Type of agency: Advertising
Company ownership: Omnicom
Key personnel: Josy Paul, chairman and chief creative officer; Sangeet Pillai, planning director; Ajai Jhala, CEO
Accounts won: Aviva Life Insurance, Nimbooz (Pepsi), Wrigley’s, Godrej (new business), ICI Paints
Accounts lost: None
BBDO India has won some significant new businesses – Quaker Oats, Nimbooz, Aviva Life Insurance, Wrigley’s Doublemint and a new brand from Godrej. At the Media Agency of the Year awards, BBDO India was shortlisted in the Medium sized agency of the Year category. Some of BBDO India’s contributions include campaign ideas like - Aviva ‘Education Is insurance’, Quaker Oats ‘Mission to Make India Heart Healthy’, Nimbooz ‘Ekdum Asli Indian’, 7 Up ‘Mood Ko Do Lemon Ka Lift’ and Wrigley’s Doublemint ‘Front Foot Pe Chabao’. Their work on Quaker Oats, for instance, was aided by Proximity Asia.
But for Ranjeev Vij who quit to join iris, BBDO India has kept the flock together, though rumours that its planning head Sangeet Pillai is moving back to New York have been doing the rounds. While it is not clear whether Pillai plans to stay back or not, it is understood that he will remain within BBDO.
BBDO strengthened its Aviva and Pepsi team with the appointment of Renilson Joseph as head of business for Aviva and Quaker Oats and brought in Raj Deepak Das as head of creative in Mumbai. All in all, a good start for BBDO India though it probably needs to add some significant new wins to create more buzz for its brand in the country.
Campaign Score: 8
How BBDO INDIA rates itself: 2.0
Last year we gave ourselves a score of 2 out of 10. Because we were just starting out. This year we believe we’ve done slightly better. There’s a new narrative emerging, and it’s slowly gaining roots.
So we’ve chosen to be a bit generous and rate ourselves 2.0. Like the changing nature of the Web, we’re working to make advertising more two-way; more dialogue based... more chat-vertising! More 2.0.
We’re starting with simple, sharp, differentiated brand ideas. We believe our ideas like Quaker ‘Make India Heart Healthy’, 7 Up ‘Allu Arjun Dance Mix’ for AP, 7 Up ‘Lemon Patallam’ in Chennai, P&G Gillette ‘WALS – Women Against Lazy Stubble’ and Aviva ‘Education is Insurance’ and the recent ‘Wall of Books’ activation represent a new content-based advertising voice. Advertising that is active and interactive. Advertising that is newsworthy and use-worthy!
We still have a long way to go... the conversation has just begun!