Tag: Rajesh Ghatge

  • Guest Article: We are obsessed with platforms & clients

    Guest Article: We are obsessed with platforms & clients

    Mumbai: Digital platforms change how we consume and provide digital products and services. Digital platforms comprising technical infrastructures and their ecosystems of social actors continue to disrupt entire industries. They evolve by leveraging the latest and the best of innovations and continuously learn from the data that resides on it.

    Platforms are where – consumers, users, companies, institutions and for that matter, all stake-holder seek information, create, operate, transact, communicate and engage. Some platforms are outward-facing ie consumer or user-facing, while others help in digitalising or automating operations.

    Effectively transforming an organisation of any nature or scale is impossible without creating a customised ecosystem. Critically there is a need for one to assess in depth the power and constraints of each platform – even if they are all available. It is like – a great dish cannot be guaranteed in spite of all the exotic ingredients that may be available. You need the right recipe and need to have the ability to cook it to perfection. Most business leaders especially those whose key mandate is to digitally transform or innovate their businesses – cite that, choosing the right platforms in the context of their category, business life stage, budgets etc, is the toughest decision that they have to make. Massive blunders are commonplace – as the decision is so complex.

    The other side of the coin is that consumers consume on platforms. They switch from one to another or are simultaneously ‘on’ more than many. Their preference for platforms changes depending on their, purpose, mood, intent, objective, time of the day or familiarity. Essentially the gratification that they seek and the way they interact with and behave on the platform are vastly different – some can be predicted and rest that need a real-time response to their cues. The choice of the brand on which platforms to launch, build desirability or merely promote their products and services is equally complex.

    A deep knowledge of platforms, choosing the right ones, and stitching them all together in a seamless ecosystem to drive superlative consumer (user) experiences and achieve higher organisational productivity is now a common (and perhaps the most important) KPI for all business leaders, across the organisation, irrespective of their domain expertise or functional responsibilities.

    At Wondrlab we are obsessed with platforms. We invest all the time and money, and sweat, in acquiring and developing deep platform expertise, so that we can deliver platform-first solutions to our customers and hand-hold them through their journey of creating and running a unique transformational ecosystem across marketing and business. Our engagement with each one of them is aimed at delivering simplicity on the other side of complexity.

    Our most recent acquisition of Cymetrix a leading salesforce consulting and data analytics company is driven by this obsession. Leveraging salesforces’ customer 360 platform play and combining it with our already acquired platform capabilities in digital content, digital media and influencer marketing we are delivering transformative solutions to clients combining AI+data+CRM+content+media. Needless to say simply!

    This article has been authored by Wondrlab Technologies CEO Rajesh Ghatge.

  • Wondrlab India launches Wondrlab Technologies, ropes in Rajesh Ghatge as CEO

    Wondrlab India launches Wondrlab Technologies, ropes in Rajesh Ghatge as CEO

    Mumbai: Wondrlab has launched Wondrlab Technologies to help clients transform their businesses and brands in the dynamically evolving industry 4.0 digital landscape. Rajesh Ghatge joined Wondrlab Technologies as CEO. Before joining Wondrlab, Ghatge was the CEO of Indigo Consulting and PubHub, and also the chief growth officer (India) at Publicis Groupe.

    Wondrlab acquired WYP, Opportune and Neon –building its capabilities to deliver platform-first solutions integrating creative, content and media. With the launch of Wondrlab Technologies, Wondrlab embarks on building a comprehensive new age technology, design, and analytics solution stack – to deliver transformation solutions globally, said the company in a statement.

    “We are creating an interconnected and powered system comprising content, community, data, media and technology in a manner that has never been attempted before,” said Wondrlab India founder and CEO Saurabh Varma. “Most agencies and technology companies struggle to integrate fragmented capabilities when addressing client asks. Our client centric and platform-first approach – builds a bespoke and multidimensional ecosystem that delivers outcomes at the speed of business demands for individual clients.”

    He continued, “At Wondrlab Technologies, we are on a path to building martech and digital business transformation technologies that are ahead of the curve. Previously, Rajesh has partnered with me in building scalable technologies to deliver innovative and transformative solutions on client mandates across markets. To build out Wondrlab Technologies globally, Rajesh will be leveraging his ability to scale diverse capabilities and teams, while weaving them together to create tremendous value for clients.”

    Ghatge added on his appointment, “The biggest pain that companies experience is the burden of choosing the right technology, making it actually work, evangelising adoption across its constituencies, and finally driving results. The pain is further aggravated by the increasing frequency of technology obsolescence. With a goal of relieving our clients of this challenge, we are stringing together a solution stack across design, data, and technology in an outcome-driven ecosystem. Our endeavour will be fueled by acquiring a range of complementing technology, and digital experience companies. Wondrlab’s commitment to help clients thrive in an ever-changing digital universe, makes it the right place for me.”

  • Publicis Groupe launches PubHub, Rajesh Ghatge named chief growth officer

    Publicis Groupe launches PubHub, Rajesh Ghatge named chief growth officer

    Delhi : Publicis Groupe on Wednesday announced the launch of PubHub, a comprehensive ecosystem that will create bespoke marketing transformation solutions at scale ,through the integration of specialised capabilities across data, content, technology, production, and commerce.

    PubHub will tap into PG India’s established model that provides services to some of the top global clients across multiple markets.

    The model has demonstrated success in connecting people, processes, systems and data needed to fuel marketing transformation in all aspects of design and delivery. It is built to be open source, connecting with tech partners and clients’ partner agencies alike to deliver on client goals better, faster and efficiently, said the agency.

    PubHub will be led by Indigo Consulting CEO Rajesh Ghatge, who now additionally takes on the role of chief growth officer, Publicis Groupe India. Ghatge is already leading the implementation of Global Hub for GSK.

    Last year Publicis won the global production mandate of Circle in partnership with Tag. It is a first ever model set up to deliver marketing transformation, using data, content , technology and production capabilities and will be servicing close to 90+ brands across 90+ markets.

    Ghatge has been with the Groupe for close to four and a half years and has close to three decades of experience across marketing and technology. Previously he has launched and built organisations in the space of travel, training  and brand activation . Before joining Publicis, he also led a technology-enabled social enterprise which trained and certified school drop-outs to become certified elder care workers.

    Publicis Groupe, South Asia, CEO Anupriya Acharya says, “Today, the demand for scaled marketing transformation solutions is growing exponentially– on the back of accelerated adoption of digital and tech. For Publicis Groupe , India has emerged as a massive capability centre for digital and tech-led deep expertise across contemporary and innovative marketing and business transformation solutions. Large mandates across global and national brands are being managed across the Groupe in India. The launch of PubHub is  timely and apt. With an intrinsic model to scale fast,  it has been designed to be agile and responsive while leveraging our proficiency and vast experience across the creative, technology and media competencies.”

    Rajesh Ghatge said, “As a client organisation, the choices of agency partners, consulting partners , tools and technologies are immense. These choices are giving rise to one big challenge – that of being able to weave together the right components of creative , data and technology to effectively win in the platform world. Moreover, reclaiming growth has become the number one priority for most enterprises in a dramatically changed world. In this added mandate , I am looking forward to leverage our diverse capabilities and experience to create repeatable and scalable solutions for our clients via PubHub, and fuel significant growth for them.” 

  • Indigo Consulting appoints Prasanna Kulkarni as head of creative

    Indigo Consulting appoints Prasanna Kulkarni as head of creative

    MUMBAI: Indigo Consulting has bolstered its key leadership team with the appointment of Prasanna Kulkarni as head of creative.

    Prasanna has 20 years of advertising, brand strategy and digital media experience, and his last stint was with Cheil India as creative head  of digital. At Indigo Consulting, he will be based out of Mumbai and will report to Indigo Consulting CEO Rajesh Ghatge.

    Speaking about the new key appointment, Rajesh Ghatge says, “We have driven aggressive acquisition of new clients in the last couple of years, winning large digital marketing mandates and complex digital transformation projects in the bargain. We have some of the largest brands across categories engaged with us. To deliver the best-in-class intelligent digital and omni-channel experiences, we have built and groomed an amazing creative community at Indigo Consulting. Prasanna’s mandate is to lead this community from the front across our communication and digital platform design, and build offerings. I look forward to him leveraging his deep expertise in both, brand communication and interaction design, to fuel our momentum further. His endeavour will be to deliver a fantastic creative and innovative product to our clients.”

    Prasanna’s advertising career spans over 20 years, where he has worked at ZenithOptimedia Group (a part of Publicis.Media), J Walter Thompson, OgilvyOne and Rediff.com. He has worked on India’s largest brands, some of which are Vodafone, Samsung, Tata Motors, Asian Paints, Pidilite, ICICI Bank, Jet Airways, Godrej, Adidas, Star India, Ceat Tyres, Piaggio India, OLX and Mondelez. He is a highly-celebrated advertising professional, with several industry awards under his belt.

    Speaking about his new role, Prasanna mentions, “I am extremely excited to be a part of such a talented, multidisciplinary team at Indigo Consulting. It’s an exceptional opportunity to engage with the unique blend of digital transformation engagements coupled with brand narratives. I am eager to kick-start this new journey and create some great, effective work.”

  • Publicis Entertainment opens in India with ‘Sanju’ campaign

    Publicis Entertainment opens in India with ‘Sanju’ campaign

    MUMBAI: Motion picture production and distribution giant Fox Star Studios has brought Publicis Entertainment on board as its digital and social media marketing partner. Publicis Entertainment is the recently unveiled entertainment marketing and branded entertainment arm of Publicis Communications.

    Speaking about the association with Publicis Entertainment and Indigo Consulting, a spokesperson from Fox Star Studios said: “At Fox Star Studios we were looking for a partner that could best bring out the magic of Sanju’s story digitally. Publicis Entertainment and Indigo Consulting were the partners that understood this the best, and we worked closely with them on the film.”

    Commenting on the tie-up with Fox Star Studios for the promotion of Sanju , Publicis Entertainment executive director Pranay Anthwal said, “It is a pleasure to work with a marketing team like Fox Star Studios. Sanju is the first of many special films we will be working on for them. We worked closely with Indigo Consulting for this project, starting with putting together a specialist team comprising India’s finest social creative and digital marketing minds”

    “The project team ensured that we not only were on top of the social piece but also indexed most of our product and effort to the holy grail ticket sales. We look forward to a fruitful association with Fox Star Studios,” he added.

    Indigo Consulting CEO Rajesh Ghatge added, “The digital platform allows a dialogue; it facilitates conversations and participation. A movie experience now is no longer limited to the show in the theatre – it extends before, during and after screenings. The experience allows deep discovery of the characters, stars, the subject and also artistes who have made it happen. We are excited to have partnered Fox Star in driving the digital mandate of Sanju. We got an opportunity to strategically and creatively drive its narrative and engagement on digital with the use of data led insights, nimble content and interesting platforms.”

    As a part of the association Publicis Entertainment, along with Indigo Consulting, launched an integrated digital campaign to promote Bollywood blockbuster film Sanju. The movie is a biopic of actor Sanjay Dutt.

  • Publicis launches customer experience centre of excellence

    Publicis launches customer experience centre of excellence

    MUMBAI: Publicis Communications has launched its new customer experience centre of excellence in India. Three Publicis Communications agencies – SapientRazorfish, DigitasLBi and Indigo Consulting – have come together to consolidate their top-end user experience and user interface capabilities to form the experience centre.

    The centre will house some of India’s best UX/UI professionals. In addition, it will have access to the Publicis.Sapient team based out of India, one of the largest customer experience-focused teams in the country, covering the breadth of design and technology. 

    This team helps brands connect with consumers, focusing on delivering rich design experiences across domains and industries for Fortune 500 clients, globally. Publicis Communications’ India clients will now have access to unprecedented thought leadership by heads of verticals spanning financial services, automotive and retail, amongst others. They will also have access to other offerings such as rapid prototyping and the immersive UX lab.

    The centre will be led by SapientRazorfish’s customer experience director Hemant Bhagia who has over 17 years of domain experience, working across sectors such as technology and BFSI. 

    Prior to joining SapientRazorfish, he worked with Capgemini India as head of the UX practice.

    Bhagia has worked for clients such GE, Airtel, AT&T, Verizon, Metlife, DHL and the Government of UK (where he was involved in the ‘Smart City’ project). 

    SapientRazorfish and DigitasLBi CEO – India Himani Kapadia says, “This strategic shift is in line with our vision of creating client-focused best-in-class solutions. It made sense to create connections between our immense ‘for India’ and ‘from India’ CX capabilities spread across brands, so that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole. Each brand will continue to have teams under their roof, thus ensuring insulation for clients, while being part of a platform that gives them access to thought leadership, best practices, talent and infrastructure to deliver new age experience solutions.”

    Indigo Consulting CEO Rajesh Ghatge adds, “The voice of the customer is demanding best-in-class, best-in-category, immersive CX solutions. This ask can only be addressed by getting in the best talent that is supported by distilled insights and collective experience. The centre is aimed to build a competence in UX and UI, in depth and scale, which is unmatched in the country. The benefit to our clients is going to be immense, helping them win bigger and win faster in the marketplace.”

  • Garnier India hands over digital portfolio to Indigo Consulting

    Garnier India hands over digital portfolio to Indigo Consulting

    MUMBAI: Publicis Communications’ specialised digital agency, Indigo Consulting, has won the digital duties for L’Oreal India’ personal care brand, Garnier India. The agency will look after the digital and social media mandate for the brand. The account will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai office, and was won after a multi-agency pitch.

    The Garnier customer is discovering new categories, learning new regimens and even comparing and shopping online. For the personal care category, digital is no longer a fringe medium and is a strategic tool used to complement the efforts on mass media. The team at Indigo Consulting will design content and acts that will drive this behaviour change.

    Garnier India general manager Pankaj Sharma says, “The team at Indigo displayed an in-depth understanding of how to make our brands relevant on social media. This, coupled with their consumer-centric approach and their data-driven insights made us believe that they are the right partner for us.”  

    In India, Garnier comprises brands across hair care, hair colour and skin care for men and women. Apart from managing digital and social media, Indigo Consulting will also offer e-commerce solutions, and create and execute 360-degree digital-led brand campaigns.

    Indigo Consulting CEO Rajesh Ghatge adds, “We are glad to be working with Garnier to lead this digital evolution through meaningful content and deep engagement. Today, the burden of behaviour change is almost entirely on the traditional TV commercial. But at Indigo Consulting, we will make an impact by leveraging our ‘Play’ platform. Play uses data across social and other channels to create result-oriented experiences for the brand on digital. I look forward to our team creating some fantastic digital acts for this exciting brand.”

  • Digital communication: Indepay hires Indigo iStrat

    Digital communication: Indepay hires Indigo iStrat

    MUMBAI: Indepay Networks, the privilege prepaid card issuer and the pioneer of branch-less banking, has hired Indigo iStrat, Leo Burnett India’s digital wing, to manage digital activities after a multi-agency pitch.

    The agency will handle Indepay’s brand communication, digital media and social media planning for India and global markets.

    Indepay CEO Indepay Rajib Saha says “Indigo iStrat brings a unique offering that changes the way we use cash for our everyday spends; and communicating our proposition effectively would have been a challenge amidst the high share of voice in the media by other financial technology players, especially post demonetisation in India. Our ability to run integrated communication with banks as co-owners, gave us great advantage and Indigo iStrat’s expertise in banking and financial category helps them understand these nuances.”

    Indepay enables its customers to open an account with minimum documentation. Besides lowering costs for banks through branch-less banking, it offers the convenience of withdrawals and transfers at ATMs, rewards on daily spends that are accessed through a prepaid debit card and USSD banking. While the cards will be co-created with banks, BCA and SBI will remain the main merchant and settlements banks for Indonesia and India respectively.

    Indigo CEO Rajesh Ghatge says, “We have worked extensively at offering digital build and marketing solutions to the banking and finance sector, fully understanding the complexity and scale at which brands within this sector need to operate. At the heart of transformation in the BFSI category is a seamless consumer experience and engagement that the brands are striving to deliver..”

    Indigo iStrat chief strategy officer Sonya Sahni says, “In the cluttered financial products space it will be challenging, yet exciting to establish Indepay. The business model is disruptive and will require communication that can inform, educate and drive performance. It’s a digital first client, allowing us to demonstrate brand thinking and activation across digital touch points.”

  • Digital communication: Indepay hires Indigo iStrat

    Digital communication: Indepay hires Indigo iStrat

    MUMBAI: Indepay Networks, the privilege prepaid card issuer and the pioneer of branch-less banking, has hired Indigo iStrat, Leo Burnett India’s digital wing, to manage digital activities after a multi-agency pitch.

    The agency will handle Indepay’s brand communication, digital media and social media planning for India and global markets.

    Indepay CEO Indepay Rajib Saha says “Indigo iStrat brings a unique offering that changes the way we use cash for our everyday spends; and communicating our proposition effectively would have been a challenge amidst the high share of voice in the media by other financial technology players, especially post demonetisation in India. Our ability to run integrated communication with banks as co-owners, gave us great advantage and Indigo iStrat’s expertise in banking and financial category helps them understand these nuances.”

    Indepay enables its customers to open an account with minimum documentation. Besides lowering costs for banks through branch-less banking, it offers the convenience of withdrawals and transfers at ATMs, rewards on daily spends that are accessed through a prepaid debit card and USSD banking. While the cards will be co-created with banks, BCA and SBI will remain the main merchant and settlements banks for Indonesia and India respectively.

    Indigo CEO Rajesh Ghatge says, “We have worked extensively at offering digital build and marketing solutions to the banking and finance sector, fully understanding the complexity and scale at which brands within this sector need to operate. At the heart of transformation in the BFSI category is a seamless consumer experience and engagement that the brands are striving to deliver..”

    Indigo iStrat chief strategy officer Sonya Sahni says, “In the cluttered financial products space it will be challenging, yet exciting to establish Indepay. The business model is disruptive and will require communication that can inform, educate and drive performance. It’s a digital first client, allowing us to demonstrate brand thinking and activation across digital touch points.”

  • Rajesh Ghatge is new Indigo CEO

    Rajesh Ghatge is new Indigo CEO

    MUMBAI: Rajesh Ghatge has joined as the chief executive officer of the digital agency Indigo Consulting of the Leo Burnett Group to lead the 300-plus employees across Indigo Consulting and Indigo iStrat. Based out of the Mumbai office, he will report to Leo Burnett south Asia CEO South Asia Saurabh Verma.

    Verma said: “We wanted a leader who can create a new curve; Rajesh brings with him the energy, the passion and the drive to create a new destiny for Indigo Consulting. My brief to him is to make us the most respected digital agency in the country, bar none.”

    Ghatge said, “Driving effective consumer engagement on omnipresent digital touch-points is a function of technology, content, analytics and the ability to execute flawlessly in an ‘always on’ mode. Using data and platforms to create impactful and relevant experiences has been my ongoing work. Indigo Consulting, built on a deep foundation of technology has emerged as a leading digital agency.”

    Having begun his career in marketing and sales in the FMCG and Pharma sectors in 1997, Ghatge co-promoted Bates CHI & Sercon (erstwhile Sercon). Under his leadership, the company leveraged technology and digital for activation marketing and demand generation and grew to become a top-ranked agency in India and Singapore. Bates CHI & Sercon also gathered prestigious laurels such as the ‘Best Brand Promotion Agency’ (ET), the B2B Marketing Award (London) and DMA (Asia and India).

    Ghatge has extensive knowledge and experience in brand activation, digital and retail marketing, web and app-enabled products and services and the training domain. He led award-winning campaigns for large brands like P&G, Colgate, Oracle, Nokia, Dell and Castrol. An alumnus of the Institute of Rural Management in Anand, he has an MBA degree.