Abeer Chakravarty to head Bates, 141 Worldwide in Kolkata

Abeer Chakravarty, who has been a consultant on several integrated communication projects for Bates India and 141 Worldwide over the past one year, is taking over as the head of the Kolkata office from June 1.

He comes in place of Ashis Pal Chowdhury, Bates' erstwhile Kolkata head, who was associated with the agency for over two decades.

Chakravarty is to manage both the advertising and “through-the-line” functions as senior vice-president.

Bates Kolkata has blue-chip clients such as ABP Group, ITC, Rupa & Co, Lafarge, Coca-Cola, Apeejay Group and many others. Chakravarty will also be responsible for the development of 141’s CRM businesses and capabilities across India.

Subhash Kamath, CEO, Bates India, said, “Abeer brings a truly unique capability which combines years of excellence in both CRM and advertising that will play a vital role in offering our clients complete solutions in customer contact – whether at the macro, mass-media level or one-to-one, for both image and awareness building, as well as sales.”

“Not only do we see him adding tremendous strategic value to our businesses in Kolkata, apart from providing senior level leadership, we would rely on him to develop distinct and holistic ‘integrated solutions’ for our clients at a national level.”

“These ‘integrated solutions’ would result from the cohesion of business strategy, product portfolio planning, brand architecture planning and ‘insight mining’ – wherein we explore the overall consumer environment. Undoubtedly, great advertising will only follow.”

Kamath adds, “Typically, 360-degree solutions are driven by protracted mindsets with little or no understanding and experience of how to snugfit CRM or Database Marketing with Advertising. With Abeer’s knowledge, experience and capabilities in both advertising and CRM, we will only plug this gap.”

Chakravarty has over 25 years of experience in advertising and database marketing, besides retail sales & distribution and market research. He held senior management positions at JWT and Response in Kolkata, handling brands such as Tata Steel, HMV, Brooke Bond, and Dabur Chyawanprash.

Having pioneered the introduction of advanced database marketing practices in India in collaboration with US-based DM guru Dick Shaver, Chakravarty, as head of Enterprise Nexus Direct, enabled P&G, Lafarge, Indian Airlines, Taj Group of Hotels and Philips, among others, to use advanced database marketing/CRM to identify, profile, develop and retain customers. Among his many successful projects, the one for Indian Airlines is archived at the Direct Marketing Association, USA. © 2005 agencyfaqs!