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Tag: Manish Bhatt

  • Zohar Furniturewala joins Scarecrow as ECD

    Zohar Furniturewala joins Scarecrow as ECD

    MUMBAI: To beef up its art department – Scarecrow – is bringing Zohar Furniturewala on board as ECD.

     

    Commenting on the development, Scarecrow founder director Manish Bhatt said:  “At the current stage of Scarecrow’s nonstop four year long journey, Scarecrow handles many  brands like ITC  (Vivel & Fiama Di Wills), Joy Cosmetics, Vimal, Lava and other brands across various categories like lifestyle, personal care, beauty, fashion etc. which demand new design ideas every day. So, apart from Kapil Tammal, Scarecrow was looking for one more design mentor, which we found in Zohar. He is not only a great design mind but also a great idea person and an occasional writer too. And his experience of running a design house will help him to become one of the rare creative people who understand the business we are in.”

     

    Furniturewala will be joining the agency’s Mumbai office on 1 April. As its aftermath, Scarecrow Mumbai Art department will be divided into two groups. Kapil Tammal and Zohar Furniturewala will mentor the Art department and each group will handle more than 15 brands.

     

    Zohar has fifteen years of experience in creating and executing idea-led brand campaigns & design projects, while running agencies and creative departments. Specific areas of expertise include: creative leadership, robust knowledge of advertising and communication, great inter-personal relationships, team playing, perfectionism, freethinking and learning.

     

    Thorough with creative business management aided by a keen insight and understanding of how businesses and clients work, Zohar founded the Thunk Design Company in 2007, where he handled fashion & lifestyle brands, home appliances and media brands (Reliance Corporate, Mustang Socks and Accessories, Optima Communications -Middle East, Chromozome Men’s Innerwear, Futurebazaar.com.)

     

    After studying BFA from Sir J.J. Institute of Applied Arts majoring in Typography, Zohar started his career in Ambience in 1998.

  • Zee appoints Scarecrow for its food channel Khana Khazana

    MUMBAI: Zee Entertainment Limited has appointed Scarecrow Communications as the creative agency for Khana Khazana, its 24×7 food channel. The account will be handled out of Scarecrow‘s Mumbai office. The win came after a systematic pitch process, involving the top agencies in the country.

    The new creative campaign for Zee Khana Khazana is based on a powerful insight and will serve as a platform to showcase the exciting line up of new shows, thereby continuing the tradition of creating people-centric content by the Zee family which is appreciated across genres.

    Says Raghu Bhat- Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications, “We are thrilled to partner Zee in this new journey of capturing Indian stomachs and eventually, their hearts.”

    Says Joy Sengupta, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications, “Our association with the Zee group is not new. But it‘s highly satisfying to bag one more prestigious mandate from the pioneers of Indian TV entertainment space.”

    Says Manish Bhatt, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communications, “Zee is Indian by heart, Indian by nature and Indian by actions. We hope to use our instinct and knowledge of the Indian pulse to create a distinct positioning for Khana Khazana.”

    With fully functional offices in Mumbai and Delhi, Scarecrow Communications is India‘s one of the fastest growing advertising agencies with brands such as Danone Narang, Reliance Digital, Anchor Panasonic, Future Capital, Emami, Religare, Eristoff, Kohinoor McCormick, Viacom 18, Quikr, Rupa and DLF. Recently, Scarecrow started its full fledged design outfit, Scarecrow Designs.

    Zee Khana Khazana which pioneered the cookery show content in India is all set to build on its legacy with a slew of highly exciting and original new shows, targeting Sec A, B housewives across India.

  • Curry Nation to consolidate creative biz in 2013

    MUMBAI: For Priti Nair and Naggesh Pannaswami, it wasn‘t the best of times to start their entrepreneurial journey. The Indian economic growth story was getting stained by a slowdown and harsh winds were blowing from Europe, the US and other parts of the world.

    A contrarian mood was, however, ruling the agency world. Media professionals were chucking their jobs and taking the plunge to become masters of their destinies. Agnello Dias and Santosh Padhi had started Taproot while Manish Bhatt, Raghu Bhat and Joy Sengupta had set up their own agency Scarecrow and Raj Kurup had flown solo with Creativeland Asia.

    The infection spread to Nair and Pannaswami and they founded Curry Nation in January 2011. “It is always scary when you start on your own. But we knew we had to do it,” Nair recalls as we settle for a chat in the conference room of the new office at Mahim.

    For the duo, there was no need to get the early frights. They had a founding client in Emami and they were clear that they could tap the small and medium-sized Indian clients.

    “Yes, we were fortunate in having Emami right from the start,” says Nair.

    Then the whole thing was about drawing in talented people. “Fortunately for us, we had a good bunch of people joining us in the first year itself. Even before we went into a formal proper office, we already had three people on board apart from Naggesh and I,” says Nair.

    Along the journey, Emami‘s other brands got added and so did other personal care brands. Today, Curry Nation lends its creative services to brands like Borosil, 18 Again, Emami (personal care brands) and Himani.

    Having completed two years, the homegrown advertising agency Curry Nation is where its wants to be – in the thick of things, doing the kind of work it always wanted to.

    The team at Curry Nation has also grown to 18 people working out of a new office in Mahim. Happy to talk about her team, Nair says “they are a bunch of happy people doing the kind of work they like and believe in”.

    Curry Nation ended 2012 with one of the most visible and controversial campaigns of 2012 – the ‘18 Again‘ project. The communication about 18 Again, a brand of vaginal tightening cream, attracted a lot of attention and the campaign was pulled out by ASCI following complaints regarding its social effect.

    Nair describes ‘18 Again‘ as one of the highlights and challenges of the year. “As a product, there was always going to be a challenge considering the client wanted to market a vaginal tightening cream as just that and not under the veil of anything else. As far as the communication goes, I am very proud of it. It is something that will stay in our show reel for long. I am proud that we did not succumb to clichés while charting out the communication and made the ads about celebration instead of showing the Indian woman as downtrodden and distressed till the product came along,” she explains.

    About the controversy that surrounds the ad, Nair believes that even a 10 second placement with the term ‘vaginal tightening cream’ would have evoked the same reaction. “We have been in the business long enough to know that you have to be sensitive with these kind of products. It’s a country that is still hidden under morals and notions like that and it is hypocritical at times. We have gone through the whole process of doing Balbeer Pasha and Liril. Increasingly now the case is that people jump to conclusions and start having issues with everything. If you see the kind of commercials that have been pulled up, even chocolates and sauces commercials are pulled up. All because somebody wakes up and objects because now they have the right to voice their opinion,” she points out.

    The year 2012 also saw Curry Nation start its own media division with their first client Weikfield. The agency also handled the media duties for ‘18 Again‘.

    Looking ahead at the year 2013, Nair and Pannaswami have their eyes set on two goals – consolidate the creative business and enhance and grow the media division.

    Explaining further, Pannaswani says, “It will be a phase of consolidation for us and for organic growth. Most of our growth has been organic. What has happened is that our existing clients have been giving us more business while we have added few clients. We do want to spread ourselves into other categories as well. But, again, there are only so many categories that are opening up in terms of ad spends. So this year, we would like to consolidate the brands that we have and focus on the media division which needs support and growth.”

    Looking at Curry Nation’s client roster, one observes two things – most of the clients are from the personal care/ health care category and all the clients are Indian companies.

    Nair explains that while neither has been a conscious occurrence, Curry Nation as a creative force lends itself well in both cases. “The DNA of Curry Nation is Indian-ness. We are very clear that we want to create communication that is relevant to contemporary India. India is a bit of a macro country and the people are very dimensional in their emotions. It is not like a single layer, there are multiple nuances to our culture. We always look for an Indian insight to employ in our communication and this is what makes us a good fit with Indian brands which is evident in our roster of clients.”

    On the acquisition front, Curry Nation is happy going solo as of now. “We are happy to be in a new and bigger office. It gives a feeling of growing. And it is satisfying. We are where we wanted to be as of now,” signs off Nair.

  • Scarecrow creats Rupa’s new ad to promote voting

    MUMBAI: Indifference towards voting has been an unresolved issue in India and the election statistics over the years prove the same. Taking forward the former tagline of Frontline – Sabse Aage (Ahead of everyone) – inner wear brand Rupa took the opportunity to bring in a new dimension in its positioning. Through its new campaign, the brand not only wants to strengthen its market positioning, but also hopes to throw light on a larger social cause.

    Rupa has adopted a new tagline – ‘Raho duniya se ek kadam aage‘ (Stay a step ahead of the world) – in a bid to take the brand thought one step further while the TVC tackles ways to boost the voting percentage and promote the turnout in elections in the country.

    The sound track of the TVC is crafted from the originally composed Bengali patriotic song ‘Ekla Cholo Re‘ written by Rabindranath Tagore. The soundtrack of the TVC has been recomposed by Rooshin Dalal and the film has been directed by Gajraj Rao from Code Red Films. The thought behind the song was to press the listener to continue one‘s journey alone, even if there is no one to support.

    The new version is sung by the actor, music director, lyricist, singer and scriptwriter – Piyush Mishra.

    Rupa director Mukesh Agarwal said, “Frontline is our flagship brand, and we were very keen to take its communication a step further. The story not only helps us reinforce the core brand thought but, for the first time, also helps us connect with the society and give out a meaningful message.

    Scarecrow Communications founder director Manish Bhatt said, “Apathy towards voting has been a chronic problem. If you look at India‘s election statistics post independence, almost half of the country never turns out to vote. We saw a poignant issue, which Frontline as a brand could associate with and give a new dimension to its communication. “

    Scarecrow Communications founder director Arunava (Joy) Sengupta said, “Previously, Sabse Aage, was the positioning of Frontline. While the previous films used humour as the plank, with this film we have tried to bring the positioning to life and give the Frontline man a definitive personality. The new tagline – ‘Raho duniya se ek kadam aage‘, sums it up perfectly.”

    Scarecrow Communications executive creative director Kapil Tammal said, “We‘ve tried our best to keep the action very real. Exaggeration helps in humour, but not in courage. We did an intensive recce to choose the right locations and camera angles to stage the intense drama.”

    Scarecrow Communications creative director Sarvesh Raikar said, “The sound was a critical and tough part of the film. Both the composer and singer, Piyush Mishra, have done a fantastic job of weaving together the grunge (necessary to the drama) and the quintessential melody of the song, seamlessly.”

  • Scarecrow bags Flourish milk and dairy portfolio

    MUMBAI: Ahmedabad milk and dairy brand Flourish has roped in indie agency Scarecrow Communications Ltd for its creative mandate. The agency will be handing the brand from its Mumbai office while Ahmedabad based One Advertising will continue to be the communication arm for the brand in Gujarat.

    Flourish PureFoods is setting up its cow farms designed as exquisite resort campuses with comfortable cattle housing infrastructure and milking technology. They will manufacture and market long life milk, unique milk products along with other high quality and healthy food products.

    Flourish owner Sushil Handa said, “Scarecrow fits the bill. In fact, they almost presented my dream and added some welcome new dimensions right before my eyes. I like the quirky energy they possess and the rare ability to think from an entrepreneur‘s POV.”

    Scarecrow founder director Manish Bhatt said, “Milk is an interesting product category to work on and a refreshing opportunity for the agency‘s creative juices to blend with.”

    Scarecrow founder director Arunava (Joy) Sengupta said, “Working towards fulfilling Flourish Team‘s dream will only strengthen the agency‘s conviction in its brand building capabilities. Milk is known to be healthy and I believe it‘s so for our businesses as well.”

  • Scarecrow elevates Kapil Tammal to ECD

    MUMBAI: Scarecrow Communications has elevated Kapil Tammal to the position of executive creative director.

    Tammal, earlier creative director (art) for both Scarecrow Mumbai and Delhi, has taken charge of his new role from today.

    He will also continue his additional responsibility as design director – Scarecrow Designs.

    Scarecrow Communications founder director Manish Bhatt said, “Scarecrow has seen lots of good news in the past one year and we wanted to give it a RTB (Reason to Believe). Our vision is to create the best second line and empower it from time to time. We brought Kapil on board because he is a rare talent. But his stunning performance, in the span of a year and a few months, led him to this new designation. In fact, Kapil is the fastest growing creative leader of one of the the fastest growing ad agencies in the country.”

    Prior to joining Scarecrow Communications, Tammal was with McCann Erikson Mumbai as creative director art. He has also worked at Umbrella Design, Concept Communication and McCann Worldgroup. He has handled clients like Vaseline, Pears, Liril (Unilver), Maybelline (L‘oreal), The Economic Times and Onida.

  • Scarecrow’s growth plans after 4 wins this magic week

    MUMBAI: For founder-promoters Raghu Bhat, Manish Bhatt and Arunava Joy Sengupta, this week has been a turning point with their two-year-four-month-old agency recording four wins in the week.

    Scarecrow Communications‘ prize catch has been the consolidation of Religare‘s account. The agency will now handle the creative duties of Religare Broking, Religare Health Insurance, Religare Macquarie and Religare Arts Initiative for its first client. The next line of attack will be to bag Religare‘s mutual fund that is under the care of Ogilvy.
    Bhatt recollects those early days when the agency‘s name was not even firmed up. “When we first started with Religare Macquarie (a joint venture), Scarecrow did not exist. Our cards read Raghu, Manish and Joy and the address was of a coffee shop where we used to meet. We had pitched along with the likes of Ogilvy, Law and Kenneth, Lowe and TBWA and managed to win the account as a bunch of individuals. Scarecrow exists today because of that. Religare has been very lucky for us,” he says.

    The week‘s other two wins are significant in another sense as Scarecrow prepares to expand its operations geographically while widening its client portfolio. Emami is Kolkata-based while Justbooks, a community library firm, hails from Bengaluru. The fourth win will be announced soon and Bhatt is not ready to talk about it.

    Having offices in Mumbai and Delhi, Scarecrow is now planning to have a presence in both Kolkata and Bengaluru. Though the creative idea shop has around 35 clients across Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, the servicing so far is done from the Mumbai and Delhi offices.
    The Scarecrow Trio – Arunava, Manish & Raghu

    The Scarecrow Trio – Arunava, Manish & Raghu
    Scarecrow’s next target is setting a base is the eastern metro of Kolkata. Apart from the recently won Emami Healthy & Tasty edible oil account, Scarecrow already services five of innerwear manufacturer Rupa’s brands – Frontline, Kidline, Euro, Thermocot and Bumchums, also based out of the City of Joy.

    Scarecrow believes in first building a client list in a region before setting up shop there. “We prefer having clients and slowly building our reputation before setting up an office in these centres. This makes working easier. That is the way we set up the Delhi office,” says Bhatt.

    The six-month-old Delhi office has helped Scarecrow expand its client portfolio, winning most of the agency‘s new businesses. Housing 10 people, it services five major brands – Eristoff, Bacardi, MVI Mobiles, DLF and PentAir.

    “We plan to bring on board new clients and double our team in Delhi. Incidentally, the Delhi office gets us maximum new businesses, surpassing even the Mumbai headquarters,” informs Bhatt.

    Scarecrow‘s future strategy is to work with more companies that have a cluster of brands, products and services under them. It is already associated with brands like Future Capital, DNA, Viacom 18, Nestle, Quikr, MVL & Pentair.

    “Working with such companies not only gives an agency exposure and experience but also makes expansion of brand portfolio easier. There is a tuning of sorts and both the parties are acquainted with each other’s style of working and expectations,” explains Bhatt.

    The agency is eager to work with more brands across various categories. “We are pretty strong in the financial services category as we have already done work for Religare, Axis bank etc. FMCG is the most sustainable category for any agency as recession and slowdown do not really have a big bearing on it. They give you a good strength. We were already in the FMCG category but we have never planned communication for an edible oil brand. So it will be a learning experience for us too,” avers Bhatt.

  • Euro launches new campaign created by Scarecrow

    Euro launches new campaign created by Scarecrow

    MUMBAI: Fashion innerwear brand Euro, from the house of Rupa & Co, has launched a campaign with a view to reinvigorate its brand presence in partnership with creative agency Scarecrow Communications.

    Euro was launched with ‘Prepare to get assaulted‘ campaign. The campaign was successful, but having ran it for years, the brand team felt it was about time Euro took a fresh stance and reconnected with the target audience.
    The new campaign breaks the category codes and introduces a new brand of humour in the segment. It stems from the insight that ‘size‘ is a big thing for men. It boosts their ego and even self-esteem.

    The campaign through a series of press ads and hoardings asks men the million dollar question – what‘s your size? The print campaign is shot exclusively in Prague by photographer Colston Julian. The TVC are conceptualised by Scarecrow and produced by Salt Management.

    Rupa & Co president brand promotion Rajnish Agarwal said, “Euro is another success story from the house of Rupa. The earlier positioning ‘prepared to get assaulted‘ had created a distinct space for Euro. Now we need to take it to the next level and cement our bond with the youth of India. The current campaign ‘What‘s your size?‘ is a step in that direction.”

    Scarecrow founder director Manish Bhatt said, “‘Mine is bigger than yours‘ is the most fundamental male insight. The campaign is single-mindedly based on this insight. Hence, we think the campaign will touch a chord with the audience.”

    Scarecrow senior creative director Kapil Tammal added, “We are in a process of revamping the entire Rupa portfolio in phases. Euro kicks off this transformational journey in style. For the idea to realise its full potential, we needed the casting and the production to be spot on. Models were flown in from all parts of Europe. We are happy the production teams in India and Prague didn‘t let us down.”

  • Scarecrow gets serious in Delhi, appoints Anindya Banerjee as ECD

    Scarecrow gets serious in Delhi, appoints Anindya Banerjee as ECD

    MUMBAI:Scarecrow Communications has roped in Anindya Banerjee to head its creative function in Delhi as executive creative director.

    Until now, the agency’s Delhi clients such as Religare and Bharat Petroleum were handled from Mumbai. With Banerjee on board, Scarecrow is intending to compete more effectively with Delhi-based agencies in new business pitches.

    Banerjee moves in from Law & Kenneth and has nearly 14 years of experience in agencies such as Ogilvy, Contract and Publicis.

    Says co-founder Manish Bhatt,” Andy will provide great creative leadership in Delhi. His equity comes from the work he has done, not from PR. He will also attract great talent and will make Scarecrow Delhi a happy, non-political, creative place to work in.”

    Banerjee has several successful campaigns on brands such as NIIT, Nestle, IBM, Hewlett Packard, IBM, Vodafone, Dabur Vatika, Allen Solly, LG Phones, Perfetti, Maruti, Unitech and Lotus Herbals.

    States Banerjee,” I have known Joy, Manish and Raghu for almost 15 years. And every time we have worked together, there was a vibe. And a joie de vivre that emanated from the sheer happiness of creating wonderful work without losing out on the objective of the campaign. In any case, I have always believed in the power of the independent agency, so when this opportunity arose, I grabbed it.”

    Also, amongst Banerjee’s two widely recalled campaigns have been the ‘Me and Meri Maggi‘ campaign and the relaunch of Limca.

    Says founder-director Raghu Bhat,” Andy brings many things to the table – subversive creativity, speed of thinking, a cool head primed by experience, bounce-backability, integrity and absence of ego. Hopefully, we should be able to announce a big signing in Delhi in the next few days.”

     

     

  • Scarecrow bags creative duties of Ackruti City

    Scarecrow bags creative duties of Ackruti City

    MUMBAI: Scarecrow Communications has won the creative mandate of a real estate company, Ackruti City.

    The duties will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai branch.

    The mandate was awarded following a multi-agency pitch called by Ackruti, in which five agencies participated.

    Ackruti already works with Origin Beanstalk Creative Consultants. however, as the company Is growing, it has decided to split the portfolio between two agencies.

    Says Ackruti City head brand marketing and communications Gautam Maitra, “Our requirement for communication has grown over time. What Scarecrow offered was a fair amount of thought in their work. We were looking for the right creative thinking. Scarecrow impressed us as did their pro-active work.”

    Adds Scarecrow Communications founder director Manish Bhatt, “This is one category we did not have much experience in. However, you cannot ignore the real-estate category with the amount of buzz around it. We have touched projects in the category before, but when we met the people at Ackruti, we understood that they wanted something new and uncategory-like, and at the same time, exploit our knowledge of other categories.”

    Scarecrow Communications had recently bagged the creative duties of five Rupa brands: Frontline, Kidline, Euro, Thermocot and Bumchums. Also, the agency had bagged the creative mandate for DNA in January 2011 and created a mass campaign called ‘India Positive’.