CMYK

THE ECONOMIC TIMES, 11 NOVEMBER 2009

SHARAT VERMAP&G

VIDYA MURTHYP&G

NIKHIL RAOCADBURY

SRINIVAS MURTHYCOKE

HOMI BATTIWALLAPEPSI

KAVITA NAIRVODAFONE SHUBHODIP PAL

HEWLETT PACKARD

S K SRIKANTHASIAN PAINTS

They started off as foot soldiers in marketing, or even as programmers and business analysts. Some ‘escaped’ themandatory stint in sales. But for a cross section of senior marketers, former colleagues, ad men and media

executives, they are sizzling hot. After weeks of telephone calls, e-mails, checks and counter-checks, BE presentsa carefully picked crop of the country’s hottest young marketers

TO BE successful in the long haul, marketers need the flexibilityof mind and spirit to crawl with the ants and fly with the birds.When I was in my 30s, the entire television media was in a nas-cent stage in India and the entire country came to a standstill dur-ing popular programmes. TRPs were never an issue, but the chal-lenge was in creating clutter-breaking communication. Today,there is so much programming, and the challenge is in getting op-timum reach without overspending. The complexity of mediahas increased so much which has resulted in the evolution of me-dia buying as a science limiting any human intervention.

But even as everything around us seems to undergo a re-markable change, the basics never go out of passion. That'strue of marketing and marketers as well. The passion that mar-keters bring to a brand is directly proportional to the engage-ment that they create with the customer and consumer. Mar-keters are and must continue to be the "soul keepers" of theirbrand who can rally all functions around the strategic objec-tives and initiatives for their brand. As soul keepers, it's impor-tant for marketers to be 'eager beevers', know every processconnected to their brand, keep their 'ears on the wind', knowevery trend and have the tenacity to wear out the soles of theirshoes - 'a feet-on-the-street' approach to their profession.

In our times, professional lives were more about doingwhat you had to do well (living upto the expectations ofbeing an MBA!), establishing yourself in the organisa-tion and make a success of that. But as life has becomemore evolved, connected, and more complex, youngmarketers are inextricably linked with the rest of theworld. They have a richer palate in terms of access toknowledge, multiple opportunities and the ability todevelop many talents, skills and pastimes. The flip sideof all this is that younger marketers need to perhaps en-hance their level of engagement with their jobs — andbe proud to display that passion.

The other danger today is in being too technology driv-en. Technology is a great enabler and should be used assuch. It is imperative for potential leaders to have the abil-

ity to connect with people. The progression from being asuccessful marketer to a great leader begins with the pow-

er to envision, empower and impassion people with your vi-sion and feelings for what needs to be achieved.

The bottomline is to be bold, brave and different and havethe courage to stand by your convictions. And most of all tohave FUN while doing it!

Sangeeta Talwar

Sangeeta TalwarPresident, South Asia,

Tata Tea, writesexclusively for BE onwhat it takes for a

young marketer to makethe progression to a

great leader

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She doesn’t have sales stint on her resume. Neither didshe begin her career in a typical FMCG company.Vidya Murthy, marketing manager — fabric and home

care at P&G for brands such as Tide, Ariel and Vicks beganher career as a programmer with Wipro after passing outfrom REC, Suratkal. “Didn’t really enjoy it,” she admits,adding that it was too abstract. “Marketing is real, it’s aboutpeople and that’s what I love about it,” she says.

On graduating from IIM Calcutta that Murthy found her-self in the marketing function at P&G. P&G India marketingdirector, Sumeet Vohra recruited Murthy at campus and hesays she gave a glimpse of her abilities even then. Infact,friends and colleagues say that Murthy has two states ofmind, ‘happy’ and ‘ecstatic’. “She is extremely clear aboutthe rigours and the calmness she exudes cannot be taken asa lack of ambition,” states Vohra.

Her first assignment at P&G was in Singapore as an assis-tant brand manager for Pantene sales in India. Then,Murthy handled markets like Australia and New Zealand,before heading back home to handle a portfolio of fabric andhome care brands. Murthy feels her lack of sales stint hasnever been a hindrance so far. “P&G values functional ex-pertise and I work with cross functional teams with sales,trade and marketing talent. So the key is to completely re-pose faith on your team,” she explains. Rakesh Hinduja, as-sociate VP, Publicis Ambience says Murthy displays clarityon the ‘what and how part’ of reaching the Indian audience.Vicks, for example, he says has multiple consumer segmentslike Vicks Vaporub for mothers, lozenges for youth andVicks Action 500 for masses. “She understands the multipletouch points needed to touch the different segments,” hesays. Grooming talent and coaching is another hat Murthywears at P&G, which according to Vohra, comes easily toMurthy despite the high pressure of handling the marketingresponsibilities of brands. Perhaps that comes from the factthat Murthy is an eternal optimist and goes the extra mile todevelop talent. On her pursuits, Murthy says she continuesto learn Hindustani classical music and now is the lead vo-calist of the yet to be branded P&G band.

At 31, he is the youngest of the hot-young-mar-keter pack and his ring tone — the title soundtrack from Kaminey possibly symbolises the

sheer confidence of the group brand manager – colourmarketing at Asian Paints. “People who call say the songreally shakes them out of their slumber,” laughsSrikanth. And in many ways, Srikanth is also playing animportant role in shaking Asian Paints out of its past glo-ry and acquire a fresh coat of paint. The Colour Store inMumbai is one example, which according to AbhijitAwasthi, co-NCD, Ogilvy takes a B2B and hardwarestore brand directly to the end-consumers. Srikanth sayshis educational qualification as a B-Arch definitely camein handy. “Every sq feet has a story to tell,” he says, hisvoice barely masking the pride of achievement. He addsthat the Colour Store represents the new Asian Paints —contemporary and cutting edge.

It wasn’t until his IIM Lucknow post-graduation and

the summer internship at Nestle, that Srikanth chosemarketing as his career. “The thrill of go-to-market andthe challenges you face to acquire customers is whatclinched the decision in favour of marketing,” he says.Campus placement got him into Asian Paints in 2003and the mandatory sales stint followed. Senior execu-tives at the company say that Srikanth’s abilities lie insoaking and adapting to the changing environmentquickly. “He’s open to experimentation and therefore hehas the quality of influencing the brand through innova-tion and key consumer insight,” says one of them.

For Srikanth, the canvas has just got bigger with notjust the retail store, but also new areas like kids market-ing and initiatives like colour trends. And when he’s notworking, photography is a passion and all photos takenduring his travel go to a website run by Srikanth. “If notmarketing, then I would have pursued photography,” he states.

His tryst with chocolates goesback into childhood. Nikhil Raowas pampered by his father,

who worked with a foods major, withmore than a fair share of free choco-lates. “My father said the most excitingsector was food,” Rao recalls. It wasprobably the ‘meethamoments’ as a childthat prompted Rao tojoin Cadbury aftergraduating from IIMCalcutta in 1999. In adecade that he hasbeen with the foodsgiant, the portfoliomanaged by him isworth close to Rs1,900 crore withbrands such as CDM,Perk, Celebration and Bournville toname a few.

Rao, as his friends and colleaguesknow him, is a professional who isn’taverse to taking risks. Abhijit Awasthi,co-NCD at Ogilvy who’s worked closelywith Rao says the man doesn’t shy awayfrom experimenting or entering newterritories, be it new brands or oldbrands. “Kuch Naya Karte Hain is hisline and it’s always a mix of logic andmagic,” states Awasthi. Entering newterritory like launching a dark chocolatebrand Bournville, a first for Indian mar-ket, or taking CDM out of the contami-nation controversy — Rao’s done it all.“The launch of Bournville can be called

his coming of age. It was a tough taskand the stakes were high. Today, he canpull off anything he wants,” statesAwasthi. Rao credits it all to his salesstint. “Sales gets you grounded and youunderstand the velocity on groundzero,” he explains, adding that as ayoung brand manager working withAmitabh Bachchan on CDM to regainconsumer confidence, was one of thehigh points of his career.

Even though Rao treats creatives fromagencies as partners and friends, his re-gret is that they are not able to give am-

ple time to his brands. “Good creativepeople are overworked today. It’s notjust on creative ads, but also on point ofpurchase and business strategy that Iwould love to work with them,” he says.

Right now, his reading and travelinghobbies have taken a back seat. “Thebiggest hobby is to spend time with mydaughter,” he says. Apart from that, aroom turned into home theatre is wherehe watches his collection of worldmovies. Life beyond Cadbury? “Notthought about it, enjoying every minutehere,” he says.

CMYK

2THE ECONOMIC TIMES, 11 NOVEMBER 2009

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He might be dealing with blades, but Sharat Verma comes across as a gentle per-son with hardly a trace of the aggressiveness, that comes naturally to mar-keters. However Sumeet Vohra, P&G India marketing head warns you that

looks, as always, are deceptive. “It was in a meeting that Verma bared his fangs and wasquite belligerent,” Vohra says with a laugh. Of course, the belligerence, he adds is onlytowards achieving the goal. Otherwise, Verma is a complete team person. On his part,Verma makes no bones about the fact, that when the going gets tough, the tough nutin him comes to the fore. “The industry is so competitive. You have to be a task masterand need to push team members, but at the same time focus on developing them.”

The art of building relationships came from his sales stint, but it wasn’t at P&G, butHenkel, and later Gillette, where he earned his first spurs. After P&G acquired Gillette,Verma got a taste of marketing action across categories like toothbrush, grooming andeven batteries. “Sales is more short term, while marketing is a long term game. They arenothing but two sides of the coin,” he explains. After a three year stint at Singapore,Verma’s been in India since June 2009 and according to Vohra, he represents the newbreed of marketers with an intense passion to succeed despite overwhelming odds. JosyPaul, chairman, BBDO India, who works with Verma on Gillette, seconds the thought.“He is instinctive but it’s a knowledge based instinct, not just pure gut like us creatives,”he says, adding that despite the new working relationship with Verma, the feeling is weare in it together. “It’s never us and them.”

Idimadakala Srinivas Murthy aka Srini, akaIdi, is not your average marketer. For al-though he does have a home theatre sys-

tem, like the rest of us, how many can claimthat they designed it themselves? His engineer-ing degree rears its head often in Idi’s life. But aprofession in engineering would have meantthat he would deal more with chips (not thesnacking variety) than with people. “I wantedto be around and interact with people,” he ad-mits. A quick trip to IIM-Kolkata sealed the dealfor him. After graduating in 1998, he joinedGSK Consumer Healthcare as a managementtrainee and worked his way up to brand man-ager where he handled GSK’s acquired brandsViva and Maltova. He was slated to move on toa coveted position that meant handling theiconic brand Horlicks, when the Cola giantcame knocking at his door. “It’s funny, becauseI had never thought about working at Coke,”he admits. In 2001, he started his Coca-Cola ca-reer as new products portfolio manager andeven had a stint with ThumsUp. Today, he over-sees the entire flavours portfolio of Coke —Sprite, Fanta and Limca. “We are in the middleof delivering the portfolio’s full potential,” saysMurthy, “there’s a lot more to be unlocked.”According to him, the timing is just right, espe-cially because, this year is iconic. “This is theyear when the children of liberalisation, allborn in 1991, turn 18!” Let’s drink to that.

Razor Sharp

SRINIVAS MURTHYDIRECTOR, MARKETING (FLAVOURS),

COCA-COLA

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3THE ECONOMIC TIMES, 11 NOVEMBER 2009

PepsiBaby

Pug GhungzooLap It Up

HOMIBATTIWALLA

DIRECTOR, JUICE ANDJUICE DRINKS, PEPSICO

Homi Battiwalla is a pet lover who keeps adog, parrots and doves at home. But whenBattiwalla is at work the director of juice

and juice drinks at PepsiCo, sets the cat among thepigeons — we mean, his competitors, in the bever-ages space. In a career spanning 12 years, Battiwal-la has never felt the need to look beyond Pepsi-world. Punita Lal, executive director, marketing,PepsiCo India says in an instant: “Homi is a PepsiBaby.” After an MBA from FMS Delhi, Battiwallajoined PepsiCo in 1997 as a management trainee.Following initial sales and distribution stints inPune, Mumbai and Bangalore, where he got morethan his feet wet making structural distributionchanges, undertaking retail channel initiatives andso on, brand management couldn’t be far behind.Soon Battiwalla was involved with mega on-ground activations like ‘Dew Dares’ and ‘CrustyDemons’ for Mountain Dew, followed by workingon brand 7UP, that led to the execution of threepriority launches in one year — 7UP Curvy, LemonBite & 7UP Lite. In fact, the ‘curvy bottle’ Indialaunch was nominated as the best 3D executionacross PepsiCo international. Battiwalla says that

his on-ground stint in the early years was a greatexperience. “It was a great learning for brand man-agement from a different lens. Nothing is more im-portant as getting down and knowing the realityon the ground,” he says. These words come fromsomeone, who was never sure if he could ever takeon a sales assignment, when he started off. But see-ing people around him helped him cope with thechallenge, he says. Today, as category director, Bat-tiwalla confronts a different challenge, of not justbuilding a great brand but being accountable forthe entire business from a bottomline point ofview, as well. “It requires a different level of matu-rity, but also makes the job a lot more interesting,”he says. Lal feels that Battiwalla’s strength lies inhis “ability to be intensely micro-focused and to beable to pull out at the same time”. Former col-leagues like Vijay Subramaniam, currently CEO,international business, Marico point out that Batti-walla’s weaknesses lie in getting bogged down inmicro-details, that can at times result in time man-agement issues. Battiwalla says, he’s already work-ing on that front. He probably agrees that some-times, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

Kavita Nair knows that she can be in con-tention for the Guinness World Records.Not because she has been loyal to her com-

pany for 11 years (agreed, even that’s a record ofsorts in the times we live in). “I have been associatedwith the maximum number of brand transitions,”Nair, the associate vice president at Vodafone Essar,is quick to correct you. Otherwise, change has beenNair’s constant companion at the telecom major.Even Vodafone Essar was known as Hutchison Max,when Nair first joined the company. And in the lastdecade, the company has executed a slew of brandtransitions — Maxtouch to Orange, Orange toHutch, Hutch to Hutch Pink, BPL Mobile to Hutchand finally Hutch to Vodafone. The speed of changeled to ground breaking advertising work, but thatwas something, even the ad agencies were not ade-quately geared for. “The only reference point that adagencies had before our transition was Binaca trans-forming to Cibaca,” she says.However, brand mar-keting was not something that Nair started out do-ing. After finishing her MBA from Baroda, shefound herself as a part of the start-up team of BirlaAT&T Mobile in Pune as a business analyst. HerAmerican colleagues were fun to work with, but

tracking sales num-bers wasn’t as muchfun, especially, if youhad to report ‘nosales’ to your boss at theend of a day and face his reaction. Thanks to the callrates of those times.After nearly three years withAT&T, marriage and Maxtouch happened. Workingon brands was a new ball game. But soon, the small-town girl, who’s born in a village called Birlagram inMP, was “having a blast building brands” like Or-ange, Hutch and now Vodafone.

“I have watched Kavita transform from a grape toalmost vintage,” says Harit Nagpal, Vodafone In-

dia’s former marketing head, who is now based atthe company’s global headquarters. In that transfor-mation, Nair claims to have got rid of wasteful flawslike impatience, accepting that different peoplehave different capabilities and so on. Forever run-ning against deadlines to beat competitive advertis-ing in the hyperactive telecom category, Nair’sschedule rubs off on life beyond work. “I’ll hopeful-ly run the Half Marathon in 2010,” she tells us.Probably, her daily work schedule gives her thestamina for that.

SHUBHODIP PALHEAD, CONSUMER MARKETING, PERSONAL

SYSTEMS GROUP, HP INDIA

KAVITA NAIR ASSOCIATE VP, MARKETING COMMUNICA-

TION, VODAFONE ESSARIf there’s one place you are bound to findShubhodip Pal on the weekends it wouldbe on a golf course. He also has a follow-

er, in his five year old son, who in daddy’swords is getting there, at golf. Fundamentalsare crucial of course, and Pal sure knows it.Both in Golf and marketing. Pal’ll tell youthat he learnt it the hard way. In 1996, Paljoined Samsung, as a senior assistant manag-er marketing and that’s where he got downand dirty. “We were fighting a great army ofbranded players in the market and it was atough battle. But once we got our basicsright, there was no stopping.” For the battleover owning cricket properties, the resultwas the Samsung Cup in 2003. It was a tightshift everyday. On his first holiday, in fiveyears, he was called back to work, a full-twodays before holidays got over, to handlesome last minute details for the cricket tourin Pakistan.

After nearly a decade of handling brandduties for audio-visual, home appliances andmobile phone businesses as well as over-allbrand responsibilities, in one radical mo-ment, Pal joined the Dutch bank ABN Amroin 2005. He says, it was a shift that was muchneeded especially for one thirsting to explorenew facets of marketing. In 2007, a call froman ex-colleague about an opening at HewlettPackard prompted Pal to pack his laptop-bagsand dive right back into the deep end of thetechnology seas. “This space is very dynamic.The pulsating nature of the business allowsus to experiment with new ways and meansto reach our target,” he says. Dynamic, aword his superiors use to describe him too.Ask Pal what his strengths are and he’ll tellyou, “a constant yearning to learn”. In factwhen recruited the first question he was hitwith was, “Are you up to this?” followed by,“So you think you know it all?” His candidreply was “No, I don’t. But l’m always readyto learn more.”

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A Consumer Connect Initiative

Panasonic s business and we areexploring all possible synergies tostrengthen our position in India. Thelaunch of Panasonic HomeAutomation products is one such stepand there are many parallelinitiatives which have already beenundertaken. We value all the brandsand products in our portfolio andshall aggressively promote them inthe months to come.

Q TELL US ABOUT ANCHOR’S• NEW PROD UCE THE ROMA

VIOLA?

A We own ROMA, which is the• market leader and a generic

brand name for modular switchesand accessories. While ROMAcontinues to dominate the marketand is still the first choice of mostindividuals, we realised that thecustomer expectations with regard toform and textures are changing, withthe other elements of their interiorsincluding paints, wood finishes.flooring, etc. We thus had to designsomething more contemporary;minimal and subtle.

Roma VIOLA has thus been createdas the first range, after ouracquisition by Panasonic. Though it ispriced marginally higher than theROMA, its unique design, trendsetting aesthetic appeal, form and soft

silk matte texture blends into anywall and sets it apart from any other.The switches and other accessoriesare superior in their construction andhave been designed and evaluatedthrough a collaborative effort ofAnchor and the Panasonic designteams.

Q WHAT CATEGORY OF• CUSTOMERS IS THE ROMA

VIOLA AIMED AT?

A We believe that aspiration• mobility exists across socio-

economic strata and we have seenpositive sales of ROMA and our otherbrands across metros and the lowertier cities. While we are targetingROMA VIOLA at SEC B+ and above,we are sure that similar spreads willhappen across India over a period oftime, especially with our very strongsales and distribution infrastructure.ROMA VIOLA shall be chosen bycustomers who are very discerningabout the interiors and materials intheir house and are looking for anelegant product that is also verydurable.

Q WHEN WILL YOU FORMALLY• LAUNCH THE ROMA VIOLA ?

A While the placement has• start ed last month, we will

formally launch ROMA VIOLAthis month starting with Muxnbai ,followed by the other metro citieswithin six to eight weeks.During this period , we willshowcase the range to architects,int erior designers , electricalconsultants, developers, projectmanagement companies, electricalcontractors , and electricians.Simultaneously extensive brandsupport activities will be initiatedto create customer awareness .

Q WHAT ARE YOUR FUTURE• PLANS ?

A We are very excited as• India has a huge number

of households, over 200 millionpeople constantly increasing theirbuying power and aspiration.At present over 20 millionhouses are required to shelterthe homeless.The untapped andevolving market potential in Indiais thus enormous and theswitches market in India isevolving in many new andexciting ways including intelligenceand automation. While we area clear market leader, we believethat there is no upper limit onexcellence, you constantlyhave to strive for and redef ine it .

Q WHAT SETS ANCHOR APART• FROM ThE REST OF ThE

COMPANIES IN THE WIRINGDEVICES, SWiTCHES ANDACCESSORIES INDUSTRY?

A Anchor has been in this business• for nearly 50 years and a market

leader during most of this period. Wehave built an unparalleled level oftrust with the customer and have anextensive distribution across Indiawhich enables easy availability of ourproducts and high serviceabffity. Wehave also kept our productscontemporary in form, design andtechnology. In wiring devices, Anchoris the first name that comes to mind.

Q WHAT ARE THE RECENT• CHANGES THAT HAVE

TAKEN PLACE WITHINYOUR COMPANY?

A Anchor was acquired by• Panasonic in 2007. Since then,

vast improvements have been madein our product design, manufacturingand quality processes, and the salesand supply chain infrastructure. Thisis an ongoing process and ourparentage now allows us access toproducts and technologies fromJapan and other countries wherePanasonic has operations. WiringDevices are an important part of

SWIT CHED ON...Anc hor Electricals has been lighting up India for more than half a century.DINESH AGGARWAL, the company ’s Business Head (Wiring Devices)ta lksabout Anchor ’s revolutionary product , the Roma Vio la, and how the companyplans to shape up in the future post acquisition by Panasonic �.

— — ROMA VIOLA SHALL BE CHOSEN BYCUSTOMERS WHO ARE VERY

DISCERNING ABOUT THEINTERIORS AND MATERIALS IN THEIR HOUSE

AND ARE LOOKING FOR AN ELEGANT PRODUCTTHAT IS ALSO VERY DURABLE.”

ANCHDRComplete Electrical Solutions

ANCHDR

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Delshad Irani & Prasad Sangameshwaran

“You know you are old, whenColvyn Harris remembersyour name.” This is not atweet by a young advertisingbloke who’s spoilt hischances in the ad world by

crossing paths with JWT’s forever-youngchief. Rather it’s someone known as Fried-foodbrain (aka FFB) who’s making these can-did comments on the site. For the uninitiatedon the world’s most happening micro-blog-ging destination, FFB is Mudra’s chief creativeofficer, Bobby Pawar.

Of course, Harris would probably not pow-wow in a similar fashion, as he’s not yet a partof the medium. But a large part of Indian adland, young and old alike, are warming uptothe fact that the Internet and Twitter are notrumours!

Alright, we admit to have fallen prey to thepun-ish hullabaloo around Twitter. Twee-this, twee-that. But we are certainly notalone. T-wave has taken control of its fairshare of net lives; ad land of course is no ex-ception because this is where the twitwits(we did not coin the term), have freedom totweet to their hearts’ content. You find Indi-an ad folk discussing everything (and this isto twitter-addicts’ benefit) from Tweeting be-ing a very healthy habit to compassionatecomments towards women who have to suf-fer hair removal. Indeed, subjects on Twitterhave a broad range!

Some ad men like Leo Burnett’s K V Sridhar(kvpops on Twitter) who are more popular

than the rest (300 followers, following near-ly 500) Tweeting nearly 700 times, on

every topic under the sun. Popshas something to say on every-thing from cricket to terrorismand predicting what will happenif Balki’s film Pa succeeds. Andguess what, Pops even makespublic the cellphone number of

his new car driver! And whatdoes he not talk much about? Advertising.

But that’s fine say others like Saatchi & Saatchi’s ChiefCreative tweeter... oops, Officer, Ramanuj Shastry, who

avoided the global short-form blog for a month becausehe assumed it would be more about people postingmundane details. “I don’t care if you broke up with yourgirlfriend or boyfriend or what you ate last evening!” hesays. But he did it anyway and not only does he love it,he’s also fallen in “digital” love with fellow Tweeters likeBrainpicker (Maria Popova) who’s bio reads, “Creativestrategist by day, interestingness curator & digital an-thropologist by night. Semi-secret geek obsessed withstorytelling, design, data viz & TED.”

Shastry might prefer his official name as the user-name, but others have more intriguing titles for theirTwitter personas. Pawar prefers FFB as he believes thatTweeting “is a junk food take on culture.” Others likeSonal Dabral, chairman, Bates 141 goes under the as-sumed identity of agracadabra. Some like Euro RSCG’sSuman Srivastava (suman7), use tweeting as a science,or signs, that will help in sharpening the planner in him,while Starcom MediaVest’s Ravi Kiran (ravitwo) uses itto stay in touch with technology trends.

Although number of followers that ad men have is stillminiscule compared to say, Mashable (not even remote-ly related Rediffusion’s Mash Chauhan) or Shashi Tha-roor, they are firm believers in the power of the medium.Take the case of Ravi Kiran who started micro-bloggingwith Jaiku when he was in Singapore, just as a matter ofkeeping people informed about his whereabouts. NowKiran is an active follower on Twitter (though he maynot tweet as much) – catching up news updates and haseven escalated micro-blogging to his organisation withthe enterprise blogging service, Yammer.

Saatchi & Saatchi’s Shastry believes that Twitter isgood for the health of your workplace. One post fromhim links you to an article on how ‘Banning FaceBookand Twitter from the workplace can backfire’. For EuroRSCG’s chief creative, Satbir Singh aka thesatbir a pres-ence at the launch of Veet Cold Wax Strips led to thistelling comment: “Boy, women sure go thru a lot while removing hair.”

For his boss, Euro RSCG CEO, Suman Srivastava,Twitter is not as much about posting comments abouthis own self, but about observing the medium from aplanner’s perspective. “I don’t know if I am breakingany code here,” he says.

But for many, the beauty of Twitter lies in the fact thatthere is no code, no impositions, quite suitable for ourbrigade of admen and women. And while most tweetaway on the move too, Burnett’s Pops says — “Hectic trav-el and work kept me away from Twitter. Now I am back!”

delshad.irani@timesgroup.com

Tweets the word inIndian adland as the

dream merchants catchthe twit-bug

In Twitterland:(Featured abovefrom L to R) M G Parameswaran, K S Chakravarthy,Bobby Pawar,Arvind Sharma,Prathap Suthan, K V Sridhar,Sandeep Lakhina,Rajeev Raja, Satbir Singh, Ravi Kiran andRamanuj Shastry

CMYK

Regn.No.MAHENG/2002/6711 Volume 8 Issue No.42 Published for the proprietors, Bennett Coleman & Co Ltd by R. Venkata Kesavan at The Times Of India Building, Dr. D.N.Road, Mumbai 400001 and printed by him at The Times of India Suburban Press, Western Express Highway, Kandivili (E), Mumbai 400101. Tel No: 66353535, Fax No: 22731520.Editor: Harihar Narayanswamy (Responsible for selection of news under PRB Act) Reproduction in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher is prohibited.

4THE ECONOMIC TIMES, 11 NOVEMBER 2009

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