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Tag: Soumitra Karnik

  • Maharishi Ayurveda launches its new campaign #RightYourWrongs

    Maharishi Ayurveda launches its new campaign #RightYourWrongs

    Mumbai: Maharishi Ayurveda has announced the launch of its new campaign, #RightYourWrongs, featuring actress Kalki Koechlin. Known for her off-beat and intense performances, Kalki will be seen donning the hat of a standup comic for the first time in a series of three video commercials that will be launched digitally.

    The campaign uses humour to connect with Gen-Z audiences consuming video content across Instagram and YouTube. Ayurveda, the centuries-old Vedic science, is making a comeback. Globally, health experts and influencers are leaning on Ayurveda for holistic and root cause-based solutions. The brand Maharishi Ayurveda has been combining the power of authentic Ayurveda with modern science for over four decades to promote holistic health.

    A leader in markets across Europe, North America and the Middle East, the brand is now looking to make young Indians aware of the true power of Ayurveda through its marketing campaigns. The #RightYourWrongs campaign is a step in that direction with the focus on oral health, which in Ayurveda is considered the gateway to overall health. The campaign has been timed around the upcoming festive season in India.

    Through the three DVCs, Kalki will unearth a concept not known to many – saliva imbalance – that is often at the root of most dental problems, including tooth decay, gum disease, and bad breath, sensitivity, and if neglected can lead to other systemic health problems over time.

    The DVCs will also offer a solution to the problems in the form of Ayurdent toothpaste, an innovative new formula crafted with 20 potent Ayurvedic herbs designed to cleanse, purify, and stimulate healthy saliva production.

    Speaking on her association with the campaign, Kalki Koechlin said, “I had a lot of fun working on the Maharishi Ayurveda #RightYourWrongs campaign. There were a few reasons why I just had to do it. The first one was the premise itself. To talk about something as common and ‘non discussion worthy’ as saliva was both bizarre and intriguing. Also, I had never played a stand-up comic – neither in films, nor for any OTT shows. So, this was new to me. But most importantly, Ayurveda and nature-based lifestyle has been a transformative journey for me, and I believe it has the power to positively impact and heal us.”

    “The whole world is waking up to Ayurveda, albeit a bit late. But unfortunately, for many young Indians, Ayurveda is ‘not cool’. As a brand, Maharishi Ayurveda is committed to delivering the authentic Ayurveda experience to people all over the world. We are striving to establish a comprehensive healthcare system for a healthier society and world, even relevant for the modern-day lifestyle. Which starts with being discovered by many more consumers,” said Maharishi Ayurveda global D2C business & marketing head Rajat Wahi.

    “We’re looking at being far more aggressive with our marketing efforts and connecting with the younger audiences. Kalki is always brilliant, and her comic timing is immaculate. For us, the combination of Kalki and Comedy was a sure shot at our TG seeking us, versus us knocking at their screens with traditional conversations,” he added.

    The DVCs have been created by Soumitra Karnik, an independent creative consultant. 
     

  • Soumitra Karnik quits dentsu India

    Soumitra Karnik quits dentsu India

    NEW DELHI: Dentsu India chief creative officer Soumitra Karnik has moved on from the agency, six months after taking on the new role.

    Karnik was leading the agency’s creative output nationally and was responsible for maintaining client-agency relationships for the agency across its offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi. He was handed the additional responsibility of dentsu India CCO in July 2020.

    Karnik has been associated with the network since 2012, and was previously the chief creative officer at Dentsu Impact and mcgarrybowen India. He has worked with leading creative agencies like JWT, Lowe and Percept in the past.

    Some of his memorable campaigns include Pepsi – Yeh Hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan, Slice – Aamsutra, and the ‘What Makes Us Click’ campaign for Canon, to name a few.

  • Dentsu Impact elevates Ajit Devraj & Anupama Ramaswamy to managing partners

    Dentsu Impact elevates Ajit Devraj & Anupama Ramaswamy to managing partners

    NEW DELHI- Dentsu Impact has elevated Ajit Devraj and Anupama Ramaswamy to the role of managing partners. The duo will continue to report into Soumitra Karnik, chief creative officer, Dentsu Impact, Dentsu India & mcgarrybowen India and Amit Wadhwa, President, Dentsu Impact.

    In their new role, Ajit and Anupama, together, will oversee the Gurgaon and Bangalore operations for Dentsu Impact. Here, Ajit will be the business lead while Anupama will head the creative arm of the agency. For the record, Dentsu Impact handles significant brands such as Maruti Suzuki, IKEA, Tata Consumer products, Subway, and Carlsberg, to name a few. 

    Erstwhile executive vice president, Ajit decided to dabble into the creative side of the business in 2018 when he joined Dentsu Impact. Prior to that, he was a management consultant with companies like Accenture and PwC in Australia and the UK.

    Anupama has successfully led Dentsu Impact as national creative director for four years. Under her leadership, the team has worked on some prestigious accounts like Maruti Suzuki, Ikea, Tata Tea, Max Hospitals, Max Bupa, Unicharm, Vivo, and many more. Previously, Anupama has worked with agencies like Cheil India, JWT, Draft FCB, and Lowe.  

    Speaking on the elevation, Devraj said, “I feel honoured to be able to take up the role of managing partner of Dentsu Impact. Our strength lies in being innovative. Over the years, we have built a unique set of capabilities ranging from pure creative and brand work to delivering end-to-end MarTech, design, and business-oriented solutions. A few years ago, bringing in business-driven, management, and consulting skills was a rarity and I would like to thank Amit Wadhwa, Narayan Devanathan, and Soumitra Karnik for their vision. Of course, I am grateful for the support of my team and our wonderful set of clients who have backed my learnings and growth into this role. I am looking forward to taking Dentsu Impact through its next phase of growth and supporting our clients in delivering a fully connected experience to their customers.”

    Commenting on her new role, Anupama Ramaswamy added, “Well, it is a huge and challenging responsibility. But creativity comes truly alive when there are constraints. The only way to fight stiff competition is to push ourselves harder, and think even more out-of-the-box. We must march forward into the future with ideas that are different yet relevant at the same time. With so many unique touch-points, it is critical that we become the single partners to every client, thereby ensuring that every element of communication has the same levels of quality and brand integration. The idea is to learn and unlearn and then learn again every single day. Soumitra and Amit have placed their trust in my abilities, and together, I’m sure we will create magic. I am absolutely looking forward to creating memorable stories that will help Dentsu Impact shine.”

    Speaking on the development, Soumitra Karnik said, “I am thrilled to announce the second phase of Dentsu Impact. Our journey has been really exciting so far and we are proud to hand over the steering wheel in the able hands of Ajit and Anupama. Both are absolutely amazing at what they do. They bring in a lot of method and discipline, which is required during this time of constant fast changes that our industry is going through. They have a hard task ahead – to embrace ‘what’s new’ faster than others, to deliver growth at the back of solid creative reputation, to be always ‘people-first’ and to keep the joy of advertising intact.”

    Amit Wadhwa added, “This is an important phase for Dentsu Impact. We move into a new era, hereon, where creativity embraces the new approach to communication. We could not have better leaders than Ajit and Anu to lead the organisation into this exciting phase. Both come with extremely balanced mindsets and have the hunger and eagerness to accept new challenges and work towards achieving them. I am excited!”

  • Dentsu Aegis Network adds Dentsu India CCO portfolio to Soumitra Karnik

    Dentsu Aegis Network adds Dentsu India CCO portfolio to Soumitra Karnik

    NEW DELHI: Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN), the global media & marketing communications conglomerate, has now entrusted Soumitra Karnik, currently chief creative officer (CCO) at Dentsu Impact and mcgarrybowen India, with the additional charge of CCO, Dentsu India. He will assume this role for Dentsu India, the full-service agency headquartered in Bangalore, with immediate effect, and will report into DAN India creative chairman Agnello Dias.

    Under the expanded mandate, Karnik will lead Dentsu India’s creative output nationally and will be responsible for maintaining and amplifying a robust client-agency relationship for the agency across its offices in Bangalore, Mumbai, Chennai and Kochi. 

    Agnello (Aggi) said, “I have known Soumitra for many years now and he is the sort of guy you could go to war with. Nothing fazes him. I have seen him take on the most absurd challenges with a happy fascination at having found a new puzzle to solve. He has that rarest of attributes in a creative person – his creative stamina, and I am sure he will go on to do more than justice to his new extended role.” 

    Karnik said, “Keeping the big-sounding designations aside, I am the same hungry and relentless creative person that I have always been. Lately, I find a lot of people from the industry complain about the prevalent diminishing standards and mediocrity everywhere; and while I am certainly not going to deny this, I also believe that the only way out of it is to roll up our sleeves, put our heads down, and get to work. That is exactly what we did when we were giving shape to Dentsu Impact a few years back. We won a lot of good clients and did a lot of good work which won us a battery of awards nationally and internationally. I am fortunate to have worked very closely with some great clients and some amazingly talented team members. Without the support of both, consistently producing good work is just not possible. With the mandate and the freedom to build a strong creative culture at Dentsu India, what I now have is an incredibly exciting challenge and an opportunity – all rolled into one.”

    DAN India  chairperson creative line of business Narayan Devanathan said, “Soumitra and I have been partners in crime for close to nine years now, and I couldn’t be happier to have him now also lead the creative mandate at Dentsu India. Over the years, Dentsu India has grown to be one of the most stable partners any client could ask for. With this solid foundation, I’m sure Soumitra will help the agency scale new heights with a creativity-first approach.”

    Soumitra joined the network in 2012, playing a key role in the resurgence of the group’s creative reputation. Prior to that, he was an ECD at JWT. In over 11 years spent there, he worked on a variety of clients, including Pepsi, Airtel, Nestle and Hero Honda. Karnik has also worked at Lowe and Percept. Among his notable campaigns are ‘Pepsi Yeh Hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan’, Slice Aamsutra, ‘Yaari Ki Gaadi’ for Hero Honda Splendour NXG, and the ‘What Makes Us Click’ Campaign for Canon, to name a few.

  • Dentsu Impact bags digital mandate for HT Media’s Radio Biz

    Dentsu Impact bags digital mandate for HT Media’s Radio Biz

    MUMBAI: Dentsu Impact, the creative agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, has added another new mandate to its recently established Social Media Division, Dentsu Impact Digital. The agency has been awarded the digital mandate for all 3 radio businesses of the HT Media Group –  Fever FM, Radio Nasha and Radio One. The agency already handles the mainline creative work for the 3 brands, and with the consolidation of the digital mandate, the team looks at ensuring a stronger consolidation of the offline and online platforms for the brands. Interestingly, Dentsu Impact also handles the creative duties for Hindustan Times and Hindustan Hindi – the 2 leading dailies from the HT Media group.

    Speaking on the development, Rajan Bhalla, Chief Marketing Officer, HT Media said, “We have been associated with Dentsu Impact for a long time and have immense trust in the capabilities of the team. The agency’s forward-thinking approach in embracing the evolving market today, and the intent of giving us synergized solutions for digital and offline is something that helped us come to this decision. We hope to see some great work being rolled out soon.”

    Commenting on the appointment, Amit Wadhwa, President, Dentsu Impact said, “At Dentsu Impact, we have a clear vision of becoming a truly digitally enabled agency, and that was the thinking behind setting up our social media division. It is extremely encouraging to see clients embrace our vision and see the kind of value we bring in.  Our relationship with HT Media is an old one and one that we really cherish, and we are thankful to them for placing their trust in us once again.”

    Soumitra Karnik, CCO, Dentsu Impact added, “We live in a borderless world, where consumers continuously navigate between offline and online platforms. It has thus become even more important for brand narratives to be integrated and synergized across mediums, and this demands a new way of thinking. This is something that we as an agency have embraced and brought into our creative process. It will be very exciting for us to use our strong brand knowledge on Fever FM, Radio Nasha & Radio One, to create talk worthy ideas that will work across platforms.”

  • Happy mcgarrybowen appoints Mahendra Bhagat as National Creative Director

    Happy mcgarrybowen appoints Mahendra Bhagat as National Creative Director

    Happy mcgarrybowen, the creative and design agency from the house of Dentsu Aegis Network, has further strengthened its creative prowess with the appointment of Mahendra Bhagat as National Creative Director.

    With over 20 years of experience in the industry, Mahendra has worked with agencies like Enterprise, SSC&B Lintas, JWT and FCB, where he created some iconic campaigns for brands like Titan, Britannia, Times of India, Godrej and Unilever. He has been the recipient of many National and International awards including Cannes, Clio, New York Festival, London Festival as well as AME (Advertising & Marketing Effectiveness) and has been on the Jury of several prestigious Advertising awards.

    Additionally, Mahendra parallelly dabbles in various aspects of Art. He has created some intriguing pieces spanning across corporate installations, video and digital art, mixed media, contemporary paintings and sculptures. His work has been widely acclaimed by audiences in several countries.

    Commenting on his appointment, Agnello Dias, Creative Chairman, Dentsu Aegis Network India said, “I have worked with Mahendra during my last stint at an agency, and always felt he had a calm, collected,  creative mind without the tantrums that some creative people have. He is keen to understand the brand’s point of view and apply his undoubted creative skills to find a solution. He has a keen art and design eye as well. I’m sure Happy mcgarrybowen will forge a great partnership with him and their clients. I wish him all the best.”

    Soumitra Karnik, Chief Creative Officer, Happy mcgarrybowen added, “I am thrilled to have Mahendra in our team as we plan to take Happy mcgarrybowen to the next level. He is a rare creative talent who is on top of the game as far as craft is concerned, and who has managed to use the new media platforms really well. Above anything else, he is a lovely person to work with and I am quite certain that we couldn’t have found a better leader than him. Happy mcgarrybowen is now happier with him around.”

    Speaking on his appointment, Mahendra Bhagat said, "The future of advertising lies in marrying creativity with technology. Instead of relying on traditional mediums, Happy mcgarrybowen is constantly in an exploratory mode; finding a new age communication solutions. Being a relatively young agency, it is buzzing with new ideas and energy. I look forward to channelizing that energy in creating some path breaking work for our clients.”

    Commenting on Mahendra’s appointment Samarjit Choudhry, President, Happy mcgarrybowen said, “Mahendra brings to the table the varied experience that is much needed in today’s world and also the freshness that comes from his being an artist. With him as the NCD I am sure we will become a lot more stronger as a creative solution provider to our clients.”

  • Dentsu Aegis Network gets new leadership for Happy mcgarrybowen

    Dentsu Aegis Network gets new leadership for Happy mcgarrybowen

    MUMBAI: In a bid to strengthen its global creative agency mcgarrybowen’s India footprint, Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) has elevated Samarjit Choudhry to the role of president – happy mcgarrybowen (HMB) India. In addition to this, the global media and marketing communications conglomerate has also entrusted Soumitra Karnik with the additional charge as chief creative officer (CCO).

    Choudhry joined the Network in 2017 as COO – Happy mcgarrybowen India. Armed with more than 20 years of experience, he has worked with agencies such as Ogilvy and Leo Burnett. At Leo Burnett, he was the chief growth officer for the group and was also instrumental in setting up Orchard and Black Pencil for them. In addition, he has also worked to create India’s premier comic book content company, Virgin Comics.

    Speaking on his appointment, Choudhry said, “mcgarrybowen has a strong philosophy of solving real problems. They truly operate as a media-agnostic agency. In India the foundation for this is already there and the agency has been operating as Happy mcgarrybowen for over 2 years now. My mandate is to take it to the next level. Other than communication, we already have a strong design practice and in conjunction with the other offerings from DAN, today we offer our clients a one stop solution for whatever their needs might be. I look forward to taking the opportunity to take the legacy forward. And all we ask is, ‘Give us your biggest problem’.”

    Soumitra Karnik joined the network in 2012. Prior to that, he was an ECD at JWT. In over 11 years spent there, he worked on a variety of clients including Pepsi, Airtel, Nestle, and Hero Honda. Karnik has also worked at Lowe and Percept. Amongst his notable campaigns are the Pepsi ‘Yeh Hai Youngistaan Meri Jaan’, ‘Slice Aamsutra’, ‘Yaari Ki Gaadi’ for Hero Honda Splendour NXG, and the ‘What Makes Us Click’ campaign for Canon, to name a few.

    Speaking about the role, Karnik said, “Happy mcgarrybowen is a phenomenal creative brand and has an enviable body of work to prove it. All these years, I have greatly admired them from a distance and I count my blessings for being given this opportunity to be a part of their creative trajectory.  I assume this role with utmost confidence only because the culture of HMB will not have it any other way. I shall take my mandate from Gordon Bowen, our Global CCO, in the coming days and will talk about it soon. Personally, I’d like to build a collaborative creative culture where everyone works with everyone and everyone learns from everyone. There is so much talent out there in the world and sometimes all it takes is a simple call to say, ‘Hi, I have this idea and I need you to make it even more amazing’. Most clients deserve a spectacular package. Anything less is just plain misfortune.”

    Happy mcgarrybowen India is going to be a key piece in DAN’s India creative strategy.

    DAN CEO greater south and chairman & CEO India Ashish Bhasin said, “With its new leadership in place, I am more than confident that the agency is now in extremely able hands. Happy mcgarrybowen has always been a brand to reckon with and I have no doubt that Samarjit and Soumitra, together, will further fuel this brand legacy and help Happy mcgarrybowen scale new heights.”

  • Dentsu Impact, We Are Water Foundation promote #CloseOpenDefecation

    Dentsu Impact, We Are Water Foundation promote #CloseOpenDefecation

    MUMBAI: To mark World Toilet Day, Dentsu Impact, the creative agency from Dentsu Aegis Network, joined hands with We Are Water Foundation, CSR wing of Roca Bathroom Products Pvt Ltd and launched a social experiment ‘#CloseOpenDefecation’ at Sector 29—Gurugram, Haryana.

    A makeshift public toilet was constructed, the inside of which was a site – perhaps common to 250 million people in rural India – a railway track that’s used as an open defecating area. Children and women holding placards delivered the hard facts and adverse effects of open defecation. Following the experiment several people pledged to #CloseOpenDefecation by signing up on the We Are Water foundation portal. With each sign up/pledge, the foundation contributed to the construction of more toilets.

    Dentsu Impact chief creative officer Soumitra Karnik said, “As advertisers, we must create communication which can assist the society we live in, in bringing about a positive change. As communication experts we can and should create content that delivers solutions that can impact a change in our society.”

    Roca India marketing head and We are Water Foundation India management trustee Mayuri Saikia said, “The problem of open defecation has always been prevalent in the country and still 250 million rural Indians continue to defecate in the open exposing them to various disease and mishaps. Through We Are Water Foundation we have been promoting healthy living, better hygiene and improved sanitation in the country and have done some truly impactful work over the years. When the idea was presented to us, we saw immense potential in it. So far, we have received a heart-warming response for the campaign as more and more are joining the cause with the foundation. As corporates and individuals, we need to realise that beyond government initiatives, we have so much power to drive the desired behavioral change towards usage of toilets and work towards the common goal to #CloseOpenDefecation.”

    Prior to the social experiment, a film featuring the plight of rural India was launched on social media platforms along with teasers. This was followed up by the Social Experiment film and the option to pledge and tweet was extended to the online urban audience.

    As revealed by Dentsu, ever since the movement, #CloseOpenDefecation has grabbed many eyeballs. It even trended at the no. 2 spot on Twitter for a day and has garnered 428k views so far.