AD Agencies
RK Swamy BBDO wins creative mandate for Magicbricks.com
MUMBAI: After a two-month long multi-agency pitch, RK Swamy BBDO has won the creative mandate for Magicbricks.com, the property portal from The Times Group.
On winning to account, RK SWAMY BBDO senior partner Sunil Kuketri said, “This is an interesting category with a huge canvas available for creativity. We will make the most of this opportunity by creating interesting clutter-breaking work for Magicbricks.”
Magicbricks.com is a property portal with a host of specially developed features and tools to aid the users in taking the right decision; making it the most comprehensive platform in the category.
RK Swamy BBDO, part of RK Swamy Hansa, serves over 250 companies in India and the USA. With around 1200+ professionals, the Group offers Creative and Media services, Market Research, Direct/CRM & Advanced Analytics, Events and Activation, Healthcare Communication, PR, Social & Rural Communication and more.
AD Agencies
The smell that told Mumbaikars which station was next
Tata AIA turns Mumbai’s Parle-G memory into a sharp, city-wise outdoor play
MUMBAI: When a biscuit factory became Mumbai’s unofficial station announcement. Long before smartphone maps and automated announcements, commuters on Mumbai’s Western line relied on their noses. As trains rolled into Vile Parle, compartments filled with the warm, sweet smell of baking biscuits from the Parle-G factory. It was a cue to gather bags, wake dozing children and shuffle towards the door.
Now that memory has been pressed into service by Tata AIA Life Insurance as part of its 25-year anniversary outdoor campaign — a city-by-city salute to the lived moments that shape urban life.
One hoarding, mounted close to the old factory site, reads: “We have been protecting Mumbaikars since Vile Parle smelled of freshly made biscuits.” Spare. Local. Loaded.
The broader campaign, rolled out across major metros, leans hard into contextual storytelling. In Kolkata, it nods to trams. In Pune, to Magarpatta’s transformation. In Bengaluru, to a time before IT parks. In Chennai, to OMR before it led to tech corridors. Each line anchors the brand’s longevity to a shared civic memory.
The Mumbai execution is the most evocative. For decades, the Parle-G factory was more than a production unit. It was a sensory landmark. Residents nearby set their clocks by the factory horn. Office-goers marked their commute by the waft of glucose and flour. When the plant shut, the city lost more than jobs. It lost a rhythm.
By placing the hoarding beside the former factory, the insurer collapses distance between copy and context. The site does half the storytelling. The rest comes from commuters who remember opening steel tiffins packed with Parle-G, or jolting awake as the train slowed.
It is a neat piece of brand positioning. Rather than trumpet balance sheets or policy counts, Tata AIA borrows emotional equity from the city itself. Twenty-five years becomes less a milestone and more a presence — steady, local, embedded.
Outdoor advertising is often a blunt instrument. This one is anything but. It whispers. It remembers. And in doing so, it sells trust without sounding like it is selling at all.
The scent may have faded. The memory has not.
