AD Agencies
Carat wins Stan C media account
MUMBAI: Carat has won the global remit for media strategy, planning and buying for Standard Chartered Bank, operated from Singapore across 60+ markets including India. The win follows a competitive pitch process.
Standard Chartered Bank is an international bank with a presence in 67 countries across the globe. The Bank has operated for over 150 years in some of the world’s fastest-growing markets, across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Carat APAC CEO Sean O’Brien said, “Our strength in strategic thinking, quality of product and consistency across markets enabled us to win this business. It’s also testament to Dentsu Aegis Network’s collaborative brand value that we have expanded from the pre-existing iProspect relationship. We’re looking forward to working with the team at Standard Chartered Bank and their agency partners.”
Carat India managing director Kartik Iyer said, “Carat and Dentsu Aegis Network will bring together all their capabilities to create cutting edge communication solutions that deliver true business value for SCB in India.”
The account will be handled out of the agency’s Mumbai office. West executive vice president Himanka Das said, “It’s a great way to begin the new year with such a prestigious business win.”
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.
