtech product, the dentsu marketing cloud ecosystem – a cohesive system that brings together a slew of dentsu proprietary ecosystems such as the Facebook Marketing Partner (Ad-Tech) Badged DMC Explore, dentsu Play, dentsu TrueValue and other proprietary mar-tech tools used in over 32 markets globally. He has also led the unification of the data sciences and Amnet teams to create dentsu Programmatic, the leading programmatic player in India today.

    Mehra had started his career 20 years ago with his entrepreneurial venture, which was one of the first web development firms in India. Over the years, he did several stints in digital advertising working with the top brands in the country such as Viacom, Government of India, Standard Chartered Bank and Microsoft. In 2013, he joined dentsu following the acquisition of Communicate2 and led the Social & Display businesses of iProspect, the leading performance marketing and search agency of the country. Subsequently in 2016, he took on the role of Chief Data Officer for South Asia and has driven the groups data narrative in the sub-region.

    On the appointment, dentsu Asia Pacific CEO Ashish Bhasin said, “Data is central to our business strategy and the ability to handle data well and utilize it to its full capacity is critical in fine tuning way of reaching, interacting, and causing a reaction from the consumers; it ensures advertising efforts are in the right direction.”

    “Having Gautam drive this data agenda for us is crucial in the era of data explosion. He has earned a reputation of developing and delivering highly innovative data-led initiatives while embodying the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurism. This is a well-deserved promotion and I look forward to working closely with him,” Bhasin added.

    Zhengda Shen said, “Organizations are constantly challenged to evolve with agility and speed and adapt to ever changing consumer dynamics. Providing leadership for clients by integrating data, media, content and technology to navigate through this shifting landscape is a critical function of agencies. Gautam’s track record for driving innovations and developing globally scaled solutions makes him perfectly placed to help our clients in the region and to ensure that dentsu international continues to lead through innovation.”

    Mehra said, “There are almost no limits to what we can uncover by studying consumer behavior and their interplay with brands. I’m excited to apply my leadership, knowledge, and experience in delivering globally adopted tech driven products and solutions to further the data-driven culture of dentsu international and to build the practice across APAC, further cementing our dominance in this area within the region in using cutting edge technology to solve everyday client challenges.”