AD Agencies
Dentsu Aegis Network announces rebranding of Dentsu Branded Agencies
MUMBAI: Transformation is in the air at Dentsu Aegis Network’s Dentsu Branded Agencies.
One of the key advantages that Dentsu Aegis Network has as a network is, to create collaborations that keep clients’ business at heart. In a key move to help clients better leverage the capabilities of a global network, Dentsu Aegis Network has realigned agencies across several countries under three groupings.
In India, this is now being manifested in three of its creative agencies being rebranded to better reflect this alignment.
As a consequence, Dentsu Communications will now be known as Dentsu India, Dentsu Marcom will now be known as Dentsu One and Dentsu Creative Impact will now be known as Dentsu Impact. Meanwhile, Taproot Dentsu and Dentsu Webchutney remain unchanged.
Said Dentsu Aegis Network India & south Asia chairman & CEO Ashish Bhasin: “This new nomenclature is a first step towards expanding and reinforcing the global and regional services we provide our clients in India. It will help us serve our global clients better as well as acquire more new business.”
Commenting further on the change, Ashish Bhasin added, “We are consolidating our capabilities under a global agency network, with a uniform identity across markets, in order to strengthen the coordination across our network and expand the high quality service we consistently provide. The most important ingredient in creating innovation in an ever-changing environment is collaboration. This realignment will fuel, just that in newer, more efficient ways. This will help us further accelerate the tremendous success that Dentsu Branded Agencies have experienced in India over the last year, including the spectacular performance at Goafest awards and in the area of new business.”
There is no change in the leadership or staff of each of the individual units, Dentsu announced. Simi Sabhaney will continue as CEO and Vipul Thakkar as NCD of Dentsu India, Harjot Narang as President and Titus Upputuru as NCD of Dentsu One, and Amit Wadhwa as president and Soumitra Karnik as NCD of Dentsu Impact. Meanwhile, Narayan Devanathan continues as the group executive & strategy officer of Dentsu Branded Agencies, India.
AD Agencies
Publicis Brazil’s creative chief Mauro Ramalho lands the jury chair at Abby Awards 2026
Mauro Ramalho brings 25 years of global advertising firepower to the new creative commerce, use of data and B2B category at Goafest
GOA: The Abby Awards 2026, powered by The One Club and The One Show, has appointed Mauro Ramalho, chief creative officer of Publicis Brazil, as jury chair for its newly launched creative commerce, use of data and B2B category. The announcement, made on 18 March, signals the awards’ intent to bring serious international muscle to a category that sits squarely at the intersection of creativity and commercial performance.
Ramalho is not a name that needs much introduction in global advertising circles. Over 25 years spanning three countries, he has worked at some of the industry’s most creatively restless addresses. At AKQA in San Francisco, he worked across McDonald’s, Nike, Fox, Target, Kraft Foods and GAP, and helped lead “The Lost Ring” for McDonald’s, one of the first alternate reality campaigns and among the most awarded projects of its era. He later moved to Organic in Toronto, bridging the Detroit and Toronto offices on Dodge, Jeep and Chrysler, before spending over a decade building CUBOCC into one of Brazil’s most iconic and innovative independent agencies, which subsequently joined the IPG network.
A stint at FCB followed, where Ramalho led integrated work bridging online and offline, before he joined R/GA São Paulo as vice-president and executive creative director, stitching together the São Paulo office with New York, London, Portland and California on global clients including Verizon, Google, Meta, Samsung, American Express and Heineken. He now heads Publicis Brazil as its chief creative officer.
His trophy cabinet includes Clios, Effies, TikTok awards and MMA Smarties, and he has served on juries at the Andys, TikTok and the Lisbon Awards.
The Abby Awards 2026 is scheduled to take place at Goafest 2026 on 20, 21 and 22 May in Goa.
For Indian advertising, landing a jury chair of Ramalho’s calibre for a category built around data-driven creativity and commerce is a statement of ambition. Goafest just raised its own bar.
