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Grey appoints Rohit Malkani as ECD
Malkani comes from Bates 141, where he handled the creative work for Virgin Mobile
Grey India has appointed Rohit Malkani executive creative director. Malkani comes from Bates 141, where he served as creative director on the Virgin Mobile account. He will operate from the Mumbai office of Grey.
Speaking to afaqs!, Malkani says, “The challenge at Bates was very different as I have the onus of running this joint.”
Following the exit of Grey’s national creative director, Priti Nair, and executive creative director, Brijesh Jacob; Shalini Dam was appointed national creative director at Grey. Dam is based in Delhi and the Mumbai office was without a head.
“The agency has been rudderless for the past six-eight months and my idea is to take the agency and myself ahead,” says Malkani. Mangesh Someshwar, senior creative director, will partner Malkani.
He adds, “Until 2007, when Raj (Sajan Raj Kurup, Creativeland Asia) was part of the agency, it had a fantastic reputation. I don’t see why that cannot happen again.”
The brands that he will work on at Grey are Suzlon, Parle (Krackjack, Melody, Parle-G), Audi, Deutsche Bank, Indian Oil and certain brands under the ITC umbrella.
Malkani has about 14 years of experience and started his career at Rediffusion Y&R in the account planning department. After his shift to the creative side, Malkani has had stints at various agencies such as Publicis Ambience and Planetasia.com.
At Publicis Ambience, Malkani had a stint of five years and headed the creative team on the Marico brands, including Hair and Care, Silk-n-Shine, After Shower Therapie and Revive starch, apart from working on Procter & Gamble’s Vicks and Bisleri mineral water.
Before that, Malkani was with Planetasia.com for two years, where he developed the brand strategy and online identity for several companies/brands, including ESPN, Hindustan Unilever, Sony Music and Indya.com. He has also worked with JWT Bengaluru, where he spent nearly six years handling brands such as Taj Mahal Tea, Red Label Tea, Lipton Yellow Label, Kingfisher, Acer, McDowell, Kerala Tourism, Standard Chartered credit cards and Van Heusen.