THE ECONOMIC TIMES, SEPTEMBER 17-23, 2014 2 AGENCY RECKONER 2014 Last week, we brought you the Brand Equity Agency Reckoner 2014, the definitive ranking of the best ad agencies in the country. Now, read on to find out how the top agencies, across film, digital, design and The Allied Front brand promotion, made it to the head of their class. Here’s a look at their most challenging and prized Compiled by Ravi balakrishnan, Amit Bapna, Delshad Irani and Shephali Bhatt work in the past couple of years Digital Design [1] OgilvyOne [1] Elephant It’s a no-brainer that building the Vodafone Zoozoos Facebook community is one of Ogilvy’s most popular feat. Some of the The independent multi-disciplinary design shop, other interesting work they’re proud of include assignments based in Pune, completes 25 years this year and has like the launch of Toni & Guy in India. Their most challenging expanded its footprint to Gurgaon, Singapore and task to date, however, has been the launch of Hockey India an outpost-office at Bonn in Germany. Amongst the League through social media to strengthen the game’s loyalty exciting work done recently, the agency counts the base and engagement scores. work for Daimler where it became a first ever design partner outside Germany to design their brand. The Bharat Benz identity for Daimler trucks was cast keeping the legacy as well as cultural alignments in mind. Other notable work includes rebranding for Praj, a B2B engineering giant ; naming, visual identi- ty and packaging for a range of ethnic drinks for Hector Beverages’ Paper Boat brand; launch strategy rollout for two international brands from Godrej portfolio and the design partnership for Champion’s League T20 for three con- secutive seasons.

(L-R) Ashish Deshpande & Ashwini Deshpande, cofounder & directors and Partho Guha, Director, Elephant

[2] Fitch [3] Designsutra The agency counts work done Creating a for Arvind to position, design [3] breakaway and realise the Creyate brand packaging as its most interesting since Grey design for Cad- it’s the future of fashion bury Celebra- apparel and omnichannel Digital tions ‘Rich dry retail. The most challenging fruit collection’ Amongst their work, was the assignment for whilst staying true to more popular L&T’s Chandigarh mall that the category is count- work in the last was opened in 2013 for its ed as one of the most two years was a sheer scale and the depth of challenging projects by real-time YouTube the involvement that ranged the agency. The design video response from positioning, naming [2] solution helped in creating a visual Webchutney campaign created (Elante), identity and visual aura successfully. The work done around the launch language as well as designing The ingredients that spice up this chutney are for Vaango was exciting as it of Volkswagen a lot of the general access projects like All About Rajni - Yes, the website required creating a brand that was a Jetta’s petrol vari- and circulation zones includ- (for Desimartini) that runs without internet, breakaway from the generic South ant. Next up was ing signage and way finding. remember? It gets yummier with campaigns like Indian Udipi, be seen as competition the gamification of Other major work includes the one they did for Google where they created a to the other International QSR Life of Pi for view- retail work for Shoppers Stop voice search for cricket related topics. Lastly, chains in the country, whilst retain- ers of Star Movies. department stores, Tata they add OML’s ‘The Wasted Bin’ in the concoc- ing the core of authentic, vegetarian Also, did we men- Motors dealerships and pack- tion. This six foot tall bin armed with alcohol and South Indian food. proximity sensors had urgeed drunk music junk- tion they created aging design work for Nestlé. ies to not go about littering on the NH7 ground. the Bournvita Deepali Shirali, Design Head & Vice Quiz Contest President, Designsutra & Ashish mobile app? Lucy Unger, Managing Director South Asia, Mark D’Costa, Finance and Chakravarty, National Creative Operations Director & Shuba Visweswaran, Strategy Director Director, Contract Advertising

[4] Hungama Digital [4] Brand Union | Ray+Keshavan

Their work for Mahindra has turned them into auto specialists in the digital domain, they Large transformational projects like the work done for Titan and Vistara, say. This year they did an online film for Intel called ‘A look inside Dharavi’ that went viral. the new Tata-Singapore Airlines JV, have made them both challenging and Their most interesting piece of work, if you ask them, was the ‘Airtel #4amFriends’ film exciting for the Bengaluru-based agency. While the former was all about done to promote the telecom carrier’s unlimited internet and calls plan. 12 separating the corporate and product brands, the latter was about creating an airline from scratch for two giant corporations where the name and brand needed to reference its Indian roots strongly, yet work across cul- tures – making them. Other major work done includes branding two unique educational institutions – Ashoka University and Nalanda University and the change of ING Life to Exide Life Insurance.

1 Sujata Keshavan, Chairperson and Executive CD; 2 Graham Hitchmough, Regional Director, ASEAN; 3 Dan Ellis, Creative Director, Asia Pacifi c; 34 54 Meeta Malhotra, Director; 5 Arvind Hegde, MD & Director Consulting

[5] Red Lion

The agency counts the work for Indian Super League, that included the brand identity, collateral design and in-stadia look, amongst it’s most challenging work since it was all about developing an Identity for a [5] Dentsu Digital football event of this size and stature and making the world’s most loved sport popular in India where the They created an augmented reality mobile app following for the sport is limited. For Ahmedabad- for the launch of Honda Activa-i (with the based Vadilal Industries, the agency was involved in ‘Ready to fly’ tagline) which could catch butter- opening a gelato parlour and lab for which it did flies that a player could trade with surprise extensive culinary and business courses with Carpi- gifts. They gave disgruntled employees a wake- giani in Bologna, Italy, and even went to Dubai for 2 up call to find a better job via web videos. days to research gelato experiences and gelato par- Result: Two happy clients. Elsie Nanji, managing partner and Madan Mohan, partner, lours in the largest shopping centres in the world. Red Lion

limit. The artwork is a combina- Film Production tion of a deftly put together shoot combined with state of the art VFX and incredibly skilled minia- [1] Nirvana [3] Bang Bang ture work. We could have done it Sneha Iype Varma, executive pro- Roopak Saluja, founder and CEO, Bang entirely with digital but the com- ducer and partner, Nirvana, says Bang Films counts the IPL carnival bination of different elements one of the most challenging and film, clicker for Axe with Ranbir made it quite challenging from a interesting assignments has been Kapoor, Mountain Dew and the tele- logistic perspective. There are a their ‘Incredible India’ work. “How match style commercials for Voda- whole lot of commercials that we do you fit a country into 60 sec- fone amongst their best work. “My did a pretty top quality job on from a production perspective onds? It’s so diverse, with so much Roopak Saluja, favourite piece of work remains the [5] Ramesh Deo to see and talk about. It was quite a carnival film for IPL. It really pushed even if the scripts were a little… founder and CEO, Abhinay Deo, director, Ramesh Deo logistical challenge, travelling the Bang Bang Films our production capabilities to the questionable.” length and breadth of the country Productions says, “Over the last two and fitting it into a single schedule.” or three years, I’ve done the least [4] Equinox amount of work: some 25 films over the last five years. But quality wise Ram Madhvani, director, Equinox says, it’s the best work that has come out “We’d like to be known as the oldest of the production house.” One of them [2] Chrome youngest production house. Before you is the Mumbai Mirror film: incredibly have settled down its time to reinvent Amit Sharma, director, Chrome says they did a lot of great Ram Madhvani, challenging and at the same time again. We have a digital wing called films like Google Reunion, Lifebuoy – ‘Help a child reach 5’, director, highly appreciated at Cannes. The Equinext and a collaboration with Great Ulloo Na Banaoing for Idea (by Hemant Bhandari), and 18 Equinox Nike Parallel Journeys film which also Amit Sharma, director, Chrome Guns, a UK based production house to Again (by Aleya Sen Sharma). But the most challenging was won at Cannes was a humungous task: form Great Guns @ Equinox which focuses Lifebuoy. “I didn’t want to use a harness on the guy who was shown walking on his hands. We used 9 days across 8 to 9 cities. “There’s on cosmetic and beauty brands.” As for Greenlam, where they built the parliament two people and neither of them were actors. One of them just couldn’t shoot any more after a day not a single frame that was shot in work, expectations are so high, “you are house in post production, and making the and a half and we had to wait for a month for him to get better. And then the shoot got disrupted the same location. Every model in scared you won’t meet them.” Amongst the two cats in the HomeShop18 ad as realistic by a cyclone! It took three months, but the outcome was nice and won us a Silver Lion at Cannes.” those films is a different person and most challenging assignments are films for as possible while doing CG. none of them were professionals.”