AD Agencies
DAN, a friend in need
MUMBAI: InDeed, Dentsu Aegis Network’s newly launched CSR Advisory, will facilitate corporate investments by companies in Corporate Social Responsibly, through insights & a brand-led approach.
InDeed, will provide best-in-class expertise and capabilities in Creative, Media, Digital, OOH, Activation and PR communications services, which will help brands build a truly Integrated and a Brand-Led CSR journey in India.
InDeed will work with clients to infuse brand purpose into their CSR strategies. The aim is to integrate branding and CSR in order to build a corporate culture around responsibility, leading to business sustainability and thereby reap reputational rewards. This will, in turn, make Corporate Social Responsibility into an opportunity that is accountable, measurable and scalable across several CSR areas of development. (eradicating hunger, poverty & malnutrition, education, gender equality, rural sports, rural development projects, measure for the benefit of armed forces, ensuring environmental sustainability, contribution to the prime minister’s national relief fund and contributions or funds provided by technology incubators).
InDeed is building a repository of India’s most credible and reputed NGOs and will connect them to corporates on the basis of thematic and geographical priorities – to create the best possible match. It will also be involved in conducting employee engagement activities and volunteering programs that result in a meaningful engagement of the staff in innovative social initiatives that are grounded in business practices.
Indeed has also invested in best brand led CSR case studies to link it to NGO / Brand / CSR activity. More than 2500 case studies are mapped by geography, cost, product, NGO and CSR activity to make sure the best brand-led CSR is delivered.
Commenting on the launch, Dentsu Aegis Network chairman and CEO – south Asia Ashish Bhasin said, “Today several of our clients are making a huge investment in CSR but in an adhoc manner. Many corporates want to give back to the society but often don’t know how to go about it in a consistent and meaningful manner. Indeed will act as a catalyst in this entire process and Haresh and his team have really done pioneering work in this area. Feels great to be able to give back to society via a socially relevant business.”
Indeed mentor and MD Haresh Nayak will lead this initiative from Dentsu Aegis Network. He strongly believes that brand building should be seamlessly combined with CSR strategies. He said, “It is not enough for brands to just ‘Greenwash’ their actions to provide PR-able fodder. Mostly such acts of philanthropic projects are short lived and rarely build a brand connect. However, if implemented in the right manner and with the right approach, brand building and CSR can perfectly complement each other.”
Being a part of Denstu Aegis Network, InDeed will not only work with their existing clients but will also look at fresh collaborations.
Currently the InDeed team will be based out of Dentsu Aegis Network’s Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore offices. Dentsu Aegis Network’s presence in India comprises the global network brands Carat, iProspect, Isobar, Posterscope, Vizeum, MKTG, Amnet and mcgarrybowen along with the Dentsu branded agencies – Dentsu Impact, Dentsu One, Dentsu India, Dentsu Media, Taproot Dentsu and Dentsu Webchutney. Also, newly added to the group are the recently acquired local brands Milestone Brandcom, WATConsult, Fountainhead MKTG, the Perfect Relations Group, Happy mcgarrybowen and Fractal Design Studio.
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.
