MUMBAI: Ravishankar Iyer, the former national head of communications planning at Wavemaker, has landed at Hogarth as advisor-head of strategy. The appointment marks a homecoming of sorts for the Mumbai-based strategist, who returns to the WPP fold after a six-year stint at the media agency.
Iyer’s career spans over two decades in India’s advertising trenches. At Wavemaker, he built what the company called a “highly successful full funnel content practice” anchored on culture, data and commerce. Before that, he spent four years at Mindshare, where his team became one of the country’s most garlanded, handling marquee accounts including Star TV Network, Castrol, Facebook and HSBC.
The strategist’s résumé reads like a who’s who of Indian advertising: stints at Ogilvy & Mather, Bates, Lowe Lintas and McCann Erickson. He even dabbled in the start-up world as marketing director at VPTA, a grassroots sports venture.
Hogarth, WPP’s creative execution powerhouse, appears keen to beef up its strategic muscle as brands demand more integrated approaches. Iyer’s appointment suggests the agency is betting on old-school planning chops to navigate an increasingly complex media landscape.
The move comes as advertising’s traditional boundaries continue to blur, with strategy, creative and media planning increasingly overlapping. For Iyer, it’s another chance to apply his “cultural provocation” philosophy—this time from Hogarth’s Mumbai office.