MAM
StrawberryFrog readies to spearhead cultural advertising in India
MUMBAI: India is a nation of movements. There’s anti-corruption movement, farmers’ movements, and a host of other social movements. There’s now also a cultural movement in advertising.
Spearheading the cultural movement in advertising in India is New York-based advertising agency StrawberryFrog. The agency’s founder and chairman Scott Goodson says cultural movement advertising starts with an idea that is relevant to the target audience rather than the product.
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, Goodson said StrawberryFrog is following its clients into India. Seeking to participate in a rapidly growing market, he said India makes a sensible destination for the agency as its core is about movements.
The agency has already worked with an Indian brand and audience when it conceptualised the ‘Rise’ movement for homegrown farm equipment-to-software group Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M). The movement advertising for M&M was based on the idea that people want to rise, succeed and create a better future for them. The ‘Rise’ advertising movement was crafted from the responses it received in a research it carried out among the users of M&M products and services.
The advertising focussed on an individual’s desire to rise to his potential and conveyed that Mahindra as a company also believes in striving for a brighter future. “Working on the Mahindra Rise movement was one of the highlights of my career. Anand Mahindra is a mind blowing person to work with and the compassion he feels for social causes and the way he works towards them is admirable,” points out Goodson.
The 15-year-old works US agency works on the concept of cultural movements in advertising or — as Goodson puts it – movement advertising. Explaining the idea, Goodson says, “The whole idea is that instead of starting with the product and trying to push it out in the market like traditional advertising, we go in search of an idea that is relevant to a wide group of individuals and then tie the idea to the product, making it (the product) relevant to the consumer.”
Movement advertising, he explains further, is something about an idea that people care about and is on the rise in a particular culture, thus allowing you to tie it back to the brand. Movement advertising also combines new innovative digital and social media with social advertising. It all starts with an idea that is relevant to the target audience rather than the product.
“Indian audiences are different. They love advertising that is emotional and touches the heart but it has to be in an Indian way,” explains Goodson.
“Its about what you want the consumer to do rather than think or feel. It is about creating a movement that is relevant to the consumer in the context of the brand. We carry out research on what people in the target segment care about, what are their values and concerns and philosophies?” adds Goodson.
The recent global campaign by global airline Emirates is the handiwork of StrawberryFrog. The brief was to come up with a campaign that links nearly 300 nations with one common thought or idea. Goodson and his team delved into the research thrown up by their team about air travellers and were faced with an insight that said, “People felt that the world is too big and that is why there are a lot of misconceptions. People felt if we made the world a more connected place it would be better.”
Working from here, Goodson came up with the ‘Hello Tomorrow’ movement (as he calls it and not campaign) which showed that every traveller is connected with the other making the world a cohesive interlinked unit. The term ‘Hello Tomorrow‘ is coined by Goodson himself. The movement aimed at conveying the message that ‘Tomorrow Brings Us Closer to New People, New Experiences, New Styles, New Friends.’
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
