Swati Bhattacharya quits JWT; to lead Dentsu Mama Lab

Swati Bhattacharya, until recently national creative director at JWT, has joined Dentsu India principal partner – creative, to head its new project Mama Lab.

 

Rohit Ohri, executive chairman, Dentsu India and CEO, Dentsu APac, said, “Dentsu Mama Lab aims to be a thought leader on mothers, motherhood and mothering. Understanding the different facets of a mother is what will make brands connect meaningfully with them. I’m delighted to have Swati Bhattacharya lead this initiative in India. Her enormous experience of working on brands that have had deep meaningful connections with mothers will be the credible foundation of Dentsu Mama Lab. ‘Good Innovation’ is the essence of the Dentsu brand and Mama Lab is a vivid demonstration of it.”  

 

Bhattacharya said, “Men have a habit of putting mothers on a pedestal, as if she is a person who needs to be worshipped more than be understood. There is a woman inside every mother, who is not all perfect, not all ‘Devi’, not all giving; and women know that but it’s time for marketers to know that too. It's been years that I have spoken to only women as my consumers and tried to forge an intimacy that's born out of truth. Mama Lab gives me an opportunity to speak to women in our own language, in our own way, we might not all be perfect but we are the best that we can be! I am so glad I won’t have to fake my interest in men anymore. I am looking forward to sell to women by pressing their security buttons and not their insecurity buttons.”

 

Narayan Devanathan, executive vice-president and national planning director, Dentsu India, will be working with Bhattacharya on Mama Lab. 

 

He said, “As with everything Indian, we know there is no such singular entity as 'The Indian Mother', and we wouldn’t want to embark on a quixotic adventure of that sort in the first place. What we will attempt to do is to create an ever-expanding picture of mothers in India, much like a perpetually-growing, always-complete-but-never-truly-complete jigsaw puzzle. As an outcome, our goal will be to gain insights into mothers and motherhood in India that will truly go beyond oft-repeated motherhood statements."

 

Mama Lab will be positioned as 'a platform for mothers and brands to engage with one another and benefit from'.