Anand Siva to head Cequity's new unit

Siva has about two decades of experience

Anand Siva, the erstwhile vice-president and branch head at Saatchi & Saatchi, Mumbai, who quit a few weeks back, has found a new home. He has joined Cequity, a provider of data-led marketing services, which is part of the RK Swamy – Hansa Group. As business head, he would head the company's forthcoming unit – Customer Integrated Marketing (CIM).

Cequity will complete its second year of operations this month, and with its vision of 'actionable marketing', the new unit will look at direct relationship marketing and one-to-one multi-channel marketing.

Talking about CIM, Swaminathan, chief executive officer, Cequity says, "The unit has been set up based on the needs that many of our clients have expressed to us -- to combine data and integrated marketing to build direct relationships with both customers and prospects. In fact, there are companies such as Merkle and Epsilon in the US, which are multi-million dollar in revenues, which fit a similar model that we are building here."

He feels that Siva's passion for the unconventional communication space, experience in BTL, and eagerness to work in the B2B and channel partner space was the right fit to put CIM services on the fast track.

Siva has an experience of 17 years in mainstream advertising and around five years in the area of below-the-line (BTL). A commerce graduate, he started his career with Akshara Advertising in Chennai in 1987. Joining as an account executive, he eventually got elevated to chief operating officer. As COO, he looked after the Chennai and Bengaluru offices.

During his career, Siva has worked on devising strategies to market Intel processors for the Indian market, by reaching out to various possible consumer touch points and measuring the impact on conversions. He worked on Intel for about eight years. Some of the other clients he has worked for are Nortel, Fresh & Honest Café, Indian Airlines and Siva PCs.

He joined Saatchi & Saatchi in 2007 as vice-president for Saatchi & Saatchi Solutions, the specialised arm that offers 360-degree BTL communication solutions. When he joined the agency, his mandate was to focus on BTL deliveries and reach out to every consumer touch point.

However, he replaced Arijit Ray, the vice-president for Saatchi & Saatchi, the mainstream agency, when the latter moved to Mudra as branch head.

"I have always been impressed by a business idea that had the marking to lead the way, change the trend. The recent recession has taught the business world important lessons in cost reduction, budget optimisation and advertising expenditure rationalisation. Cequity's business model and the potential it had to chart a new path for businesses is what got me excited. I am hoping to put 20 years of advertising experience to good use here," says Siva.

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