Vaybhav-Anand quit McCann to join Dhar & Hoon

The creative duo, Vaybhav Singh and Swami Anand Tirth, has called it a day at McCann Erickson. Both were functioning as creative directors – Singh on copy and Anand on art. They will take charge of the creative functions at Dhar & Hoon.

Confirming the duo’s appointment to afaqs!, Abhinav Dhar of Dhar & Hoon says that they will join as creative directors.

Singh and Tirth have been with McCann Erickson for almost two years and have worked on different brands such as Reebok, Microsoft, Xbox 360, HappyDent, Dabur, and Chevrolet Captiva. The duo was responsible for some highly creative campaigns for Reebok during their stint at the agency.

They had moved to McCann from Dentsu Marcom after a short stint of three months. The objective was to work with Prasoon Joshi on a set of good businesses at the agency. So, what went wrong?

Singh says, “Working with Prasoon was great learning experience. We hadn't contemplated moving out of McCann, but when Abhinav (Dhar) and Ajit (Hoon) shared this idea of a new venture, we couldn’t resist.”

Both Singh and Tirth have worked with Abhinav (Dhar) and Ajit (Hoon) in the past.

Singh believes that it would be unfair to call the new setup as another another agency or a creative shop. “We intend to explore, and hopefully succeed, in the realm of new media and yet have a conversation with our audience,” he says.

He adds, “We expect to explore not just new ways to converse, but also utilise the interactions we have for our brands. We're too young to not make mistakes but hopefully, we'll learn from them.” He believes that best is yet to come.

“We want to look beyond the traditional 30 seconders and the 60cc frames and explore things such as installations, the interactive space and short films, among other things,” he adds.

Both Singh and Tirth have been in the industry for about seven and eight years, respectively. The duo first met in 2002 at Grey Worldwide. Since then, they have been a team for six and a half years, starting with Grey, followed by O&M, Saatchi & Saatchi and M&C Saatchi. At Dentsu Marcom, the duo handled brands such as Fedders Lloyd, Canon and Honda. Other brands they have worked on include Hindustan Times and Hyundai Motors.

Their work has been featured in Luerzer’s Archive and their television commercial for Hyundai Santro Xing was a finalist at the Media Asia ’05 awards.

Dhar & Hoon was started as a hotshop by Abhinav Dhar and Ajit Hoon in 1994. The agency's positioning as a creative hotshop earned it both kudos and clients. After a while, when the two admen realised that they lacked an essential ingredient - strategic inputs - they began looking for a partner and even considered linking up with a global network.

On the verge of striking a deal with Euro RSCG in 1999, Dhar and Hoon met Dharen Chadha. Thus, Chadha Dhar Hoon (CDH) was formed. This later split and in January 2002, the agency reverted to its earlier avatar.

Dhar & Hoon also got into a short lived alliance with M&C Saatchi. However, this partnership did not last long and all ties between the creative workshop and the agency were called off in September, 2006. The duo, Abhinav Dhar and Ajit Hoon, in association with Chetan Marwah, then launched a new entity called Serum – Marketing & Communication Services.

Around end of 2008, the unit went through it's third de-merger, as the Serum team mutually parted ways when each of them found their calling in their individual fortes. Dhar & Hoon continued to be partners in Dhar & Hoon, while Marwah moved on as chief executive officer and partner in Ishir Digital. Informed sources say that Dhar & Hoon is planning to rework on the agency’s set up, an yet another time and relevant details would be made available soon.