AD Agencies
McCann Worldgroup appoints marketing veteran
MUMBAI: Snehsikt Anand has been appointed business head at McCann Worldgroup, marking a return to agency life after a year of freelance consultancy. The seasoned marketing professional brings over 18 years of through-the-line marketing experience to one of advertising’s most established networks.
Anand joins McCann after working as an independent marketing consultant, where he provided brand and communication advice to emerging agencies and production houses. Before his freelance period, he served as business head for west and HUL (rural) at Dentsu, where he managed Hindustan Unilever’s house-to-house business across India.
At Dentsu, Anand’s client relationship skills helped create opportunities for business growth through territory expansion and cross-selling initiatives. Prior to joining Dentsu, Anand co-founded BrandBall, where as head of strategy he increased annual turnover fourfold and expanded the client roster tenfold over four years.
His experience includes positions at several prominent agencies including L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy, Triton Communications, and Civilisation Communications. He also gained client-side experience as assistant manager-marketing at ICICI Prudential AMC Ltd.
At McCann, Anand will likely apply his RoI-driven approach to marketing communications, leveraging his expertise in advertising, integrated marketing and team management as he takes on this new leadership role.
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.
