AD Agencies
Draftfcb+Ulka’s Independence Day gift
MUMBAI: At the end of every year, experts from various fields decode the year gone by or predict what will happen next. But brand management and consulting firm of the Draftfcb + Ulka group in India – Cogito Consulting – has gone a step ahead by bringing out a tome which has various industry experts forecasting what will happen in their respective fields 50 years from now.
itled India 2061 – A Look at the Future of India, the book has been released as a “special tribute to the nation on its 67th Independence Day celebrations.” It features 21 thought leaders from various industries giving their take on the challenges India will face as it gets ready to join the league of developed nations.
Draftfcb+Ulka executive director & chief executive officer MG ‘Ambi‘ Parameswaran elaborates, “We had put down 25 different topics from various sectors and were clear that we wanted only one person to write on a particular topic. So when we sat with the topics, we contacted the first name that popped into our heads who would be able to identify with it.”
The professionals from various fields featured in the book are Punit Goenka, RS Sodhi, Ayaz Memon, Ajit Blakrishnan, Dr Ajit Ranade, Anil Sadana, Ashish Chauhan, BS Nagesh, Dileep Ranjekar, Dinesh Kanabar, Dorab Sopariwala, Geet Sethi, Hasit Joshipura, Malini V Shankar, Pavan Sukhdev, Ravi Kant, S Ramadorai, Sanjeev Aga, Shiv Visvanathan, Shivakumar and Thomas Mathew T.
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To summarise, I truly believe that TV will not die. At Zee, we no longer term ourselves as merely broadcasters, but “content creators” and will focus on reaching out to audiences at the end of any screen that they are available on. Some screens may discontinue along the way, but there will be other screens that will emerge as life continues to evolve. The future of television is all about viewers experiencing entertainment and information content on their preferred devices, time and place. Zeel MD and CEO Punit Goenka (Excerpted from the India 2061- A Look at the Future of India Copyright Cogito Consulting Publication) |
It was in 2011 when the idea of writing a forward looking white paper came about just as Draftfcb‘s India arm, Ulka Advertising, was celebrating its golden jubilee. Cogito Consulting and Asterii Analytics were assigned the task of quantitatively forecasting India‘s future in areas like media, economy, internet, automobile, infrastructure, among others. Their labour resulted in a data-centric white paper entitled The India 2061 Report which was released in 2012.
The same report has been packed as a valued-add in the pacily written book which has been edited by Ambi and Kinjal Medh with extremely high production values.
The thought leaders have covered various fields and given various shades of the future. While some are optimistic, others are a little skeptical.
Ambi reveals that a thousand copies of the book have been published so far and sent across to a select bunch of experts in various fields, and will be available on the agency‘s website from 15 August for download at no cost.
“I think it is a great initiative by Draftfcb + Ulka to produce a book of the calibre that it has,” says a media observer. “It works well for Cogito Consulting too. It helps position the agency as a thought leader in terms of driving the possible agenda. By getting leading lights of industry to write about the future, it helps further cement that perception. Overall, they are doing a very good job in making people think.”
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.
