AD Agencies
Talent retention is key, says Mindshare’s Prasanth Kumar
MUMBAI: Mindshare, a global media and marketing services company that is a part of GroupM, has completed 20 years this November globally and 15 years in India. The company was created by the merger of the media operations of JWT and Ogilvy & Mather, then the two big full-service advertising agencies within the WPP group.
Mindshare has global billings in excess of $34.5 billion. The network consists of more than 7,000 employees, in 116 offices across 86 countries spread throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. Each office is dedicated to forging a competitive marketing advantage for businesses and their brands based on speed and teamwork. Mindshare is a part of GroupM, which oversees the media investment management sector for WPP, the world’s leading communications services group.
Mindshare helps clients to make collaborative decisions across their paid, owned and earned marketing in real-time with various tools and services such as FAST, Content+, Mindscan, Kyve and Loop rooms offered by the network.
While FAST is the programmatic and performance marketing engine leveraging audience insights, category dynamics and environmental triggers to deliver a customised solution in real-time, Content+ was launched to focus on producing insight-driven, purposeful content for a specific audience, at a specific time to meet a specific brand need. Kyve is a platform for brands and advertisers to track online video viewership. It also helps to use the data and intelligence gathered to scan, seed, and strategise end-to-end digital video and content strategies for brands. The tool also leverages its platform for precise brand targeting on online video, to eliminate audience spillage, and further measure the success of video campaigns. LOOP Room brings diverse talent together in one place to interpret data, gain insights and optimise campaigns in real time.
Prasanth Kumar, also known as PK, took over as the CEO of Mindshare India and South Asia in February 2015. Prior to this he was the managing partner, Central Trading Group, South Asia, GroupM.
Thanking his predecessors for making the organisation what it is today and laying a strong foundation, Kumar says, “We are glad to be celebrating 20 years and it is a big milestone for any agency. In the last 20 years, the Indian media industry has evolved along with our agency. It is a great achievement for any agency to be celebrating 20 years in this ever-evolving media world.”
Kumar also added that talent retention is a big challenge in today’s time when the younger generation does not want to join the media world. To combat the issue, Mindshare organises workshops and seminars for its employees while also encouraging and appreciating their hard work.
He also mentioned that the client agency relationship has changed dynamically over the last few years and it is a challenge to retain clients. An agency needs to be attentive and agile to cater to the client’s changing need and Mindshare has been successful in doing that over the last 20 years, resulting in clients being with Mindshare for the long term.
Terms such as analytics, big data and AI (artificial intelligence) became more prominent this year but Kumar believes that the Indian media landscape is yet to adapt and understand these tools. He has a positive outlook for 2018 and believes it will be a good year for the industry as a whole after a year’s slowdown due to demonetisation and GST.
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.
