mudra group turns 30

1980-90

The decade of birth

1991-2000

The decade of growth

2010 onwards

Explosion

2001-10

The decade of tra nsformation

30 YEARS & GROWING

group

It’s not 30, it’s 1057 reasons to celebrate

First, turn to the back cover of this issue...

What you’ve seen is the real reason for this special issue. It’s not about 30 years of Mudra, though the date certainly coincides.

It’s about what Mudra has become.It’s become a communications conglomerate with 1057

professionals as of today.It’s become a communications powerhouse as opposed to

being an advertising agency.And, funnily, the advertising agency that it once was might

never have been.In a fantastic necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention story,

Mudra was born because the agency that handled Vimal chose to discontinue the relationship because they wanted to work for a conflicting brand.

So the in-house department at Reliance that addressed, largely, the BTL needs of Vimal, decided to become the solution provider for the ATL needs as well.

Then they decided that they were good enough to provide solutions for non-Reliance brands too; after all, they were doing a good, even great, job with Vimal.

So they created the iconic Rasna communication (and brand) for their first ‘external account’. And when necessity dictated that they had to expand, they did.

They expanded geographically, to where they needed to be, to service their growing client roster. And their growing ambitions. They expanded into areas of expertise that their clients required. And they went on and on.

Their furious expansion caused us at Campaign India to break from the norm and do a double spread ‘simplifying’ Mudra.

Thirty years after their birth, they’re the largest home-grown agency in the country, nipping at the heels of the international brands that entered India almost 100 years ago.

And now they’re ready to shift gears.The agencies ahead of them need to keep an eye on the rear

view mirror. The agency that they see is closer than it appears.

CONTENTS“Ready for explosive growth” 04That’s a confident statement made by Madhukar Kamath, MD and CEO, Mudra Group; rooted in the knowledge that Mudra is reaping the benefits of investments

Four pillars of Mudra group 06Once upon a time, 30 years ago, Mudra transformed from a marketing department in Reliance to an advertising agency. As they kept adding specialisations, Mudra was transformed from an agency to a group. Here’s a snapshot of who does what.

View from the outside 08What do Mudra’s partners, captains of industry, Mudra’s competitors and CEOs of media houses think of Mudra?

Mudra works for them 12What do those who work with Mudra for their brand-building and communication needs think of their contribution?

They helped build Mudra 16Mudra has been a stepping stone for a number of great Indian adlanders, all with great memories of their stints there and what they gained from Mudra

The Mudra India ‘A’ team 18An organisation is only as good as its people, more so in the communications area. Here’s Mudra India’s ‘A’ team

The best of Mudra India 20Creatives that made a difference

DDB Mudra 22The very best of Mudra meets the best of DDB to create magic

Mudra MAX 24Pratap Bose joining the agency has brought in a new dynamism

Ignite Mudra 26In an age of clutter, Ignite Mudra found the required differentiator

Milestones in the life of Mudra 28Key dates in the journey of Mudra

MICA: Going beyond business 30Mudra’s commitment to the communications arena is best proven by their investment in MICA

Anant Rangaswami

25 March 2010 campaign india Mudra supplement 3

10 campaign india Vol III Issue 4 23 October 2009

23 October 2009 campaign india Vol III Issue 4 11

was that brands were built on TV. As

time passed, we realised that there

was an opportunity to build brands

everdyday at each and every con-

sumer touchpoint. Today, examples

abound of brands that have been

built purely on, say, experiential ad-

vertising, out of home advertising,

word of mouth marketing, or even

sponsorships. We decided that we

would take every consumer touch-

point, and ensure that we are present

there in terms of building the busi-

ness. At the onset, we decided that

we would have two fundamental

questions to answer for any unit that

we started; one, whether it can by it-

self be best in class in its category and

the second whether it was scalable.

As a result we started investing in

building businesses in each of these

consumer touch points.”

“What we would ideally like is for

clients to come to us, not with a brief,

but to say, ‘here is our marketing

problem, now solve it’,” adds

Kamath.

The group integrated all of its spe-

cialist units under the Mudra Max

umbrella in May this year. Speaking

to Campaign India, at the time,

Pratap Bose, CEO, Mudra Max and

COO, Mudra Group had singled out

scale as the biggest advantage of such

an integrated offering for clients. The

next step according to Bose is for the

group to identify, for each of these

units, a best in class partner.

That process is already underway,

with the recent announcements of a

JV with Clear Channel in the out of

home segment and with UK based

retail design specialist Portland, with

Portland Mudra. Other announce-

ments are likely to be made soon.

Mudra Group consists of four sep-

arate arms. (See box above)

There is the core advertising busi-

ness under Mudra Communications.

This consists of Mudra, the advertis-

ing agency; Water, the strategy and

design consultancy; Maatra, the lo-

calisation and pre-media services

and Tantr Films, a content creation

The Mudra Group, which had

its beginnings with one of-

fice in 1980, and one brand

as a client- Vimal, today em-

ploys close to 1100 people

across 26 offices, to handle a

portfolio of more than a 100 brands.

With a number of specialist units

having been launched in the last one

year, Madhukar Kamath, MD and

CEO, Mudra Group says the idea

was to build one of the country’s

largest integrated marketing com-

muncations group with specialist

units, each of which could stand in-

dependently on its own feet in terms

of business objectives.

Elaborating on the vision behind

launching the various specialist units,

Kamath recalls, “When we set about

the business of mapping out how to

move forward, we went about at-

tempting to define the business that

we were in, which was the business of

building brands and providing crea-

tive business solutions. The conven-

tional belief, until a few years ago,

“We spend a lot of time on integration, it’s driven down from

the top.”Madhukar Kamath

REALLY, REALLY SIMPLIFYING MUDRAIn the last issue, we did

an All About on the Mudra Group which served to confuse more

than simplify. Campaign

India’s Bindu Nair Maitra

spent considerable time

to understand the group’s various entities

and all that they stood

for, how they meshed

into each other and how

they added value to each

other — and how the

sum of the parts added

up to more than the individual offerings of

the fast growing group

unit. The second segment is housed

under the DDB Mudra segment.

This consists of Tribal DDB, which is

the Interactive and new media agen-

cy; Rapp, the relationship marketing

unit; Mudra Health & Lifestyle, the

health and lifestyle marketing arm,

which is soon to be integrated under

the DDB Mudra side of the agency.

Mudra MAX is the third segment

under the Mudra Group umbrella,

that houses the media buying and

various specialist units. MAX, there-

fore, houses Connext and Radar, the

two media buying units. The various

specialist units here include those

housed under Prime Group, which

includes Prime Site (out of home so-

lutions); Prime Retail (retail design

and visual merchandising); Prime

Wayfinding (navigation solutions);

Prime Consult (outdoor environ-

ment consulting) and Prime Green

(solar enabled media).

Then there is Kidstuff, the promo-

tional marketing unit, Street Smart,

the interactive out-of-home solu-

tions arm; Multiplier, the specialised

trade marketing unit; Terra, the spe-

cialised rural marketing unit; Video-

tec (the branded entertainment

arm); 10 Integrated, the sports mar-

keting unit; Celcius, the events mar-

keting unit and Portland. Mudra, the

recent JV between UK based retail

design firm Portland and Mudra in

the area of experiential and retail de-

sign. There is also the recently

launched Clear Channel Mudra LLP,

which is an out of home specialist

unit. The fourth part of the Mudra

Group is Ignite Mudra, the recently

launched agency that specialises in

catering to Indian entrepreneurs,

the small and medium businesses in

areas of brand building and market-

ing. Ignite Mudra is based in

Ahmedabad.

On the business side, while Jude

Fernandes, executive director,

Mudra Group and CEO, Mudra Ad-

vertising heads Mudra Communi-

cations; Sandeep Vij, executive di-

rector and chief knowledge officer,

Mudra Group and CEO, DDB India

Group heads the DDB Mudra

Group part of the business and

Pratap Bose heads Mudra Max as

CEO, besides being COO, Mudra

Group. Chandan Nath is president

and head, Ignite Mudra.

While ‘product’ is headed by Bobby

Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra

Group, the people function is headed

by Ajit Menon who is president, or-

ganisational development within the

Mudra group. Dilip Upadhayaya is

the chief financial officer. That, in es-

sence, sums up the way that the agen-

cy has been structured.

So how does the all important ‘I’

word- Integration fit into this com-

plex structure? Explains Kamath,

“We spend a lot of time on integra-

tion, it’s driven down from the top.

We have an executive board which

has three of the CEOs; Bobby as the

CCO, me, then there are the support

functions in the form of HR and fi-

nance. We always try to meet once

every fifteen days, failing that we def-

initely meet once a month, where we

discuss integration issues, the great

things that have taken place in the

last fortnight, what we can look for-

ward to going forward and future op-

portunities.”

Elaborating further, he adds, “The

point is that we drive it down. So

when Jude goes in to meet a client,

he is constantly on the lookout for

opportunities for other units. He

drives in other units into the process.

The same is the case for each every

other operating head.”

He gives the example of work

done recently for Wrigleys by

Mudra. “This was work that was

handled together by three to four

different units, all under Mudra. Cel-

cius, Mudra Health & Lifestyle, Kid-

stuff, each of these were involved in

the entire project, which took place

at MMRDA Grounds in Mumbai

where the objective was to get into

the Guiness Book of Records for the

most number of dental checkups in

a day,” he says.

Adds Pratap Bose, “Mudra, as the

traditional advertising agency, is a

core part of our business and to grow

that part is a goal that has not changed.

DDB Mudra, which is our associa-

tion with Tribal DDB is a separate

part. Essentially what we are looking

to do with that relationship is in being

able to leverage DDB’s resources

globally as well as regionally and to

grow our international business in

India. When I came on board, the

main task facing me was to grow all

the specialist functions under the

MAX umbrella. That’s where I am

involved on a day-to-day basis. The

way forward is to find the best in class

partner, for each of these units to

grow them substantially. We recently

announced the out of home joint

venture with Clear Channel with

Clear Channel Mudra LLP and be-

fore that there was Portland. Mudra.

What we would like to do next would

be to get into the next generation

forms of media which could be get-

ting into mobile marketing, word of

mouth among others. The vision is to

grow the specialised businesses into

core competencies and as Mudra

Max, position ourselves as a special-

ist communications group within the

agency.” In terms of their key differentiating

factor, Bose says, “Where we stand

now, and where we would be stand-

ing a year from now on, is going to be

very different. Today, the one differ-

entiating factor would be that we are

the largest communications group

with real specialist skills across all of

consumer touchpoints. That’s our

biggest USP and the ability to inte-

grate all these units with advertising

will also be our biggest strength.”

MUDRA GROUP

DDB M

udra

Grou

p

Mudr

a MAX

Ignit

e Mud

ra

Mudr

a Com

mun

icatio

ns

Madhukar Kamath, MD and

CEO, Mudra Group

Jude Fernandes,

ED, Mudra Group

and CEO, Mudra

Advertising

Pratap Bose, COO, Mudra Group and CEO, Mudra MAX

Sandeep Vij, ED and CKO, Mudra Group and CEO, DDB Mudra Group

Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra Group

Chandan Nath, president and head, Ignite Mudra

Mudra WestMudra North & EastMudra South

Prime Group

When there might have been none. Mudra might never have been born had an agency not resigned the Vimal account because of conflict with another in the roster.

Editorial team Bindu Nair Maitra, Gunjan Prasad, Arcopol Chaudhuri Design team Sachin Rajwadkar, Kaushal Gandhi, Sujit Mandvikar. Cover design Anya Rangaswami Photography Pawan Manglani and Mohammed Shafiq

Printed by Andrew James, published by Andrew James on behalf of Haymarket Media India Private Limited and printed at Kalajyothi Process Pvt. Ltd., Plot No: W-17&18, M.I.D.C. Industrial Area, Taloja, Dist Raigad, Navi Mumbai 410206 and published at Victor House, 3rd floor 142/C N.M Joshi Road, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013. Editor Anant Rangaswami.

campaign® is a registered UK trade mark of Haymarket Business Publications Ltd, 174 Hammersmith Road, London W6 7JP. © No part of this publication may be produced without permission of the publishers.

This supplement contains 32 pages including covers.

“READY FOR EXPLOSIVE GROWTH”The confident statement made by Madhukar Kamath, MD and CEO, Mudra Group; rooted in the knowledge that Mudra is reaping the benefits of investments

4 campaign india Mudra supplement 25 March 2010 25 March 2010 campaign india Mudra supplement 5

All of a sudden, the Mudra Group is monolithic; nu-merous strategic business units straddle all conceiva-ble needs of a brand to com-municate a message.

A closer look reveals that nothing is sudden; that the Group has been growing steadily, with a sprint in the last decade,the last of the first three decades that Mudra has seen.

Madhukar Kamath, MD and CEO, Mudra Group, describes each dec-ade: “There are essentially three dec-ades in the history of Mudra. Decade one was that of birth and innovation; the birth of an agency which rewrote the rules and which didn’t conform

to what was stated in the ‘com-mandments’ in the adver-

tising industry. “Thou shalt be based in

Bombay or Madras or Delhi,” “Thou shalt be interna-tional,” and “Thou shalt be a whole lot of things.”

“That was the decade of birth, then came the dec-ade of growth, as this was the time when Mudra expand-ed with several

offices across the country and added

more people to its fold. 2001-10 has

been the decade of t r a n s f o r m a t i o n ,

Mudra evolved from an agency to a marketing

communications group.” That’s easy to say. Which

Ranjan Kapoorcountry manager - India, WPP Group

“Mudra’s got a strong

advertising agency and today, there is an absolute revival and aggression in them that I have not seen before. Look at the way they’ve hired at a time when nobody was hiring.”

John Wren CEO, Omnicom Group

“I’m extremely impressed

in the professionalism and team work that I saw. Mudra today is a world class agency with great creative product and I’m very proud to be their partner.”.

Lutz Kothechief GM - marketing and PR, Volkswagen India

“DDB Mudra has understood the VW brand in a very short period of time. They’ve adapted our brand guidelines to India and raised brand awareness by double digits.”

Santosh DesaiMD and CEO, Future Brands

“Today, Mudra is one of the

few organisations that is genuinely more than just about advertising. Culturally, it may have matured and ripened, but it has not become something else.”

Colvyn HarrisCEO, JWT and president, AAAI

“Mudra now holds the perception

of being a full-service agency, a good one at that, having diversified into many specializations in the last one year and it continues to grow.”

Kishore Biyani CEO and founder, Future Group

“Mudra has certainly helped

make Big Bazaar a part of India’s life and culture. They understand our core consumer and know how to talk to them.”

Adi GodrejCMD, The Godrej Group

“Our relationship with Mudra

is long and diverse. One thing unique about Mudra is that they go to consumers. They take the trouble to move around, interact. Its impressive.”

Chuck Brymerpresident and CEO, DDB Worldwide

“Mudra is growing

capabilities in areas outside traditional advertising and this shift is similar to what DDB is doing globally. We are happy with our partnership.”

Sam BalsaraCMD, Madison World

“Right from its launch, Mudra has

come across as a no-nonsense, performance based agency. Today, Mudra’s story is much like the growth story of Indian entrepreneurs.

John Zeiglerpresident and CEO, DDB Asia Pacific

“Mudra has found

resolve, they are on the road to leading creatively. They are out from the shadow of their past structure, they’re looking at opportunities to change everything they do.”

ations, and have often supported us in times of difficulty, especially when we didn’t have time to execute cam-paigns, when situations changed, when businesses changed. They have bent backwards and put in all their resources to bail us out in situations, and that’s what we appreciate. We never hear or feel, from their body language, that they ever say no, and there is a very positive and open atti-tude of ‘can do’, which is what we love in DDB Mudra.”

Sharma’s views are ratified by Mudra alumnus Santosh Desai. “The good thing about Mudra is that they’re involved, in business terms. I think that it is one of the few organi-zations in this sector that is genuinely more than just advertising.”

Client delight with an area that Mudra has focused on must please Kamath immensely.

“The Mudra team headed by Jude Fernandes has always worked seam-lessly with our teams on all projects, often carrying out services which were not necessarily within the scope of work defined. It’s always like one big Godrej team,” says Tanya Du-bash, executive director and presi-dent (marketing), Godrej Industries.

Products and services need to be tested and certified in the market. Who better to judge the performance of a communication company than someone who needs the communica-tion to work every single day?

“Mudra represents the values we represent,” says Kishore Biyani. founder and CEO, Future Group, “There is a good cultural fit between the Future Group and Mudra—they understand us and our needs. More importantly, they understand our core consumer and know how to talk to them. Most agencies come with a different mindset, they try to please

Indian or international, that he want-ed to work with. “When it came to de-ciding on agencies here, it was very important for us to find an agency which clearly understood what our brands stood for. Based on the brand strategy we developed and the un-derstanding that various agencies demonstrated, we decided on DDB Mudra, which was an additional ad-vantage for us because it belongs to the DDB network.” If it were not a network agency, would Volkswagen still have decided on Mudra? “Yes,” is his definitive answer.

To other clients, too, Mudra being Indian or part of a network is not a matter of significance; the value that they get from Mudra is. Raghunan-dan, MD and CEO, Paras Pharma-ceuticals says he sees a lot of value. “In the last 18 months, we have come to expect more work out of Mudra than in the past – and they have been able to measure up to these new expecta-tions. More importantly, we are de-lighted by their going beyond the brief. A new product that we are going to launch in the coming months is a brainchild of Mudra. The concept was their’s; they have been able to flesh out the category and they have been able to convince us that this was a good opportunity for us to get in.” That’s indeed going beyond the brief.

Vivek Sharma, chief marketing of-ficer, Philips India sees the global link to DDB combined with the Indian roots as an advantage. “They bring a lot of value in getting the global learn-ing from DDB into India and yet, re-tain the Indian relevance and Indian sensibilities. And they do stand up to their beliefs and thoughts about what the brand should be in India and that’s what I really admire in them. They demonstrate a greater under-standing of the business and our situ-

Godrej’s views are endorsed by Narasimhan Tupil, marketing direc-tor, HP Technology services, APAC and Japan. He has had a long associa-tion with Mudra and is gratified that, with the changes in Mudra, their orig-inal values are still visible. “There are two things which, in my view, differ-entiate Mudra from the many other agencies that I and some of my team members have worked with. The first differentiator is that they’re true business partners; they don’t act like an agency, which is a real compliment to the way Dhirubhai Ambani and AG Krishnamurthy founded the company. The second one is respon-

siveness which pure-ly from the time-to-market issue is very important to us.”

“On the first point, I’ll give you an ex-ample. There are two ways of doing a brief. One is to listen to the client and then come back with a brief, confirming your interpretation of what the client

has said. The second one, when you actually act as a true business partner is when you question the assump-tions. Mudra takes keen interest to understand the business market we’re operating in, what are our main concerns, what are our pressures and our objectives. That happens when you question the assumptions or you want to know more about the prod-uct or the service you are communi-cating for. This is what I always find people in Mudra doing.”

Godrej and Narasimhan have seen Mudra from the time it was a purely ‘Indian’ agency. For Lutz Kothe of Volkswagen, Mudra was an agency,

advertising agency is not attempting to shed itself of the ‘agency’ tag?

In Mudra’s case, the changes that Kamath speaks of, are changes that their clients seem to be seeing, expe-riencing and benefiting from. There’s no greater testament to the fact than Adi Godrej’s views. Mudra has worked with various Godrej brands for 25 years, almost the age of the agency itself. “We have a very close relationship with Mudra for about 25 years,” says Godrej. “They have han-dled a number of our brands and products over the years – soaps and hair colour; they have handled Real Good Chicken, they have handled durables. So our re-lationship with Mudra has been long and diverse. The one thing I found about Mudra which is unique, to my mind, is that they go to consumers. I have seen them. They keep speaking to consumers and give us feedback — and that I like. Ad-vertising agencies generally believe that their job is only being creative whereas I have seen a lot of insight coming out of Mudra. I think they have taken the trouble to go to the market, to interact with consumers..”

This is no accident. “It’s made man-datory that you have a certain number of days in the field. People forget that partnerships can only happen if you know what is happen-ing in the market. No planner can sit without having x days each month, in the market. These are small steps that everybody needs to take. I can’t talk about other agencies but we have felt the need,” says Kamath.

Mudra is a no-nonsense agency and focuses on the brands and business’ interestsKishore Biyani, Future Group

the client. Mudra is a no-nonsense agency and focuses on brands and business interests. We have grown to-gether over these eight years. Our re-lationship started when we had just 10 stores. Today we have 150 and this journey has been marked by some valuable contributions by Mudra. They’ve helped make Big Bazaar a part of India’s life and culture.”

What comes through is that there is something that Mudra is doing right when it comes to defining their own role and culture, and a lot of that has to do with people. That’s an area of concern and focus for Kamath.

“We are handling people on two fronts —one, inter-nal and the other, external. Internally, we are focussed on hiring for aptitude, not just skills be-cause those can be built on and devel-oped subsequently. At the same time, we are focusing on pro-viding developmen-tal inputs, exposure and experience to existing people, primarily to help them change orbits. Externally, we will need to step up on going out ag-gressively and talking about the nu-merous opportunities in the Group, in as many fora as possible. We have to stress on the fact that there is a wider spread of opportunities in our communications group — opportu-nities aimed at building brands.”We’ve got to start looking at it as not just a career in advertising but a career in communications.”

If Biyani’s was the ultimate acco-lade, there’s more. DDB’s John Zei-gler wishes that they had a bigger piece of Mudra – but is still happy in

the relationship that DDB and Mudra share. “It’s like a wife who turns 40. At times you feel that you are actually locked into a marriage and then as you turn 40, you realize- ah, the marriage can actually be what you want it to be; you don’t have to be focused on the fact that you are mar-ried. And in that middle era of matu-rity, I think both of the partners start to flourish together. We are learning a lot from Mudra and Mudra is, under Madhukar’s leadership, learning a lot and connecting more with DDB than it ever has. I can see that rela-tionship flourishing and maturing to the benefit of both. I would love to

have much greater ownership equity but our relationship is such that our own-ership equity is less and less impacting the working and strategic relation-ship that we have.”

Satisfied clients. Clients who admire them for their Indi-anness, clients who admire them for

their international links. Clients who appreciate their going beyond the brief. Clients who have benefited from extraordinary commitment. Clients who see Mudra as a partner.

That’s a long list of positives.Kamath sees the past three decades

as the basis of their optimism. “We’re in this phase today because of the in-vestments and the lifecycle stages of the various growth engines devel-oped, because of the talent base we have, in terms of width and depth. I don’t think we are going to have phas-es of ups or downs; now it has to keep skyrocketing. We’re ready to ex-plode.”

“No planner can sit without having x days each month with consumers, in the market”

“We are focussed on hiring for aptitude, not just skills as those can be built on and developed”

FOUR PILLARS OF MUDRA GROUPOnce upon a time, 30 years ago, Mudra transformed from a marketing department in Reliance to an advertising agency. As they kept adding specialisations, Mudra was transformed from an agency to a group. Here’s a snapshot of who does what.


And three other pillars, the national resources of Mudra

Bobby Pawar, chief creative officer, Mudra Group“What provoked me to join Mudra was the sheer challenge that the opportunity offered. To turn around, or even manouver, a ship of this size is worth the coming. So, doing that was far more challenging than joining a smaller shop, which would be easier but not quite as challenging...”

Ajit Menon, president, organisational development, Mudra Group“Mudra is an entrepreneurial agency that gives marketing solutions. So when we hire, the first quality we need is the entrepreneurial quality - you should have a good business team and you should be a person who is living and breathing a creative product. That doesn’t mean you simply go to a pitch, win it and come back. You should have a certain business sense and say that you’re running a business, not just a creative shop.”

Dilip Upadhyaya, chief financial officer, Mudra Group“We have to manage the cash flow in a meaningful manner allowing our operating team to remain focused on the key business. The finance function ensures that the management is free to focus on growth, while we work to ensure financial health and stability.”

indiaThe Mudra Group has its core advertising business, housed under Mudra India. This consists of Mudra, the advertising agency; Water, the strategy and design consultancy; Maatra, the localisation and pre-media services and Tantr Films, a content creation unit.

Jude Fernandes, CEO, Mudra India says, “What’s most significant is this entire shift from being just an advertising agency. There is much larger planning focus and we’ve got a huge senior planning team across the country making sure everyone’s working with the same set of tools. Plus, we’ve got strong creative heads in all our three offices. So we have complete solutions and we carry out the entire execution.”

He adds,“In every office we have large businesses which continue to grow with us. Most of our relationships have all started with a small beginning.”

It is this beginning that started in Ahmedabad and went on to create iconic campaigns for little known brands (then) such as Vimal, Rasna, Godrej Powder Hair Dye, Dhara Sunflower Oil, Reliance India Mobile.

“There are clients who’ve been with us over the last few years as they’ve expanded their retail network.Currently, we have clients such as the Godrej Group, Future Group, LIC, Union Bank, HCC and the Lavasa Future Cities campaign which has got everyone talking. Similarly, The Times of India and Worldwide Media are small but they are adding on business.”

“We have understood the client,” he says. “ What’s more important is we have understood the client’s needs. Advertising works because its an investment.”

Mudra MAX is the third agency under the Mudra Group umbrella, that houses the media buying and various specialist units. MAX, therefore, houses Connext and RADAR, the two media buying units. RADAR is exclusively for handling Reliance brands.

This division also has various specialist units catering to OOH, retail design and visual merchandising, navigation and marketing solutions for trade, promotions, rural, events and sports.

Pratap Bose, CEO, Mudra MAX and COO, Mudra Group says, “There is still some unfinished business in terms of more units to be launched. What we would like to do next would be to get into the next generation forms of media which could be getting into mobile marketing, word of mouth among others.”

Bose says that thanks to Mudra MAX, clients get a combination of an experiential plus communications planning agency.

He says, “The way forward is to find the best in class partner, for each of these units to grow them substantially.” Last year, Mudra MAX announced an OOH JV with Clear Channel, prior to which there was Portland Mudra. It recently entered into a partnership with Concrea Communications for youth marketing.

Going forward, Bose wants to grow these specialised units into their core competencies. “We want to position Mudra MAX as a specialist communications group within the agency. Where we stand now, and where we would be standing a year from now on, is going to be very different,” he says. “Today, the one differentiating factor would be that we are the largest communications group with real specialist skills across all consumer touchpoints. That’s our biggest USP and the ability to integrate all these units with advertising will also be our biggest strength.”

DDB Mudra, headed by Sandeep Vij is the second agency under the Mudra Group. It consists of advertising agency DDB Mudra Advertising, the interactive and new media unit Tribal DDB, the relationship marketing division Rapp and a health and lifestyle marketing unit, DDB/Mudra Health and Lifestyle.

Vij says, “Today the agency model is under transformation. Fortunately, DDB Mudra is being sculpted at the cusp of change. We are building a culture that truly inspires the internal culture of collaboration. It is being built around the idea of open collaboration.Today, clients want integrated teams to solve problems.”

Vij says they’ve created a structure where each unit is separated by semi-permeable membranes allowing the free flow of ideas, processes yet retaining that which gives the cell its DNA. Last year, the agency infused fresh talent at the leadership level when it hired Mike Follett and Rajeev Raja to run ‘One Voice Planning’ and ‘Creative’ respectively across the Group ensuring fluidity in thinking and truly holistic creative business solutions.

“In essence we have moved on from being disparate agencies to a team of experts, from being discipline to idea oriented, from consecutive production thinking to a concurrent collaborative production, from separate to open,” he says. Vij is currently trying to mould an internal culture that “truly inspires internal collaboration enabling us to build and harness our collective creative energy”.

Client partners in India include Volkswagen, Neutrogena and Clean & Clear (Johnson & Johnson), Henkel, Lipton, Reliance Mutual Fund, RBS, Wrigley, Idea, The Times of India, Philips, Novartis, Schering Plough, HDFC, Tata AIG, HP, Tata Communications and Unicef.

Ignite Mudra is the fourth agency of the Mudra Group that was launched in 2009 and is positioned as an agency that partners Indian entrepreneurs. The agency works closely with entrepreneurs in trying to understand their needs, not only in brand building but also supporting them through a consortium that provides services in corporate law, funding, organisational development and sales and distribution expertise provided in conjunction with a consortium of domain experts.

Chandan Nath, president and head, Ignite Mudra says that working with entrepreneurs needs an understanding mindset. “You’ve got to respect the ideas, dreams and vision of the entrepreneur. They’ll look for relationships rather than business. I think entrepreneurs are more into relationships than simply doing business with agencies. And if you have been there, they respect that, which is very rare for other clients.”

Nath lists brands which he describes as Mudra Group classics from Ahmedabad. “Vimal created and added fashion to fabrics. Dhara redefined purity in edible oils. Symphony launched the category of air coolers. Ajanta was the revolution of musical quartz wall clocks. Look at Paras brands - Moov, Krack, Livon, DermiCool, Itchguard, Recova, each name that I’ve mentioned is not only a brand success, it is also a category creator. I mean there was no itch relieving cream before Itchguard was launched. Another new entrant, Nutralite today has acquired more than 25 plus percent share of the market.”

Nath emphasizes that the consortium gets together leading professionals from the industry offering skillsets which they believe will contribute to the growth of an entrepreneur.

Ashish Mishrachief strategist and head, Water Consulting

“We can dream freely, in a real, achievable way and more often than not, whosoever wants to take the initiative is allowed to do so.”

Jude Fernandes CEO, Mudra India

“We are aware of

our clients’ needs. When we go into the market, when we are talking to a potential client, we are not talking only advertising.”

Rajeev Rajanational creative director, DDB Mudra

“Today, Mudra as a Group is rock solid. We are not paying mere lip service to the term ‘full service agency’.”

Sandeep Vij CEO, DDB Mudra

“Each unit in DDB Mudra is

separated by semi-permeable membranes allowing the free flow of ideas and processes, yet retaining that which gives the cell its DNA.”

Anurag Gupta president -

strategic initiatives and integration, Mudra MAX

“We’re an agency of very apolitical, very entrepreneurial, very independent people and from a culture point of view, we’re malleable.”

Pratap Bose CEO, Mudra MAX, COO, Mudra Group

“Mudra is a place

where we are not mavericks, we are not militants, we don’t hire and fire - its an agency built on certain principles.”

Sanjay Menonexecutive creative director, Ignite Mudra

“When you’re

working with entrepreneurs, you’ve got to share their vision, because for them, there is no second chance.”

Chandan Nath president and head, Ignite Mudra

“As a Group,

today we have the expertise of a variety of skill sets, which according to me are not offered by many advertising agencies.”

Units Mudra India, Water, Maatra and Tantr Films

Key people Jude Fernandes (CEO), Ashish Mishra (chief strategist and head, Water Consulting), Arijit Ray (EVP and head, Mudra West), KB Vinod (creative head, Mudra West), Aditya Kanthy (VP - planning, Mudra West), Ranji Cherian (president, Mudra South), Joono Simon (creative head, Mudra South), Sanjay Sharma (president - Mudra North and East), Anil Verma (ECD, Mudra North and East)

Key accounts Godrej Group, Future Group, LIC, Union Bank of India, HCC, Lavasa Future Cities, Femina, Filmfare, Lonely Planet, The Economic Times, United Spirits, Dabur, HBO, TTK, Aditya Birla Nuvo

Units DDB Mudra, Tribal DDB, Rapp India, DDB/Mudra Health and Lifestyle

Key people Sandeep Vij (CEO), Max Hegerman (president - Tribal DDB), Venkat Mallik (president - Rapp India), Rajiv Sabnis (president - DDB Mudra Advertising), Mike Follett (SVP - strategy and planning, DDB Mudra), Rajeev Raja (national creative director - DDB Mudra), Soumitra Sen (president - DDB/Mudra Health and Lifestyle)

Key accounts Volkswagen, Neutrogena, Henkel, Lipton, Wrigleys, Novartis, Philips, Johnson & Johnson, Reliance Mutual Fund

Key people Chandan Nath (president and head), Sanjay Menon (executive creative director)

Key accounts Paras Pharma, Electrotherm, Zydus Cadilla

The lowdownUnits RADAR, Connext, Prime Group (OOH, retail and navigation solutions - Primesite, Prime Retail, Prime Wayfinding, Prime Consult, Prime Green), Kidstuff (promotional marketing), Street Smart (interactive OOH), Multiplier (trade marketing), Terra (rural marketing), Videotec , 10 Integrated (sports marketing), Celsius (events marketing), Portland Mudra, Clear Channel Mudra LLP

Key people Pratap Bose (CEO), L S Krishnan (president, Mudra MAX Media), Anurag Gupta (president - strategic initiatives and integration), Aneil Deepak (SVP strategy & planning), Vandana Verma (VP & head, Celsius), Mandeep Malhotra (SVP-OOH), Sanjeev Hajela (president - retail & way finding), Sameer Mehta (VP, head, Multiplier)

Key accounts Aircel, Shell Foundation, TVS Motors, ITC, Pepsi,

The lowdownThe lowdown The lowdown

Mudra India DDB Mudra Mudra MAX Ignite Mudra

VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDEWhat do Mudra’s partners, captains of industry, Mudra’s competitors and CEOs of media houses think of Mudra?


From an outside perspective, I feel Mudra works on an overarching belief of a‘future backwards’ strategy. This implies that they constantly keep track of disruptions from multiple sources and the impact of consumer behaviour and industry sectors. The advantage of this approach has been their lack of complacency and the ability to renew themselves time and again to face challenges of the future and stay ahead of the change curve. The exponential growth happens because of the organisation’s ambition to grow inorganically and not be constrained by usual perceptions of roadblocks to growth. In one sentence I can capture Mudra as an incumbent organization with a start-up mentality that renews its corporate vision time and again and thrives.

“Mudra is a leading communciations group in India as well as Asia. It’s a strong organised group that has not only been doing great work over the years but is also very well positioned for the future. It is growing our capabilities in a number of different areas outside of the traditional advertising realm. We are doing a lot more work in digital communications, CRM, areas that are becoming more and more important to our clients.

The shift that Mudra has made towards becoming a communications group is similar to the shift that DDB is making all over the world. It’s making that shift from what has historically been an advertising agency to now a more

integrated full service communications company that is delivering a wide range of ideas through multiple media and different platforms.

The relationship between DDB and Mudra has been a great partnership, we have worked very well together and continue to do so. Mudra has a number of national clients along with a number of global DDB clients that it works together with, from Philips to Volkswagen to Johnson & Johnson to Wrigleys, Henkel, Unilever. We are happy with our partnership. We continue to work and develop that partnership for the future. I believe that we are going to continue to strengthen our ties together and build a broader set of resources for the future.

“I’d describe Mudra as the dancing princess of Asia about to bloom and impress us all.

I think the reasons why I can make that statement is because the agency has a history of stability and understanding of the Indian market from a position of being focused and connected to big Indian companies. They had a wonderful sort of upbringing and a solid history, and now, I think under Madhukar’s leadership, creatively they have found resolve; they are on the road to leading creatively, in terms of their work. They are out from the shadow of their past structure and ownership and development, and they’re looking at opportunities to change everything about what they do, to really come into the new age of creativity, integrated solutions and doing that in a way that is amongst the best in India. So you could summarize all that in terms of ‘their time is right.’

“We’ve had many discussions with Mudra.It’s like a wife who turns 40. At different times, you feel that you are actually locked into a marriage and then as you turn 40, you realize- —ah, the marriage can actually be what you want it to be; you don’t have to be focused on the fact that you are married. And in that middle era of maturity, I think both of the partners start to flourish together. And we are learning a lot from Mudra and Mudra is, under Madhukar’s leadership, learning a lot and connecting much more with DDB than it ever has. I can see that relationship flourishing and maturing to the benefit of both parties.”

“We have a very close relationship with Mudra for about 25 years. They have handled a number of our brands and products over the years – soaps and hair colour; they have handled Real Good Chicken, they have handled durables. So our relationship with Mudra has been long and diverse.

“The one thing I found about Mudra which is unique, to my mind, is that they go to consumers. I have seen them. They keep speaking to

consumers and give us feedback -- and I like that. Advertising agencies generally believe that their job is only being creative whereas here I have seen a lot of insight coming out of Mudra. I think they have taken the trouble to go to the market, to interact with consumers. That I have always been very impressed with. I can tell you that some of our advertising has been really strong and successful.”

Chuck Brymer, president and CEO, DDB Worldwide

John Zeigler, president and CEO, DDB APAC & Japan, DDB Worldwide

Shashi Sinha, CEO, Lodestar UniversalBhaskar Das, executive president, BCCL

“During my recent visit to Mumbai, I had the opportunity to meet the entire management team of the Mudra Group. I’m extremely impressed in the level of professionalism and team work that I saw. Mudra today is a world class agency with a great creative product and I’m very proud to be their partner.”

“Mudra holds the perception of being a full service agency, a good one at that, one that’s very diversified into many specializations and it continues to grow. Madhukar is a good friend and he does well for the agency. This is Mudra’s 30th year and the agency is gearing up to do many things. Over the past one year, after Pratap joined, there’s been a flurry of activity at the agency, several new businesses have been launched. I hope they become successful and I wish them well for the future.”

John Wren, CEO, Omnicom Group

Colvyn Harris, CEO, JWT India

I think the good thing about Mudra is that they’ve taken the fully integrated route and while other agencies talk about integrated solutions, a sizeable portion of Mudra’s revenue already comes from their marketing services units. Therefore, their larger 360 degree offering is very impressive and they’ve always taken a holistic view of offering solutions to clients. So their growth story is interesting – they started with a very entrepreneurial mindset, when advertising was dominated largely by people with upper middle class backgrounds. Moving on from there, they’ve anticipated the changes in the

market-place and diversified themselves accordingly, making the right investments. Their growth has been bottom-up and with a leader like Madhukar Kamath who, by the way, needs no introduction to collaboration. Madhukar’s a fine collaborator and he’s made the Ad Club and AAAI come together for Goafest. So integration within the agency should come easy to him. Today, Mudra is well-poised. Globally, marketing services is becoming huge. At any time, if that happens in India - which I foresee happening in the future - Mudra will be at the forefront of dealing with the change.

Adi Godrej, chairman, The Godrej Group


I still vividly remember the first Mudra Videotec signature ages back and I believe now, as I believed then, that it was ahead of its time! That has been the hallmark of Mudra; the ability to anticipate the changes in the industry and environment. Mudra showed the way to this industry on how to diversify and provide wholesome communication solutions, not to forget the contribution in providing talent to this industry through MICA. I’m certain that Mudra will continue to challenge the status quo in this industry and set new trends.

The first time I heard of Mudra was in the late 80s or the early 90s, when they were in the top four or top five agencies in the country. I’ve not interacted much with Mudra but I’ve worked closely with Madhukar (Kamath) in various industry capacities and Pratap (Bose) when he was on the WPP side of things. In the 1970s and the 80s, network agencies weren’t such a big thing in India - quite unlike the scene today - so there was a culture of home grown agencies of not just Mudra, Chaitra, Trikaya, Lintas or even HTA for that matter. So I hadn’t reacted much when they launched, but by the early 1990s, they’d grown to become a highly respected advertising agency. That perception continues to exist today.

I really don’t know much about their growth story, but I do know that as a group, they’re highly respected in the industry. I really admire Madhukar as a person. Unfortunately, I’ve never had a chance to meet their very, very esteemed founder - AGK. But I’ve seen Madhukar as president of AAAI and he’s someone I truly respect. Indeed, Mudra has been instrumental in the launch of many enterprising brands coming out of Gujarat and thereafter spreading their network to the rest of India. The agency has also been fortunate to have the right clients to back their ideas, which is why you have brands like Dhara, Rasna, Vimal becoming homegrown successes.

I’ve seen some of the work that’s been coming out of Mudra MAX. You know, I say this as a compliment here - when entering award shows, Ogilvy packages entries very well. One, through good work and the other, by ensuring that those entries are viewer friendly. But ever since Pratap (Bose) has joined Mudra, he has brought that Ogilvy touch to the Mudra Group. So for example, Mudra MAX’s strengths are now in outdoor and activation. This year at the Media Abbys for example, Mudra MAX is way up there, in terms of the total shortlists.

So in the future, I expect the good work to continue from the Mudra Group. Without a doubt it will, especially with the kind of leadership they have. I hope they can continue to give a credible face to Indian advertising.

Seema Mohapatra, regional director ad sales, South Asia, BBC Worldwide

R Gowthaman, leader, Mindshare, South AsiaVikram Sakhuja, CEO - South Asia, GroupM

Mudra is India’s biggest source of pride when it comes to homegrown agencies. From a small entrepreneurial set-up in Ahmedabad, the agency has grown into a nationwide communications group. It’s heartening to see their intent convert to action, as they diversify into specialised units in order to offer a variety of solutions to clients. What is even more interesting is that all their units are under one umbrella and with a new address on the cards, Mudra can really walk the talk when it comes to integrated communication solutions. With this, they’re creating a fine example of an agency that is future ready, considering the dynamic media landscape we operate in.

Rajesh Kamat, COO, Viacom18

Mudra can be remembered for many different things. Brings back memories of ‘I love you Rasna’ , ‘Only Vimal’, ‘My daddy strongest’ and of course AGK for all of us in media. A truly Indian agency which has been standing tall with many firsts to its name. They have been pioneers on a lot of fronts, much ahead of others and never shying away from creating new business opportunities. Mudra Videotec with Buniyaad in the good old days or establishing MICA - a great contribution to the industry and many more. It has reinvented itself every few years and I am sure we will see much more in the coming years. The entrepreneurial spirit and passion reflects in everything they do. Wishing Madhukar and the team all the best in taking it to greater heights.

VIEW FROM THE OUTSIDEWhat do Mudra’s partners, captains of industry, Mudra’s competitors and CEOs of media houses think of Mudra?

I’ve seen Mudra from the day it started till today. In the initial years, the impression always was like, “Hey, they are coming after us!” Since we were No. 3 on the run, they were always watching our tail and they were very aggressive. They had found a place in the scheme of things. They were an Indian agency that was challenging these three nasty multinationals who had all the plum accounts and they had Rasna and Vimal. The Indian entrepreneurs were waking up and they were beginning to build brands. Mudra was ‘an Indian agency for Indian clients’ a positioning which initially we sort of pooh-poohed. When I left in 1984. Mani Aiyer used to tell me that Mudra’s growing and while we were growing at a fairly steady pace, they were coming after us.

The next thing I knew, before I returned, Mudra had actually overtaken us and they had become the No. 3 agency which was obviously very aggravating for O&M.

Obviously they became a huge competitor to us and there was no doubt about it that they had found fabulous credibility with Indian clients and they continued to grow. I think Mani (of O&M) was very strong in financial management and Krishnamurthy was equally strong and that’s where they had a tremendous advantage.

Everyone was improving their margins and Mudra kept pace with that. When things started decelerating, we had the good sense to go on raising our margins and Mudra did the same thing.

I’m not sure whether other agencies looked at that aspect of the business. Mudra had an equally strong focus on the management of business to deliver profit from their office.

Today, if I were to describe Mudra to say, somebody from America,I’d say that they have got a strong advertising agency. Even in their first decade, you saw them as a strong advertising agency, which had advertising solutions.

While some of us were diversifying, we didn’t see them diversifying as much, then, but now I feel that it’s happening. It’s like a revival. There was a bit of a plateau and then one sees it going up again.

I see that there is an absolute revival and aggression in them that I have not seen before.Look at the hiring they have made at a time when nobody was hiring.

Ranjan Kapoor, country manager, India - WPP

What do those who work with Mudra for their brand-building and communication needs think of their contribution?


The very fact that we’ve been working for nine and half years speaks volumes about our association with Mudra. Mudra has taken through two of our brands - Sugar Free and Nutralite - through its formative years. That’s an important achievement in itself. When we select an agency for an upcoming brand, the geographic location becomes very important and as far as Ahmedabad is concerned, Mudra is one of best ones. Two examples stand out in Mudra’s contribution to the brand - one was when 9/11 happened and we were on-air on all the news channels. The kind of coverage we got, was the building block or foundation for Sugar Free. Second was where Mudra helped Nutralite become a formidable brand in the retail segment. This has happened thanks only to a long association.

It has been easy for me to come in and settle down because Mudra’s familiarity with the Paras brands has been for a fairly long time. It has been a fairly fruitful relationship over the last 18 months, where we’ve come to expect more out of Mudra and they’ve been able to measure up to it. The activity levels on each of our brands has gone up considerably. The agency has succeeded in going beyond the brief - for example, one of the new products we’re going to to launch in the next few months, is a brainchild of Mudra. They have been able to flesh out the category and convince us that it is a good opportunity for us to get into. The agency has a very significant role to play in our growth.

LIC has shared a long and fruitful relationship with Mudra. As one of the key agencies working on our brand, they have produced the extremely memorable “Zindagi ke saath bhi, Zindagi ke baad bhi” to the latest Pension film “Statue”. It is with great pleasure that I extend my warmest congratulations to the entire team on the occasion of their completing 30 years and wish them the very best in their journey forward.

Anand G Deo, MD, Zydus Wellness S Raghunandan, MD and CEO, Paras Pharmaceuticals Chandru Kalro, EVP, TTK Prestige

Aloke Malik president, Peter England Fashion & RetailD K Mehrotra, MD, LIC of India

T Narsimhan, mktg head, Asia Pacific & Japan, HP

Vivek Sharma, CMO, Philips India M V Nair, CMD, Union Bank of India

RAPP India is one of the big success stories in HP in Asia Pacific, its actually considered one of the best benchmarks of what you can do with an agency and its a source of great pride for us.

My interaction with Mudra is more than 12-13 years and their biggest strength is the fact that they act as true business partners, they’re responsive and their time-to-market.

In my industry, time-to-market is critical and also, you know, as opposed to some other industries, so Mudra is good with turn-around times which is something I appreciate in them.

Our business is a complex one and they make a good job of understanding it.

DDB Mudra has found the right balance between the global positioning and Indian relevance. It has contributed significantly to building brand Philips in India by virtue of their sheer commitment, dedicated teams, senior level involvement and good, creative inputs. There is always a very positive and open attitude of ‘can do’, which is what my team in Philips loves about DDB Mudra. From being a transactional relationship three years ago, now we have a relationship which is built on trust, partnership, we’re comfortable with each other and allow each to make mistakes - we’re now long term partners. It is so good now that we often meet without any work and agenda - just to eat, drink and discuss.

We have been associated with Mudra for four years now. They’ve been involved with the re-branding exercise the bank under went last year. It undoubtedly proved Mudra’s capability to execute mammoth 360 degree communications programme nationally. The intensity of their engagement with us and our other partners was noteworthy.What I like about Mudra is their

understanding of the financial category, the knowledge of how a bank functions and their thoughtfulness of our communications needs - these are what make Mudra different! They have always explored multiple approaches before recommending the final creative solution. The internal communication campaign Mudra devised for our Nav-Nirman roll out was perhaps more challenging than the brand identity change campaign. Mudra treated the internal communication campaign with the same vigour and drive it put behind the multi-media campaign. When we ran our internal engagement program, which we had taken it to everywhere nationally, including smaller towns, it was Mudra’s specialists units which implemented it effectively and simultaneously across multiple locations.

After Mudra came on-board as our agency, we actually had a change in direction and our communication platform. It’s been a good journey so far; our association with them will almost complete ten years. They really understand continual client service. They are very warm people and unlike other agencies, they don’t have an ‘I-know-better’ attitude. They work with you. They don’t work at you, which many agencies do. Their involvement is quite substantial in our business. If they don’t know something, they are willing to listen to you. Which is why, we continued this relationship. They have a very good activation cell, which is of major interest to us and which we foresee using in the coming days for various marketing activities.

Mudra launched Peter England with ‘The Honest Shirt’ campaign 12 years back. And that is when we started working together. The Honest Shirt, was a landmark campaign for Peter England. It created a mid-priced segment in the men’s apparel category. People still fondly refer to Peter England as ‘the honest shirt’. The agency team made a significant contribution in leveraging our association with the Chennai Super Kings team and integrating this campaign with our brand positioning.The timelines were extremely tight, availability of players uncertain. Despite these challenges, the Mudra team came up with some fine work. Team Mudra’s passion to keep on improving the creative quotient stands out for special mention as does their energy and enthusiasm.

MUDRA WORKS FOR THEM


MUDRA WORKS FOR THEMWhat do those who work with Mudra for their brand-building and communication needs think of their contribution?

Our relationship with Mudra started around September 2005. The brand name ‘Yo Bikes’ was coined by Mudra. It was important beginning for us, because we had never done consumer products before - we’ve been a B2B market player for many years. Therefore advertising and Mudra both were new things for us. Also, not being an auto player, we had to develop a comprehensive marketing strategy for our auto products. We chose Mudra because we went by the brand and reputation that the agency enjoyed in the market. They have done a very good job. It’s a very strong relationship - we’ve worked very closely in the last five years. There was a lot of learning that came from Mudra, in terms of advertisements, brand promotions. Lot of things we hadn’t known as a B2B company - so they not only performed their role as an advertising agency, there was also a lot of learning which came in through their ability to go beyond the brief. They are absolutely committed to our success. They’re part of our team, we don’t see them as Mudra anymore. So they certainly play an important role in the coming days for the growth of our brand and our products. With the kind of technological changes that we’re making in the product and our plans for the next two years, I think Mudra’s involvement will only increase.

Volkswagen operates all over the world and our brand guidelines, are very important for us. So it was very important for us to find an agency, which clearly understands our brands and how best they can be adapted locally and the agency would have to certainly lead the brand. Based on our brand strategy, weselected DDB Mudra. It was an additional advantage since it belongs to the DDB network worldwide and it would be fair to say that the intercommunication between the agencies is mature. They know the VW brand and where we are heading to. Having said that, if it were not a network agency, we’d still have decided on Mudra. At the end of day, it’s also about performance and how do they understand how we want the brand to lead.

Their responsiveness has been a critical factor. The time between Mudra’s appointment and the release of the communication was a very short span of time. So the relationship has been excellent. It’s very good. In the beginning everybody has to learn. So DDB Mudra was appointed before I came into the market and within this very short period of time they adapted our brand guidelines to our Indian strategy. They came up with a lot of creative approaches and this worked very well.

But it’s paying off. For example, what we are heading for is awareness. Our awareness in India last year was very low and with the first activities and the variety of campaigns, they used a 360-degree approach and raised our brand awareness in double digits. So it was a huge success for us. Additionally, what we also clearly see at the end of last year - because we launched on the 11th of November - our sales went up. After the announcement of Polo, we were number one on Google with more than one lakh clicks on our web page. After the Polo innovation in TOI, our showrooms were completely overcrowded. Everybody wanted to see the cars. Our dealers are happy. Motivation is very high and at the end of the day, we are selling cars. And when we look at our bookings, we know already for our cars it was a success. Out of all the work we’ve done - I’ve loved the innovations we’ve done with media, as much as the brand commercials which ran from 11 November onwards. So, essentially we’ve adapted the brand in a very, very short period of time. Normally, more or less, you need half a year to do something like this if you have had the knowledge.The foundation of the Volkswagen brand has now been laid and the consumers now knows that we’re coming into the market with the New Beetle, Touareg and now, Polo. So, they’ve realised that the brand really makes an effort in this market. So it’s not really advertising, but a commitment to the country. That’s why in our TOI innovation, we ended the last page with the headline, ‘Here today and tomorrow’ and this is what customers understood, not in terms of terminology, but as a consumer.

Lutz Kothe, chief GM - marketing, PR, Volkswagen India M Suku, head - media strategy and alliances, R-ADAG

In an industry in India overwhelmingly dominated by global communication networks, Mudra has stood out as an outstanding example of an Indian global communication network brand uniquely configured around the needs of Indian markets, marketers, consumers and media.

Mudra will always be remembered by me for its visionary and early bird approach to sponsored programmes on TV (Buniyaad, Rajni etc), its

Sports Management effort of World Cup Cricket in the mid-80’s and the first ever branding attempt of IPO’s (Reliance Khazana) among many other achievements.

In a business where global communication networks paid lip service to talent, Mudra was the first to set up a focussed institution MICA to continously generate the much needed talent which the communication industry today sucks up entirely before even students pass out!

In a high profile industry, Mudra has been consistently low profile and I hope that the celebrations around the 30 years of Mudra raises the profile and importance of a very unique, effective and Indian communications network.

Mudra is a company with which we share a lot of values; their culture is very similar to ours, it is a very people-intensive business.Mudra, I think, is very down-to-earth and every person who has represented Mudra to us has brought in an enormous amount of value and personal relationships and a lot of friendship on the table, while being completely professional about whatever they have delivered. As a company, when we wanted to enter the second segment in pressure cookers, just the bigger segment so-to-speak —after years of discussing, we decided to enter. When we designed the product, Mudra had come on board and we asked Mudra to do a workshop on what is product strategy, etc. The story is legend: at the end of a workshop on the presentation, this is something which changed the way we designed the product completely, we went into redesigning when they said, “When you want to enter a battle, you must either choose the weapons or choose the battleground. You cannot leave both to your opponent.” I think it was extremely significant because Hawkins was a very big market leader and they were very strong in the north and the east, where this product was selling. I think Mudra brought a confluence of ideas from some of the experiences in the other offices as well; we work with Bangalore but we know we actually have all the Mudra offices as resources at hand, when a push comes to a shove. This is something Mudra has brought to the table.

Going forward as we expand into rural markets and gain the loyalty of the dealers by creating a point-of-sales communication which is very, very clear to the customers and to the dealers. That’s where I believe many of Mudra’s specialist units will come into play. I think, today, marketing is no more about advertising. Whenever a creative is being presented we’ve always insisted that Mudra present a broad media plan on how that creative will be taken forward and what it’ll mean in terms of the various time parameters that we want to evaluate together, so that we know exactly how we will look at it, not just necessarily from a creative perspective.

Any of the presentations by them is an integrated presentation. I think that strength that Mudra brings to the table is invaluable. I’m sure they believe that customers want such inputs and, therefore, they do that.

I think Madhukar is absolutely right in pushing Mudra as a partner in business which is why they’re now becoming a knowledge partner. So Mudra just commissioned a research and had six workshops with us, run by an independent moderator who would pick up all the ideas and, you know, give a shape to the whole thing. Those six workshops culminated in deciding how we should approach the communication, and I think to that extent, it’s clearly their commitment to try and find a solution as a partner, rather than just to come up with a couple of catchy base-lines. It was solid research, solid process of understanding I think that singular thing that they did tells us how committed they are to working together. Mudra has done a wonderful job and I’m sure, has positioned itself to a knowledge partner of the business. We look at Mudra as an agency which brings knowledge that combines together with ours. So that’s one-plus-one making three.

Over many years of partnering with Mudra MAX as one of our solutions provider in the BTL communication space, we’ve seen Mudra MAX grow strength to strength. We at PepsiCo Flavors, look forward for doing much more constructive work with the group. Congratulations to each member of the team for achieving grand success.

Alpana K Titus, executive vice president, marketing - flavors, PepsiCo India

We have been working with Mudra for around 25 years and the association is across several of our Group companies and brands. I think Mudra’s work with Godrej Powder Hair Dye, which now comes under the umbrella brand under Godrej Expert, has been invaluable. The Mudra team headed by Jude Fernandes has always worked seamlessly with our teams on projects, often carrying out services which were not necessarily within the scope of work required by them. It’s always like one big Godrej team! Mudra’s efforts in No.1 have certainly helped us gain market share over competitors. We also benefited from Mudra’s specialist services including the rural arm, their digital arm and their point of purchase and activation services.

Tanya Dubash , executive director, Godrej Group

S Ravichandran, MD, TTK PrestigeAvinash Bhandari, group CEO, joint MD, Electrotherm

THEY HELPED BUILD MUDRA Mudra has been a stepping stone for a number of great Indian adlanders, all with great memories of their stints there and what they gained from Mudra


I had just joined Reliance as an advertising manager, and Frank Simoes was our ad agency. The focus of our advertising, then, was on Vimal sarees.

By 1979, Vimal Suitings had become a very big brand and this was a dilemma for Frank Simoes. They were handling Raymonds as well, and the brand was very close to Frank Simoes’ heart. They had to choose between the two and asked us if they could retain Vimal Sarees and choose Raymond ahead of Vimal Suitings. We didn’t take this well; we thought all Vimal brands should be under one agency. We decided to sever ties with FS and start our own agency. We had already set up and had been running a studio to address the BTL needs of all brands anyway, we had the confidence to handle the brands on our own, even the ATL needs. We had the infrastructure in place and there were no great investments

When I joined Mudra in 1991, my biggest learning was without question, working with people, because it was the kind of place that fosters the whole idea of working together and we learnt the importance of working as a collective. It wasn’t just about what you do whether you’re good or bad at your work, but your ability to work along with other people.

You know when organisations say ‘we’re like a family’, its the cliche of the worst kind. But Mudra was a true conception of the term ‘family’ and it was brave enough to welcome all kinds of people.

The agency also had the courage not to go down the beaten path - it did things things differently, by deriving strength from the average rather than from the best, that was the unique part about Mudra culture.

So it wasn’t just about what you do or how good or bad you were at your work, it

I joined Mudra in 1988, when it was a fairly young team. What struck me about Mudra was the fact that there was this spirit of trying to create something new. The energy was infectious; we were working like a closely knit team. I’d studied at NID where you were encouraged to work together as a team and my similar

I worked with Mudra in the early 90s, which was perhaps the formative years of the agency. Those were heady days. We were out to prove a point to the industry which looked at this Ahmedabad-based home grown agency with a great amount of skepticism. We believed we could achieve anything, and at the same time used to remind ourselves everyday that we were the underdogs.

The energy levels were so high that one could almost touch and feel the heat. As AGK used to put it, we had “fire in our bellies”. I feel privileged to have worked with Mudra, under a great leader . Even after so many years, when I think of some of the things we did, my heart swells with pride. On its 30th anniversary, I salute Mudra.

“My initial exposure to Mudra was when they were handling Vimal. I was with Reliance at that point of time and I was assisting Mr Anil Ambani. They did

some great work for Vimal’s TVC featuring Viv Richards. It was a wonderful piece of work. I also remember the conceptualisation of Mudra Videotec which was responsible for Buniyaad. Then as part of my group vocation, I spent two years in Mudra, as part of research development. Those two years were great, there was high energy at the agency. The industry saw us as upstarts. At that time, the industry was dominated by multinational affiliates from HTA to Lintas to Ogilvy Benson & Mather. But we were different. What was different about us was that we were not conventional advertising types. A lot of us in the senior

management at that time didn’t come from an advertising background. I wasn’t from advertising myself. At Reliance, I was part of the group strategy team. Then I came to Mudra. If I remember right, the two years that I was there, we more than doubled the billing. What’s more, Mudra pioneered a few important things. One, account planning is something we drove very hard because a lot of our clients were were trying to compete against MNCs. In terms of creative, we had an interesting strategy. We had a great creative team in-house. A lot of our work used to be television based, we were one of the early pioneers of television. The original telecasting of cricket matches in the country was completely sponsored by Reliance. We had a strong strategy orientation and strong creative inputs. We also managed to tap into the creative genius of the filmmakers. Hence, a whole bunch of outstanding work came out of Mudra in those days. Also, one of the challenges that we saw at that time was the shortage of talent in the industry so that’s how MICA was set up. Overall, those were exciting times “

A G Krishnamurthy, chairman, AGK Brand Consulting R Balki, chairman and chief creative officer, Lowe Lintas Sonal Dabral, chairman and regional creative director, Bates141

Rahul Kansal, chief marketing officer, BCCL

J Ramachandran, professor - corporate strategy and policy, IIM-B

required. All that we did was to convert the studio into an agency.

The brief was not to make profit. Dhirubhai Ambani just said, “Make Vimal’s advertising the best advertising in the country.” By 1982, we had started producing good work for Vimal, and started receiving calls from others asking if we would handle their communication needs. The first call that we received was from Nelco, which was headed by Ratan Tata in those days, and was a formidable brand. Mr. Venugopal, who was the marketing head at Nelco, called to say that they were very impressed by the Vimal work and asked if we would work with them. Dhirubhai suggested we wait for some time. The first external business we handled was a year later, when we took on the Rasna business. Then we began expanding nationally. The rest is history.

When it launched, Mudra came across as a performance based agency. During that time, advertising came across as a genteel profession. It was kind of an old boy’s club. Everybody sort of played by the rules. Everything took time. But Mudra came in as a no nonsense , hard working, willing-to-roll-up-their-sleeves, working long hours, working on a Saturday...that kind of

Sam Balsara, chairman and managing director, Madison World

When I quit O&M as executive director, I saw in Mudra an opportunity to do a lot more building/creation than in my current job. When I eventually joined, my biggest learning at Mudra was that advertising needn’t be a ‘hip’ or ‘cool’ profession that operates on the periphery of showbiz. I also learnt that only agencies capable of getting off their ivory tower and understanding the reality of Indian markets and consumers would survive and thrive in the future. What left a lasting impression on my work ethics was the importance given to substance over style - in an industry thickly populated with gas bags, I learnt the importance of talking the ‘moti baat’. I remember, when Dabur invited Mudra for a pitch for a new toothpaste brand, while

most other agencies would have spent the limited time available in trying to put together a glitzy presentation, we at Mudra were so focused on trying to get the strategy right, we finally made the presentation on acetates – with the presenter constructing the key charts right in front of the client, in an interactive way. The presentation worked like a dream, Mudra came on board and within the next one year had won some 50% of Dabur’s business – including Chyawanprash, Vatika, LDM, Hajmola and Hajmola candy. This down-to-earth presentation (of an insightful/ sound strategy) underlined, to my mind is a major cultural trait of Mudra – a belief in the supremacy of substance over style.

My first memories of advertising are in Mudra. That’s where I started my career. In those days, the Mudra Videotec logo used to come at the end of many TV programmes. I was one of the first guinea pigs of what would eventually become MICA. We started in a small flat in Ahmedabad - Chaitanya Towers - with Rs 1000 as our starting salary. Mudra was always an emotional place, it always sold by emotion, not by rationale. I remember an ad for BPL, which AGK had completely trashed, but the client loved it, Alyque wrote a long mail to AGK saying it was a fantastic ad. AGK then sent me a letter, saying, “I was wrong, you are right.” So that was a learning experience - it was not about who you are, its about what it is. A lot of times, I feel I’ve been away from that organisation, but I’ve never been away from that culture. Me, Ramki, Prathap

Santosh Desai, managing director and CEO, Future Brands

(Suthan) - all of us today have a very unsaid bond between us. At some point of time, we all felt we were useless. But there did come a time, when we thought we were useful, thanks to Mudra.

Mudra was the agency which said, ‘Who said we can’t do it?’. Mudra started out as an entrepreneur and now has turned into something of a successful businessman. The challenge for Mudra now is to keep the spirit of entrepreneurship alive. Its got a very rich foundation and I think the agency now needs to find a lot more hungry people. They don’t need good old professionals who’ve worked in other agencies. They are an agency which has made ordinary people do extra ordinary things. And that’s what makes people want to congregate. We never said, ‘Hail Mudra!’ We always said ‘Hail Us’, because we felt great being together in the agency.

agency. It was born from a Reliance culture where the baseline was ‘Where Growth is Way of Life’ and with the Ambani credo of ‘Every job has to be done in time’, ‘Nothing is impossible’. Now, these were certainly not sentiments one could express with agencies of those days. I remember, even for me, working on a Saturday was a bit uncomfortable and quite often our meetings were held on Sundays. And its quite unthinkable for a corporate to have a meeting on Sunday. But at Mudra, it was perfectly normal. Today, Mudra’s growth is much like the story of Indian entrepreneurs. For its future, new businesses will come from Indian entrepreneurs - not MNCs - who want to become future Ambanis. But any good growth oriented vision should consider how to make this industry grow from Rs 20,000 crores to Rs 2 lakh crores. Mudra must develop the necessary skill-sets in anticipation of the client’s needs, to acquire all those skill sets which will help sell more and more chocolates, more and more airtime, more and more soaps. Only once that goes up, will advertising grow.

was largely about your ability to get along with other people.

The sense of participation and sense of ownership towards the work was so strong, that people gave it more than 100 per cent.

So the sense you get working in Mudra is something that cannot be replicated by any other agency. Today, the good thing about Mudra is that they’re one of the few organisations that is more involved in business terms with their clients and therefore they are genuinely more than just plain vanilla advertising.

Culturally, Mudra may have matured, it may have ripened, but it has not become something else. Very often when you leave an agency and you look back, you feel like such a stranger. But with Mudra, I still consider it a place that I will understand and be able to relate to.

experience at Mudra confirmed the fact that creative ideas were a team effort, with people building on an idea and taking it forward. I worked there for about 8-9 months. It’s very important early in your career to have happy memories of your chosen profession. My early days at Mudra were just that.

Prateek Srivastava, group president - South, O&M

THE MUDRA INDIA ‘A’ TEAMAn organisation is only as good as its people, more so in the communications area. Here’s Mudra India’s ‘A’ team


I had been having chats with Bobby (Pawar) for several months before I actually joined Mudra. What made me join was probably the fact that the chemistry was right with the people involved. I related with the new thinking in place. Otherwise, Mudra is a large institution and place. I looked at it and I felt that I would be happy to be a part of it. We have a job to do, there are a lot of clients, and there are a lot of brands which need attention. Each one has their own problems but we are trying to create solutions, we want to excel.

Creativity is what works in this business and we want to be known as the most creative place producing some of the best possible ideas which work for the clients and become advertising for ourselves.

My experience has always been doing work on the brands and making a difference to clients. That comes definitely as priority number one.

KB Vinod, creative head, Mudra West

I have spent seven years here for very good reasons. I wanted to do advertising. I wanted to be in Bombay, and the first opportunity that seemed substantial and interesting was at Mudra and I was part of the Reliance Infocomm launch, the biggest brand launch in advertising history. Its been a great experience -working on the launch and now with Madhukar.

What attracted me to the prospect of joining Mudra was the challenge of heading a region. There was this very strong people side to Mudra which I haven’t seen in many agencies. Under Madhukar’s new team there’s far more aggression. Mudra was willing to look at one as a person who came with a certain body of knowledge and experience and if you could bring something to the table which looked different, they were willing to buy it.

Mudra has that entrepreneurial culture where you could bring in your ideas and they will give you a platform to build your ideas and display your talent. As a creative person, when you have reached a certain stage, you need that larger space for you to really perform and do things which you think are forward looking and game changing. That’s the one thing which made me look at Mudra. There is a deep sense of nurturing this spirit which is very unique.

Ranji Cherian, president, Mudra South

Joono Simon, creative head, Mudra South

Mudra North has become a healthy and a respectable agency in the last 2-3 years. What differentiates us from the others is that we really walk the ‘integrated’ talk. With all of us in the same office, communication has become seamless. We’re essentially entrepreneurial in nature and that is exactly what the clients are looking for these days. We are not a personality led agency.

Sanjay Sharma, president, Mudra North and East

What got me excited about Mudra was the fact that it was on the verge of change in 2007 and the philosophy of no silos has the power to execute any big idea with various partners on board. The fact that all Mudra Group units are under one roof is another reason for our being able to create winning communication, besides reaching consumers in the most creative manner.

Anil Verma, executive creative director, Mudra North and East

“Mudra was the place I began my career in — and I have been with the agency for over 15 years.

When I started, Mudra seemed like a place which was doing pretty benchmark work which was audacious, and had a “can do” and challenging spirit. It had more substance in an industry which is seen from the outside as a superficial, glamorous industry. It seemed like a place where that could be used for someone who had management proficiency and wanted to have greater satisfaction, wanted to make a difference in a variety of things.

Mudra’s culture resonates very well in terms of making people feel important, making people feel very comfortable and valued. In fact, the place where a lot of ordinary people come together and get a feeling that they can do something extra-ordinary.”

Ashish Mishra, chief strategist and head, Water

Mudra India is the genesis of the larg-er Mudra Group one sees today. What started as an in-house crea-tive team now serves as a mainline

agency for some of India’s iconic brands and leading advertisers.

The agency has gone on to build some iconic brands over the years - right from Vimal, Dhara, Rasna, Nestle Polo, Reliance Infocomm, Maxtouch, Samsung, McDon-ald’s amongst several others. Now it stands tall within the Mudra Group that celebrates 30 years this year.

Jude Fernandes, CEO, Mudra India said, “Mudra India has a unique way of thinking and that’s not going to change, because there’s a certain way we look after our cli-ents. So its a unique culture. What is going to change is the way we network within the Group and solve our client’s problems. So if there’s a digital solution that a Mudra India client needs, there’s Tribal DDB that can be approached. If there’s a rural opportunity, we will network with Mudra MAX. There-fore, today when I go into the market to talk to a potential client, I am not talking only advertising.”

The same sentiment is now being repli-cated across all of Mudra India’s offices in the north and south. Sanjay Sharma, presi-dent, Mudra North and East says, “Mudra North has become a healthy and respecta-ble agency in the last 2-3 years. We should be amongst the top three agencies in the next few years. What differentiates us from the others is that we walk the talk about ‘in-tegrated solutions’. With all of us sitting in the same office, communication has be-come seamless.”

Ranji Cherian, president, Mudra South, states examples where Mudra has gone be-yond the brief. “If you look at TTK Prestige

or United Spirits or Peter England, they define Mudra as being very entrepreneuri-al. We know how to sit together with the client to understand challenges, do things for clients which go beyond advertising in terms of understanding insights and un-locking the market opportunities. So Mudra has gone beyond pure communica-tion.”

The emphasis on account planning has increased as well, says Aditya Kanthy, who heads planning for Mudra West. “In a

strange way, Bobby’s coming to the agency has also helped ensure that planning is taken more seriously because you cannot separate strategy. Therefore it has meant that our investments in planning have gone up dramatically,” he says.

Arijit Ray who heads Mudra West agrees and adds that Mudra is one place that “re-ally inspires you to like yourself”. “There is certainly some internal drive in the system. It’s a system which is very high on account-ability, collective spirit and integration. I think that drives people.”

KB Vinod, who joined last year from Leo Burnett to head creative for Mudra West is

Mudra India’s not just strong in planning and creative, but now also has the support of the Group’s various units, says Jude Fernandes, CEO

“Mudra India has a certain unique culture which won’t change. What will change is the way it interacts with the rest of Mudra Group”

part of the fresh new creative leadership for the agency. Vinod is currently not worried about industry perception of the agency. “We want to excel. Creativity is what works in this business and we want to be known to be the most creative place producing some of the best possible ideas which work for the clients that will eventually become ad-vertising for ourselves. So after that hap-pens, industry perceptions will take care of themselves.”

Agrees Joono Simon, creative head for Mudra South, for whom Bobby’s joining the agency was a huge motivator besides being given the space for creative freedom. “As a creative person, especially when you have reached a certain stage, you need that larger space to really perform and do things which you think are right, which are for-ward-looking and game changing. Mudra has that sense of nurturing this spirit.”

The launch of Water was an important development in helping brands go up the value chain through brand consultancy and design solutions. Ashish Mishra, who heads this unit started his career in Mudra and has been here ever since. He was instrumental in launching the strategic planning function at the agency as well.

Another addition has been Maatra, which specialises in ‘localisation’ and pre-media services. During the relaunch of Union Bank of India, for example, Maatra helped change the look of 3,000 branches in 72 hours.

“Right from the beginning, Mudra has been doing pretty benchmark work which is very audacious, which has that “can do” spirit, very Indian, not snobbish. A lot of this value seemed very appealing, being bril-liant without being all about projecting it or showing off,” Mishra says.

Primarily, the responsibility of a large flagship operation attracted me. The mandate given to me by Jude and Madhukar was to take the agency to the next orbit in terms of revenue, profile and skills. There is some internal drive in the system. We’re high on accountability. I think that drives people. There’s a high degree of collective spirit and integration which comes down from the top.

Arijit Ray, EVP and head, Mudra West

Aditya Kanthy, VP - planning, Mudra West


VIMAL 'Only Vimal' was the first of many memorable campaigns from Mudra

CYCLE AGARBATTI Almost divine, the campaign got Mudra its first Cannes Lion

PETER ENGLAND Mudra positioned it as 'The Honest Shirt' BIG BAZAAR The biggest retail brand

UNION BANK OF INDIA Corporate rebranding

RIM 'Kar lo duniya mutthi mein' went on to change the face of telecom in India

THE ECONOMIC TIMES The power of ideas

POLO Fun with pun: Campaign of the year

SIGNATURE Indian Derby

JOCKEY Uninhibited, carefree, cheeky

DHARA 'Dhara dhara, shudh dhara'

MCDONALD'S The India foray

LIC Zindagi ke sath bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi SAMSUNG PLANO LONELY PLANET India is only the second nation globally to see the mag's launch

BINNIES

LAVASAFuturistic township, future-ready positioning

RASNA The iconic 'I Love You Rasna' campaign

THE BEST OF MUDRA INDIA


LIPTON Clearing the mind, one sip at a time PHILIPS ‘Sense and simplicity’, with a human touch

WRIGLEY ‘Boom boom boomer’ changed the dynamics of confectionery advertising

VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE German curves for Indian roads

NEUTROGENA Beauty that lasts

ORBIT The secret of actress Deepika Padukone’s smile

CALCIUM SANDOZ The secret behind healthy bones

VOLKSWAGEN The auto major’s first brand campaign

HENKO A new winner against dirt and stains

THE BEST OF DDB MUDRADDB MUDRAThe very best of Mudra meets the best of DDB to create magic

Rajiv Sabnis, president, DDB Mudra AdvertisingCulturally, we do well because its a meeting of minds and not a personality

driven organisation. There is so much action happening all around the Group. You can feel the energy and positive vibes of the group.

Rajeev Raja, national creative director, DDB MudraThe vision of Madhukar and the Board is already bearing fruit. The

creative leadership is firmly in place, and our young creative teams are very special to us. We nurture them, provide them a happy, fun environment to kindle their creativity and at the same time clearly communicate our very high expectations of them.

Michael Follett,Sr. VP - planning, DDB MudraI’ve always believed in collaboration, that none of us is as smart as all of us. I think that

Mudra lives out that mantra each and every day. It starts with the way that the company is structured – it really is a team of experts, who all have something to bring to the table, but all know how to play together. But it goes further. I see that spirit of collaboration and team work within each of the Mudra agencies.

Max Hegerman,president, Tribal DDB IndiaMudra’s got a responsibility for brands and for its people, besides its

understanding of pure planning coupled with pure technology. Social media will be a big focus area for us over the next few years.

Venkat Mallik,president, RAPP IndiaWe have a significantly sharper data-led way of approaching whatever we do, both from the

point of view of insights, as well as from the point view of the results that come out of it. This genre of communication partner or marketing services partner is likely to have a great future in the next three-to-five years.

Soumitra Sen, president, DDB/Mudra Health & LifestyleThe Mumbai Smiles project, which went into the Guinness

Book is a fine example of collaborative work. We’re very passionate about health and lifestyle segments that are not an easy game for mass media agencies to handle.

THE MEN IN CHARGE

Ask Sandeep Vij about collaboration and he’ll give you several examples, “Wikipedia, Linux, the idea of co-creation, Hollywood and Bolly-

wood are all built around this idea,” he says. “DDB Mudra is also built around the idea of open collaboration where we are moving from disparate agencies to a team of experts - from discipline to idea orient-ed, from consecutive production to con-current collaborative production, from separate to open,” he says.

It is to support this spirit of collaboration that DDB Mudra’s leadership team is rea-sonably fresh. There’s Rajiv Sabnis who joined from M&C Saatchi to head DDB Mudra Advertising. There’s Rajeev Raja who joined from Bates141 last year as cre-ative head, DDB Mudra, going on to be-come national creative director. Michael Follett, formerly of DDB London - considering the mother of all planning-led agencies - and Tribal DDB New York, crossed over into India to run DDB Mudra’s One Voice Planning. Vij says, “Michael now has a dozen planners under him who are being trained to be aperture agnostic and true solvers of business problems.”

Sabnis adds, “How big you are globally doesn’t matter to any one unless you can prove your talent to those in the local mar-kets. So one has to grow by doing great work and through engagements with cli-ents and prospects.”

“We look for people who have an eye for detail. We look for people who respect cross systems,” Sabnis says.

Soumitra Sen who heads DDB/Mudra Health & Lifestyle is one of them. You know it when he tells you about their work on Wrigley’s and Calcium Sandoz. “I am a strategy consultant to Wrigley’s and be-fore Mumbai Smiles happened, they came to us saying that they’re excited about what we were trying to do to reach dentists. So how do we do a conference and do a world record of oral checkups? Kidstuff, Celsius, Tribal DDB and Mudra Health &

Lifestyle put in a collaborative effort. We entered the Guinness Book of World Records.”

Which is why, you want to agree when Rajeev Raja says: “Mudra is not paying merely lip service to the term, ‘full service agency’, but putting its money where its mouth is and has set up a diverse number of units to cater to different client requirements. As a Group, today Mudra is rock solid. We now need to win many more big brands and crack many more sparkling campaigns. We need to create some history.”

Follett who heads strategic planning, agrees. “I’ve always believed in collabora-tion, that none of us is as smart as all of us. Young creatives can come to Mudra and work in extremely exciting and diverse teams. People who think they are ‘TV’ or

‘print’ specialists have to work with digital and di-rect specialists and so on. This means that they’ll get to produce inter-dis-ciplinary, exciting work; but it also means that they’ll get to learn from their new team mates. Everyone learns from each other, everyone wins.”

In fact, introduction of new joinees is something

that Venkat Mallik, head of RAPP India finds very interesting. “It is probably the only agency group which has a specific ini-tiation process like that. So that helps you get a comfort level on a base within the first two weeks. So you know what is avail-able and the people you can reach out to. That’s a fantastic way of knitting together, a very diverse company,” he said.

Max Hegerman, president, Tribal DDB – Madhukar Kamath met him via Linked-In – says, “If you look at the Mudra group, they have distinct businesses here itself which in most companies would be cut-throat competitive. Though we are a small unit of a very big enterprise, people are very much willing to help us succeed. Peo-ple are passing leads, passing information, communicating on a regular basis, it is a family...really it certainly feels like it.”

DDB Mudra is built around the idea of open collaboration, says Sandeep Vij

“Young creatives can come to Mudra and work in extremely exciting and diverse teams”


TVS SCOOTY Scooty Training Institute empowered women

DIET PEPSI John Abraham’s youth connect was on-ground

AIRCEL Aircel did what Mumbai’s civic municipal body could not

WRIGLEY Guinness World Record Dental Check marathon

DELHI METRO Way Finding Solutions to navigate betterRELIANCE MOBILE Hrithik Roshan urged readers to call

SHELL FOUNDATION Khidki Amma fought kitchen smoke

THE BEST OF MUDRA MAXMUDRA MAXPratap Bose joining the agency has brought in a new dynamism

Anurag Gupta,president - strategic initiatives & integration, Mudra MAXCulture wise, Mudra is hugely malleable. It’s like a very malleable culture.

We are eager to be the number one agency. The good thing is that, nothing is cast in stone. There is a vision that we need to take Mudra to a new level.

L S Krishnan,president, Mudra MAX MediaI think our being integrated and geographically in close proximity really adds

more value because you can understand the brand a lot more from the creative or communication perspective.

Sanjeev Hajela,president, Retail & Way Finding The Prime Group’s retail, outdoor, consultancy, way-finding and Prime Green sub-units have

been growing consistently and are ready to cater to the present and future needs of our clients.

Aneil Deepak,SVP - strategy and planning, Mudra MAXTo create Mudra Max, just people are not enough. People, offices, body of work,

execution - all that fit perfectly well and we already have that platform.

Sameer Mehta,VP and head, MultiplierMudra Max is the only agency that gives result oriented solutions. Multiplier

gives much more ownership to the brand. As against competition, we understand that being a facilitator within the trade funnel is how you truly build ownership.

Vandana Verma, VP and head, CelsiusWe are looking to create tools that can help define effectiveness of an event so as to provide

clients with measurable data. Tools will help us and our clients in profiling target audience, measuring results of the experience and finding out how much of the objective is achieved.

Mandeep Malhotra, senior VP - OOH, Mudra MAXThe team at Primesite has not lost a single business in the last two years and has won

most pitches. The perception of the outside world has also changed and we are seen as a robust yet steady agency.

The leadership team

It wouldn’t be wrong to say that Mudra MAX has possibly seen the most amount of action over the last one year. It started with former CEO of O&M,

Pratap Bose joining as COO of Mudra Group and CEO of Mudra MAX.

This was followed by the launch of spe-cialist units – all at a time when agencies were cutting down on hiring – Mudra MAX added more people, bullish on the feeling that marketing services as a busi-ness would continue to grow. So units like Terra, Celsius and Primesite continued to add more people.

“With this, you become partners to cli-ents,” says Bose.

“Typically in the non-advertising busi-ness, whether it is promotion or designs, the revenue you earn is from the implementation of it. Going forward into this year, we will have be-come pretty big, not to disclose numbers but yes, MAXwill probably be as big as No. 5 or No. 6 agen-cy and therefore we’ll get the best-in-class partners through acquisitions, buyouts and strategic for-ays into the businesses that we are in and work with the best-in-class in the world where we are going to go. Even to the point of looking at boutique grade of agencies be-cause it just complements what we do. I would say the next year those are the sort of three biggest things that should be on my checklist,” says Bose.

Aneil Deepak, senior VP – strategy and planning says, “There is certainly some-thing which MAX is doing right because people are coming back to the agency. Maybe it is the culture. Somehow, every-body has come back to work with Mudra. I have seen at least 15 people leave who’ve come back to Mudra within a year. Over the years, I think everone of the people that I wanted to work with, somehow they all joined Mudra.”

L S Krishnan, president, Mudra MAX Media says that overall, it’s a much more

humane place to work. “It is largely an apolitical organization, because I honestly believe that if there’s a top down culture only, then the top managers are out of rhythm,” he says.

“I don’t think that is the case here. From HR perspective, I think it is clearly an apo-litical organization since for people at the top level, there is no bickering, there are no fights, and I think we are trying to gather a rhythm with each other so that we can lev-erage a lot more from our business interest point of view, ” says Krishnan of the peo-ple-focus at Mudra.

Vandana Verma, VP and head, Celsius says that the unit is looking at JVs and partnerships to grow further.

“This will help our existing clients tap into the international ex-pertise of our JV part-ners,” she says, “Also, it will expand our bouquet of clients, to whom we will be able to offer special-ised India solutions, giv-ing us an edge over our competitors,” Verma con-tinues.

Mandeep Malhotra, senior VP – OOH, Mudra MAX says that when Mudra MAX is partici-

pating in a pitch, things change. “The rates of competition drop, shoul-

ders shrug and a lot of agencies shy away. All this is primarily due to the momentum that has come into the business with the restructuring. There is fresh blood, energy and an optimism that is a pleasure to watch. One is on a non-alcoholic high most of the times,” he says.

Anurag Gupta agrees, adding, “An area where we’re doing differently from other agencies is the way we’re hiring people. From this year onwards we have said that we are not going to hire anybody from any activation agency or competition unless it is an optional job or a normal servicing job. We are looking at very, very different pro-files...psychologists and those kinds of people. We’ve got to make their jobs satis-factory.”

“In the non-advertising business, the revenue you earn is from the implementation”

MAX will probably be as big as No. 5 or No. 6 agency in a year,says Pratap Bose


LIVON Ignite Mudra brought ‘Dolls’ alive to strengthen Livon’s ‘Let Your Hair Free’ positioning

DERMI COOL Summer relief now came with a cooling effect

YO BIKES Electric biking gets a stylish touch

MOOV A campaign that paid rich tributes to every woman

NILON’S The long, oversized finger boosted brand recallITCH GUARD This brand created a category in itself

NUTRALITE Substituting butter, one campaign at a time

THE BEST OF IGNITE MUDRAIGNITE MUDRAIn an age of clutter, Ignite Mudra found the required differentiator

Sanjay Menon,executive creative director, Ignite MudraIf you look at the kind of work that was being done two

years back and the kind of work that is being done today, you will see the difference yourself.

Also, Mudra picked up a lot of big awards in the last two years. The fact that it has been gradual and things are taking shape, it’s a matter of time before you start picking up a lot more awards and the work starts getting noticed and it starts seeing better work. The recent Moov campaign that empowers women, the work on Nilon pickles, Livon, Itch Guard has been fantastic.

Vinod Modha,consortium memberThe idea about a consortium of people from different faculty and providing services to

a single client, is something that is a high-point of Mudra. It is unique and has been developed and in the last 3-4 months.

Mudra has been able to retain most of its clients and that has happened only because they’ve been able to provide good service over the years. So there’s involvement with personal care.

Most of the units have been started or they have been made operational as there was a need and the need was to service client more effectively.

There have been cases where the client has parted with Mudra and subsequently they felt that the service which Mudra was providing in terms of involvement, is lacking with other agencies.

Ashok Vithlani,consortium memberMy relationship with Mudra began over 20 years ago and I’ve been involved in corporate advisory,

management structuring and during the time when DDB Needham invested in the agency. Over time, this relationship has only grown stronger.

Mudra is one of the few companies that has a balanced entity to provide various comprehensive services to position your enterprise. That means going beyond giving publicity or product positioning or brand positioning. The consortium for example, helps them take a stand on long term corporate social responsibility and how they’re modelled, even if it is a small entrepreneur what steps could be taken with what objectives. It is Mudra which said, ‘we are here to work out some relationship. We will provide you the inputs required’. Which is why we decided to form a consortium, but it’s a very informal relationship.

THE MEN IN CHARGE

When one walks into Ignite Mudra’s office in Ahmedabad, one is wel-comed with a wall that’s framed with an artist’s impression of a fa-

miliar basket of brands. The reaction to the wall decor is a mix of surprise and awe, sim-ply because you realise that advertising for household names such as Moov, Recova, Itch Guard, Krack, Dermi Cool, Livon amongst many others was born within the walls of this agency.

Once you get to know the agency better, you realise that owners of these brands have had a long, consistent relationship with the agency. So despite being a non-metro, clients in Ahmedabad have a nation-wide set-up, which is why television adver-tising is important. From this city alone, Mudra delivers 30 TVCs in a year and that number’s expected to go higher. The rela-tionships are firm and it’s not surprising when you see that the leadership has been consistent too.

Chandan Nath, who heads the agency – it was christened Ignite Mudra last year – has been in the agency for 17 years.

“Today,” says Nath, “I think Mudra and I share almost similar values of transparency, honesty, in-tegrity, having the right motives, thinking what’s right for the brand, speaking your mind without fear, being al-lowed to make mistakes and still be wel-come to explore and take risks.”

“So the kind of clients we work with, have tremendous respect for what we bring to the table,” Nath says.

Take for example, the consortium created that entrepreneurial businesses can benefit from. “The beautiful part about the consor-tium is that it includes leading professionals who offer skill-sets which entrepreneurs can benefit from – say setting up a distribu-tion network, to support on copyright is-sues or requiring legal counsel. These are specialities that clients can opt for in case they require it. It’s a simple thought – if our skill sets are going to contribute to the growth of an entrepreneur, we’ll support it and work together towards it,” says Nath.

Ashok Vithlani who is a consortium member of Mudra says, “Entrepreneurs often think that Mudra will spin magic. The consortium helps him find counsel and ad-vice on understanding the different aspects of his products, their destination, distribu-tion, quality control, pricing and the entire value chain.”

There’s also pride in partnering en-treprneurs in realising their ambitions. San-jay Menon, executive creative director, Ig-nite Mudra says that while everybody wants to think of themselves as an entrepreneur, working with a real entrepreneur is very different. “It’s fantastic. They have the am-bition and passion to make it big. How they make it big, is up to us and we begin thinking in the same direction. An entrepreneur might not have too many chances. So you’ve got to make it work for him. If my client is

limited by budgets and he only has power stickers as a medium, it has to be ef-fective.”

It’s something clients endorse and acknowl-edge. Avinash Bhandari, group CEO and joint MD, Electrotherm, manufac-turer of the electric Yo Bikes says, “Mudra has not only performed their role as an agency, we also learnt a lot by their ability

to go beyond the brief. They are absolutely committed to our success. That’s why, even though the product has struggled over the last two years, we’ve still continued with the relationship.”

The agency’s ability to go beyond the brief is something which testify for. S Rag-hunandan, MD and CEO, Paras Pharma says, “Mudra has a legacy of understanding our brands. Given the excellent feedback from Mudra and consistency in output, we’ve now come to expect more work out of Mudra over the last 18 months. What we now expect is a lot of free thinking on our brands.”

Anand Deo, MD, Zydus Wellness agrees. “Both our brands, Nutralite and Sugar Free were led through their formative years by Mudra. They’ve made Nutralite into a for-midable competitor to Amul.”

“The kind of clients we work with have tremendous respect for what we bring to the table...”

“An entrepreneur might not have many chances, so you’ve got to make it work for him...”


1989-90198719861985198419831980

MILESTONES IN THE LIFE OF MUDRA

The 1987 Cricket World Cup, Paras ac-count win Handled the Reliance Cup, which was the 1987 Cricket World Cup. Mudra’s rela-tionship with Paras Pharmaceuticals began this year, going on to build brands like Moov, Itch-guard, Dermicool, Livon and Recova.

Nationwide growth, collaboration with DDB Needham WorldwideMudra spread its wings – Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai and Hyderabad operations commence. In 1990, Nestle walked in as the first MNC client. In 1990, Mudra signed a collaboration agree-ment with DDB Needham Worldwide

25th March - A G Krishnamurthy founded Mudra Mudra Ahmedabad was born with 15 employees, 500 sq.ft space, Rs 40,000 and Vimal as its first client. 25th March is still celebrated across all Mudra offices as Mudra Day.

1980

Launch of Rasna (‘I love you Rasna’ cam-paign) Rasna launched a soft drink concentrate with a range of nine flavours on a platform that of-

fered both taste and economy. In 1986, Rasna be-came India’s larg-est selling soft drink concentrate. The year also marked the begin-ning of Mudra’s national growth beyond Ahmeda-bad.

1983

Launch of Videotec Mudra Videotec pio-neered sponsored programmes on Doordar-shan, well-known for co-producing Rajni, Buni-yaad, Ek Do Teen Char, Panchee, Udaan, Quiztime, Mr Yogi, Bodyline, Grammy’s, Oscars, Living Legends, Live Aid, Spiderman, Miss Uni-verse. Also produced India’s first tele-film, Janam, followed by Jeevan Sandhya, Swayam.

1984

Mudra launches Godrej Powder Hair Dye Godrej Powder Hair Dye was launched as a safe and natural dye. In 2008, it was re-launched as a hair colourant and called Godrej Expert

Powder Hair Dye. Mudra also handles others brands in the Godrej portfolio such as Godrej No.1 soaps and Godrej Ezee. In a span of just 10 years, Godrej No.1 has become the 3rd largest in the soap category..

1985

Reliance KhazanaReliance Khazana, was the first ever branded public issue, which signaled the branding of pubic issues.

1986

1987

1989

-90

Launch of Vimal (‘Only Vimal’) This is the brand that launched Mudra in its tryst with destiny. What began with sarees, moved towards suitings, shirtings and dress materials. The advertising used India’s best known photographers and models and pioneered double spread colour ads. Cricketers such as Ravi Shastri, Allan Border and Vi Richards endorsed the brands, leading to the genesis of crick-eters endorsing brands.

1980

200219971996199519921991

Birth of Mudra Institute of Communica-tions, AhmedabadMICA is the first residential academic institution in the Asia-Pacific region, dedicated to meet the needs of the Integrated Marketing Communica-tions industry. Since its inception, MICA has produced nearly 1000 professionals in the field of advertising, communications & marketing and is the country’s best communications school.

McDonald’s enters the Indian market (McDon-ald’s mein hai kuch baat)From being perceived as a westernized place for the rich to now being known as a family restaurant that makes you smile, McDonald’s has taken a big leap in the consumer’s mind. This change of perception was made possible through a carefully executed communication plan that also complemented the strategic changes in pricing and menu; leading to an almost perfect example of a success-fully executed campaign.

Positioning of Peter England as ‘The Honest Shirt’, LIC’s timeless baseline is bornThe ‘honest shirt’ campaign helped Madura Garments attain sales of 2 million shirts in the year 1998. It achieved that figure within just 4 years and is the first brand in the mid-segment category to cross Rs.100 crores in India. Further, the baseline for LIC, ‘Zindagi ke saath bhi, zindagi ke baad bhi’ was coined this year, something which continues to be used till today.

Launch of Reliance In-focomm (Reliance In-dia-Mobile - Kar lo duni-ya muthi mein)“Make a phone call cheaper than a postcard and you will usher in a revolutionary trans-formation in the lives of mil-lions of Indians.” - Dhirubhai Ambani

Nestle Polo launched, relationship with Sam-sung and Dabur beginsThe ‘Mint with the Hole’ campaign was recognised as ‘The Brand Launch of the Year’. This campaign was highly awarded across ad forums and categories like film, press and outdoor. It won the ‘Campaign of the Year’ award and was instrumental in Mudra winning the A&M ‘Agency of the Year’ award. Mudra’s relationship with Samsung also begins this year, as does that of Dabur. In July, Mudra’s launches campaign for Maxtouch (The World in Your Pocket), which exists as Vodafone today.

1991

1995

1996

1997

2002

Launch of Dhara Sunflower Oil (Dhara Dhara Shudh Dhara and ‘My Daddy Strongest’)Dhara Sunflower oil was launched under the umbrella brand Dhara in 1992. Positioned on the platform of ab-solute purity, the campaigns remain one of the most loved in the history of Indian advertising.

1992

200820072003

AGK retires from the post of chairman and managing di-rector of Mudra and Madhukar Kamath comes on boardWhen Madhukar Kamath returned to take charge at Mudra after four years, there was a whiff of change in the air. Kamath, the new manag-ing director and CEO, took over from founder A G Krishnamurthy (AGK) who had just retired. His first day of rejoining Mudra was AGK’s last. “I had a half-hour conversation with AGK and he simply told me, ‘You know Mudra, you’ve worked here. All the best’,” recalls Kamath.

Madhukar Kamath elected as AAAI President, going on to become ASCI chairman in 2008; Bobby Pawar comes on board Madhukar Kamath succeeded Srinivasan K Swamy, CEO, RK Swamy BBDO, as the President of the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and in 2008, he assumed chairmanship of ASCI. Further, Bobby Pawar (pictured, right)comes aboard from the US, as national creative director.

Launch of BIG TV (Ho toh BIG ho), Pratap Bose comes on-boardReliance ADAG made a big splash with the launch of its DTH offering - BIG TV. The creative concept is based on ‘Life isn’t for living small’. Within 50 days of its campaign launch, BIG TV received an unprec-edented 500,000 installation requests. This is the fastest half million in the history of the DTH indus-try globally.

The same year, Mudra was instrumental in the rebranding of the Union Bank of India (‘Your dreams are not yours alone’). This involved fundamental changes such as the logo, as well the structure and processes of the organization. Mudra re-branded Union Bank of India by It was positioning it as a partner in fulfilling their consumer’s dreams.

2008 was also in important year in attracting senior talent in the form of Pratap Bose (pictured, right), the former CEO of O&M India who joined the Mudra Group as its chief operating officer (COO). He also serves on the Group’s executive board.

The year also saw Mudra put up an impressive show at Cannes and Goafest.

Launch of Ignite Mudra, Volkswagen’s brand campaignMudra Group launched a specialist agency in Ahmeda-bad called Ignite Mudra, to cater to the brand building needs of entrepreneurs nationally and internationally. The same year, DDB Mudra also unveiled Volkswa-gen’s first brand campaign. To kick-off VW’s brand campaign, DDB Mudra created a never done before print roadblock. On November 11th, 2009, 68.6 lakh readers* were introduced to Volkswagen. The Times of India, India’s largest selling English news daily, was blocked nationally by a single advertiser – Volkswa-gen. Across 16 editions of the paper, ranging from 16 to 32 pages, over nine pages of each edition was dedi-cated to Volkswagen.

2003

2007

2008

2009

2004 2009

Mudra wins Big Bazaar (Is se sasta aur accha kahin nahin!)Mudra won the account for Future Group’s hypermarket chain – Big Bazaar. The biggest retail brand of India is also the fastest growing retailer of the world. Big Bazaar, a brand that celebrates Indian-ness in its own unique way, has revolu-tionized the way Indian consumers shop for daily needs. Over five years we have partnered in the brand’s growth from 7 stores through to 150, and grown the business four times from Rs. 1200 crores to Rs 4800 crores. During this journey, Mudra created successful properties such as the ‘Great Indian Shopping Festi-val’ – which generated business worth $ 130 million and attracted over 20 million walk-ins.

2004

n Bank of India such as the re-branded

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30 campaign india Mudra supplement 25 March 2010

MICA: GOING BEYOND BUSINESSMudra’s commitment to the communications arena is best proven by their investment in MICA

“It is so difficult to get good people into advertising.”

Over two decades ago, someone decided to do something about it. AG Krishnamurthy (AGK) chief of Mudra, had the idea of MICA and began the process of creating an institution that would train people specifically for the communications industry.

I recall industry leaders apart from AGK who brought their experience to bear on how MICA

should be set up, how it should be run and what it should teach. I especially remember Bobby Sista, Mani Iyer, Gerson daCunha. And they brought in young professionals like me, who had a business management background, and a love for advertising to help design the curriculum.

The term ‘baby steps’ was not a cliche in those days; it was a reality, because MICA was an idea without a campus! What we began with were short term courses, taught - as I recall - in a set of Mudra flats near Ellis Bridge. There were enough of us who were happy to teach at these mini-programmes. And a few intrepid (if uncertain) souls who were keen to embark on an adventure called advertising. Informal relations between the faculty and the students were also easy to establish, given that the

classes were held in the living rooms seated on sofas and the odd chair! There was little infrastructure, but abundant passion.

Meanwhile, we continued work on fleshing out the curriculum for the full two-year post graduate programme. We sought to bring in practical elements to give the students knowledge about how and what to do, along with a conceptual understanding of advertising to know why they were doing it.

MICA has come a long way since those days. I see the distance travelled every time I go to the MICA campus as visiting faculty. I see it in the new dorm buildings, the new seminar rooms, the new ‘open air cafe’. And I am proud that I have been part of this journey of success and growth.

But in its very success lie dangers. Of hubris on the part of MICA. And the danger of its reputation attracting complacent ‘job-passport’ seekers as students.

The true legacy of MICA will be proven if it attracts not just a new generation of students, but a new breed of adventurers.

And I will be happy to contribute to a new curriculum for this new breed. Again.

1991 MICA was founded

1991-93 Short term courses in media planning & market research launched

1994 Flagship 2 year post graduate program in communications management started

2007 MICORE – the centre for excellence in research founded

The lowdown

Industry exposure and placement support

The MICA campus: state-of-the-art, where students are exposed to industry best practices and fundamentals with world-class faculty in attendance

Anand Halve, co-founder, Chlorophyll

MICA through the rear view mirror

The logos on the extreme right column tell a story all of their own: the respect and reputation gained by

Mudra Institute of Communica-tions, Ahmedabad (MICA).

MICA was started in 1991, as an autonomous non-profit man-agement education institution. In a statement of the vision be-hind MICA, it was the first resi-dential academic institution in the country and perhaps in the Asia-Pacific region wholly dedi-cated to meeting the needs of the integrated marketing communi-cations industry. MICA was de-signed to complement the role

that management education plays in modernizing and profes-sionalizing communications-driven businesses.

Today, there are nearly 1,000 succesful MICA alumni em-ployed in the industry, in market-ing, advertising, media and

media research functions in the leading companies of the country.

In 2007, the Mudra Institute of Communication Research (MI-CORE) was established, focus-ing on fundamental research in the communications area, so as

to reinforce MICA as a centre for excellence. Courses at MICA are approved by the All India Council for Technical Educa-tion, another testament to the robustness of the curricula.

MICA has benefited from the active involvement of such lumi-naries as S R Mani Aiyer, Nirmal Goswami, Atul Tandon, Anant Bobilli and N Vittal.

The governing council includes Madhukar Kamath, Gerson Da Cunha, Pradip Khandwalla, San-tosh Desai and Hema Vishwana-than, amongst others.

Prof. Ashok Ranchhod is cur-rently the director, MICA.

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Francis Dsouza Masood Abdul Sattar Shaikh Masoom Raza Maulin Mehta Max Wayne Hegerman Maxi A Dsouza Mayur Jagtap Mayur Hanumant Jorapur Mazaharoddin Shaik Medhir Mahashankar

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J Shah Mehul Kishorbhai Zolapura Melroy Percy Pinto Merlyn Theresa Mathias Michael Follett Mihir P Dave Mijula James Milan Harshal Karnik Milind Salekar Milind V Rangale Minal Jugalkishore Nayak Misha Mehndiratta Mitesh Ashok Maharaj Mohammad Nasrath Pasha Mohammed

Irfan Bellary Mohammed Javed Qureshi Mohd Imran Saifi Mohd Masoom Reza Mohd Zarrakh Khan Mohit Malik Mohit Narayan Bhagchandani Mohsin Sabir Khan MolYkutty Jose Mondira Sen Deb Monish Debnath Moti Sagar Samantray Mou

Kumar Singh Purnank Ulhas Desai Purvi Ashar Pushkal Kumar R Subrahmanyam R Gowri Shankar R.Satish Babu Rachana Ranendranath Roy Rachna Singh RadhIka Kapur Ragesh Puthiyedathu

Raghav

endra S

ridharra

o Raghunandan Varada Seetharamiah Setty Rahul Dodia Rahul Karwa Rahul Sharma Rahul Nagasai Korrapati Rahul Rajiv Dhamdhere Rahul Singh Parmar Rajarshi Bhattacharyya Rajat Pendharkar Rajat Bharat Bhushan Arora Rajeev

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RNI registration MAHENG/2007/22422 Postal Regn No. MH/MR/WEST/218/2009-2011Posted at Mumbai Patrika Channel Sorting Office on every alternate Thursday

mudra group turns 30

Documents

years of mudra

mudra department

pillars of mudra group

difference ddb mudra

mudra group pratap bose

heres mudra indias

journey of mudra mica

mudra group jude fernandes