Publicis Ambience appoints Ferzad Variyava as executive creative director

Publicis Ambience has appointed Ferzad Variyava as executive creative director. He will be based in the agency's Mumbai office. His immediate mandate will be to look after brands such as Park Avenue and Parx deodorants, Citi Bank and Catch brand from the D S Group.

Variyava replaces Tushar Kadam, who left the agency to join Lowe Lintas about six months ago.

Variyava tells afaqs!, "It was great to work at ANC but then I started missing mainline advertising. I missed working on big brands, big campaigns and in a big agency."

He began his career in 2000 as a junior copy writer at Publicis Ambience. After working at the agency for four years, he moved to McCann Erickson in 2004. At McCann, he worked on the Tata Indicom account.

In 2005, he joined Leo Burnett. He quit the agency as creative group head and joined Fortune Communications in March, 2006. At Fortune, he headed the creative department along with art director Shamik Sen Gupta. He also built the brand database, managed brands and established the creative team of the agency.

In 2008, he joined JWT India as creative director and was instrumental in the revamp of brand Thomas Cook. After working at JWT India for two years, he moved to Alok Nanda & Company in November, 2010. At ANC, he has worked on brands such as Shalimar Paints, Lodha Group and Tata Housing.

On the appointment of Variyava, Khazanchi says that the agency was in need of serious copy talent. "Variyava's portfolio is outstanding and he hails from a place (ANC) where the beauty of the written word is appreciated. We were in need of someone like him for a very long time," he adds.

Besides advertising, Variyava is also a lead guitarist at heavy metal band Brahma. He is also a part of acoustic folk band 'Beginner's Luck', along with McCann Erickson's Akshay Kapnadak and Future Brands' Anirban Mukherjee.