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Anand Narasimha quits Bates 141 to start on his own
Narasimha plans to start out on his own, operating independently as a brand consultant
Anand Narasimha has announced his decision to quit Bates 141 as vice-president, strategy and knowledge. He plans to start out on his own, operating independently as a brand consultant. He describes himself as a “brand mentor”.
Narasimha tells afaqs!, “I have been in this industry for more than 20 years now. After so many years of working for others, I thought the time was right to start my own work. I'll act as a brand consultant for my clients and share with them my expertise in brand navigation.”
He says that he has no plans to start a company; he prefers to work directly with select clients. He is already in talks with some major companies and will soon finalise things with them.
Talking about the opportunity, he says, “Though brands have their own brand managers, a major portion of their time goes into marketing solutions because of which they are unable to focus on developing brand strategy. Also, most of them need an external and independent point of view on their brand’s growth. I realised that this was a good opportunity for me to start out on my own.”
Narasimha has worked in account planning and management with agencies such as JWT, McCann, Enterprise-Nexus, Contract and Saatchi & Saatchi, in addition to Bates 141.
He talks of a couple of campaigns on which he worked during his long career and which are special for him. He says, “I used to work for Tara Sinha Associates, which was later acquired by McCann Erickson. I did a campaign there for the brand, Milkmaid. The brand used to be positioned as a milk substitute and the increasing milk supply in the country was hurting it. We repositioned the brand as a dessert ingredient and the success of the idea is proved by the fact that Milkmaid still retains this positioning.”
Other campaigns he remembers fondly are the Kapil Dev one for Boost and the Sony Ericsson mobile one.
Narasimha holds a Master’s in behavioral sciences from BITS Pilani and a brand management specialisation from IIM Calcutta. He is passionate about teaching and sharing his learning with young people. He teaches brand management at leading B-schools in the country and he is happy because, now, he will have more time to devote to this passion.