Ogilvy launches 82.5 Communications

Ogilvy group has announced the launch of 82.5 Communications. The agency is branded as an 'India-specific creative agency'. It takes over all of Soho Square's clients and will be headquartered in Mumbai. 

 

82.5 is the longitude that defines Indian Standard Time. 

 

Piyush Pandey, worldwide CCO and executive chairman India, Ogilvy, said, "82.5 will meet a key need in the creative services market for an agency that is tailored to help realise the aspirations of emerging Indian companies, entrepreneurs and brands as well as MNCs who want to ‘Indianise’ their brands and forge a connect with Indian audiences. Such challenger brands are often very strong in their respective categories or geographies, and invariably seek the same qualities that they themselves exhibited, in their creative agencies: passion, agility, out-of-the box thinking and a deep desire to grow."

 

Sumanto Chattopadhyay, chairman and CCO, 82.5 Communications, said, "The focus will be on finding ingenious, bespoke solutions to client’s problems. India has for long had a culture of finding interesting and effective solutions to everyday problems—we are, as a nation, very creative. It’s this creative mindset that we hope to inculcate in 82.5. The rationale for our name, incidentally, is that 82.5 is the longitude of Indian Standard Time. As an agency focussed on Indian entrepreneurship and Indian ingenuity, we felt this name would be apt."

 

V.S. Srikanth, who was the director and CEO of Bates CHI & Partners India, will be the CEO at 82.5 Communications. The team also consists of Samrat Bedi (president-West), Chandana Agarwal (president-North), Sharmista Dev (head-Kolkata), Naveen Raman (head-Bengaluru), Siddhartha Roy (EVP planning), Anuraag Khandelwal (ECD), Mayur Verma (ECD), Mukund Sharma (ECD) and Ranadeep Dasgupta (group creative director).