MUMBAI: Ever thought that a bus conductor would drop in at your office to invite you for a party and hand you over the invite, which looked like the big momma of an ordinary bus ticket? No, right? Neither did we. But that's exactly what happened today.

And that's the "David-thing" the gang at rmg David have thought up.
 
The agency, which is about to re-launch itself, is planning to drop 'rmg' from it's name and will henceforth be called 'David.' This whole out-of-the box exercise was undertaken to invite people for the announcement party.

The party, which is being called the "Topless Double Decker Bus Ride" will be held on 17 October. What's more, media professionals will be taken for a ride on a "Topless Double Decker" around Mumbai's Marine Drive, while the agency will (as the invite mentions) "talk and serve delicious food with cool drinks followed by dinner."
 
Now to go back to the "supposed" bus conductor, who came with the invite (We later learned that he was a client servicing guy from rmg David. He had us fooled for a minute, all thanks to the brilliant get up with the non-shaven look). Attired in full uniform coupled with the aluminum ticket holder, he removes one big ticket from there, punches it on the area where '17' is typed and hands it over. Then he rattles off a couple of lines in Hindi asking us to be there at a particular time.
The bus ticket invite for rmg David's Topless Double Decker Bus Ride
 
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com on the inception of this idea, rmg David country head and national creative director Josy Paul says, "Everyone throws parties at ballrooms in five star hotels. There's nothing new about that. We constantly ask ourselves this -- 'What is the David thing we are going to do today?' and this idea seemed to be a logical extension to that. There will be a whole lot of action and excitement on the bus party."

Reluctant to speak more on the name change and the formalities attached to it, Paul says that since the brand name 'rmg' belongs to the JWT group, they wanted to move away from it and have a distinct identity of their own. "There are a lot of things attached to the name change and we will be unveiling them at the party," he says.

Being in the mad ad world, one always has to stay ahead in the race and make their creative juices overflow. Earlier this year, when erstwhile Everest Integrated Communications was planning to re-launch itself as Everest Brand Solutions, the agency had sent out a telegram informing about the 'critical condition' of Everest Integrated Communications followed by a letter from the the registrar of birth and death informing about the sad demise of the agency. Printed behind this was the venue of the condolence meeting, which was to be held at the Hilton Towers in Mumbai.