Manish Bhatt, Raghu Bhat launch Scarecrow

Scarecrow is the name of the new agency that is going to be headed by Manish Bhatt, Raghu Bhat, their former Contract colleague Joy Sengupta and Concept Communication’s Vivek Suchanti. The agency, therefore, will have a four way partnership system. Joy Sengupta, who partnered the creative duo during their days in Contract on the client servicing side, is joining them as founding director. Suchanti owns Concept Advertising, which handles communication for a number of financial brands. 

Confirming the move, Manish Bhatt told Campaign India, “We had been thinking about this for a long time now. At the same time, we were also approached with some offers by international shops. We were handling some of the core businesses during our time at Contract, we had our own opinion about how we wanted to do things.  But we were clear that when we started, it would not just be another creative duo starting shop. We wanted someone like Joy on our side, as well, as this is a business that requires both the left and the right brain.”

“We always knew that if we venture out, we would do things together. We also, ourselves, approached people and agencies with complimentary businesses. But, most of the offerings were very similar. We got some more time to think about it because of the recession. There were a series of considerations, but we eventually decided to move with Vivek (Suchanti).”

Adds Raghu Bhat, “The impression that we got was that most of the network agencies seemed to be in a hurry to set up. It was understandable since they were hit very badly during the recession, but they wanted to start quickly and get quick returns. That kind of impatience didn’t seem wise for us when we were just starting our business. We had our eye on quality, we wanted to do the work our way and decided on going ahead with Concept, because they were looking at it as a long-term investment.”