AD Agencies
82.5 Communications Launches, Promising Ingenious Indian Ideas
MUMBAI: WPP’s Ogilvy group has launched 82.5 Communications, an India-specific creative agency catering to Indian companies, Indian startups and entrepreneurs. 82.5 Communications will be headquartered in Mumbai, and also have offices in New Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata.
Piyush Pandey, Chief Creative Officer Worldwide, 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." Piyush further added, "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."
Elaborating on this, 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."
The accounts of Soho Square, another creative agency belonging to the Ogilvy group in India, will now be managed under 82.5 Communications. V.S. Srikanth, who was the Director and CEO of Bates CHI & Partners India, will be the CEO of the new entity, responsible for steering 82.5 Communications in the intended direction, and for implementing plans to deepen and widen 82.5’s engagement with its existing clients.
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, complete the core team of 82.5 Communications.
AD Agencies
Omnicom Advertising names Ellie Brocklehurst chief growth and marketing officer for Asia
The former TBWA Asia marketing chief returns from maternity leave with an ambitious mandate to make Omnicom the most sought-after network in the region.
NEW YORK: Ellie Brocklehurst is back, and she is not easing herself in gently. Omnicom Advertising has appointed Brocklehurst as chief growth and marketing officer for Asia, a role that puts her in charge of growth and marketing initiatives across the network’s three flagship agencies: BBDO, McCann and TBWA. Her brief is to sharpen existing capabilities while identifying new avenues for expansion across the region.
Brocklehurst brings a career that has moved steadily upward through some of the industry’s most recognisable names. She began at Source Music before moving through Exposure Public Relations and Marketing, Taurus Marketing and LEWIS Global Communications. She then joined BBDO Worldwide as communications manager for the Asia group, rising to regional communications director for Asia. At Wunderman Thompson, she served as head of marketing and PR for APAC before being elevated to APAC growth marketing lead, where she worked closely with local management teams on client expansion strategies, new business acquisition and brand building. Most recently, she served as chief marketing officer at TBWA\Asia.
Brocklehurst, who is returning from maternity leave, was characteristically direct about what she intends to do with the opportunity. “Transitioning back from my final maternity leave is a significant personal milestone,” she said. “While it’s the end of one era at home, it marks the beginning of an ambitious new one professionally.” She left little doubt about the scale of her ambition. “I’m stepping into this role with a clear mission: to make Omnicom Advertising the most awarded, revered, and sought-after agency network in Asia.”
In a region where agency networks are jostling hard for creative dominance and client loyalty, that is a target worth watching. Brocklehurst has spent two decades learning exactly how this game is played. Now she gets to set the rules.
