Everest is now Everest Brand Solutions

They call themselves pirates. They have killed the creative brief, broken down walls, they question conventions, spring up surprise attacks. They are the people of the new Everest; of Everest Brand Solutions.

Everest Brand Solutions, the new identity, replaces Everest Integrated Communications. With it, there's a new logo, where the three ‘e’s of Everest hold hands with a lively sense of purpose against a sunny glow.

Of late, shedding old logos and getting a new identity have become a fad. Everest says, its new entity – Everest Brand Solutions – has been evolved with the objective of partnering its clients in fulfilling their brand objectives. And that meant the agency had physically undergone structural changes in achieving that.

Everest Brand Solutions believes that the communication industry needs to reinvent itself. The current 360-degree approach has seen agencies becoming suppliers of TV scripts and ad layouts, which then get extended to other media.

“Everest will go a step further in this process and demonstrate complete partnership with its clients by getting involved in defining the brand problem,” explains Mahesh Chauhan, President, Everest Brand Solutions.

As a part of this approach, the focus will be to arrive at the best solution, independent of media constraints. What this essentially means is, only after the solution is at hand, the appropriate media will be decided for execution. “This way, we are not coming up with an ad as the universal solution, unconnected to what the client’s actual problem,” points out Chauhan.

He adds, “It’s about time that our industry took off its blinkers. Retrofitting an ad campaign as a panacea for all marketing ills just doesn’t work. Now, more than ever before, clients need partners to help resolve their marketing problems. Identifying brand problems first and then delivering media-independent solutions is what the client seeks. And, Everest is geared to do just that. Or else, the likes of brand consultants are circling above to curve out their pound of flesh from our industry.”

To cater to the partnership needs of today’s clients, the agency has a new structure where 'Idea Initiators', 'Idea Leaders' and 'Idea Managers' will replace the clichéd 'client servicing', 'planning' and 'creative teams' in the agency.

“The new corporate identity encapsulates the change, the three ‘e’s in the logo signify 'Idea Initiators', 'Idea Leaders' and 'Idea Managers' - the three pillars of the new edifice,” says Milind Dhaimade, executive creative director, Everest Brand Solutions.

Thus, in place of the servicing team and the creative teams, there are multi-disciplinary teams.

Aniruddha Banerjee, COO, Everest Brand Solutions, says “Just because advertising has always had client servicing, planning and creative is no reason for these obsolete roles to continue. We are revamping our entire organisation to align with the way we arrive at solutions. Silo-type watertight departments are passé. In fact, they are dysfunctional now. What works far better are cross-functional teams working at what they do best. Even our new office and the personalised logo for every employee reflect the freedom and openness that is integral to us.” © 2005 agencyfaqs!