Creative duo Emmanuel Upputuru and Prasad Raghavan quit O&M

Two associate creative directors at O&M, Emmanuel Upputuru (copy) and Prasad Raghavan (art), have quit and are set to embark on a new journey at Saatchi & Saatchi, Delhi, in the first week of July. They will join in the capacity of creative directors (copy and art respectively).

The duo unanimously pointed at Ramesh Ramanathan (national creative director, Saatchi & Saatchi India) as the prime reason to join Saatchi & Saatchi, besides the commendable work produced by the agency in recent times. Says Raghavan, "Ramesh is changing things around. He had actually called us and put forward an interesting proposition. He said, ‘take over if you want to and make Saatchi & Saatchi Delhi an award winning unit'." And that, in short, is the brief Upputuru and Raghavan are expected to work at.

The creative duo comes with a fair share of good work to their credit. At O&M they were heading a group of four, which handled businesses such as Indian Tourism, Grasim, Perfetti and Businessworld (a part of which has now gone to Bates, Delhi). At the One Show this year, among the six Finalists nominations from O&M, three belonged to the work created by the Raghavan-Upputuru team.

These three nominations came their way for the ‘Loser's Archive' entry in Self- Promotion category, one in the Booklet Brochure category and another for Dr Morepen's Isabgol entry. More recently, the Dr Morepen's Isabgol campaign, Loser's Archive and the ‘Blind Film' (done by Upputuru ) won nominations at the Cannes. In fact, the team's award winning work has also been featured in the Asia Workbook.

So what is the reason for quitting O&M, which gave them such a fantastic platform to display their creative prowess. "Not that we were not taking decisions at O&M… we had a fantastic time there," states Raghavan. "But at Saatchi & Saatchi we would be completely responsible for the product that comes out of the creative department. That is exciting as well as challenging," points out Upputuru

Considering that the Delhi branch of Saatchi & Saatchi is still on its back foot in terms of its creative output, is the task too daunting? Raghavan and Upputuru would like to look at the positive side and focus on the resurgence of the agency instead. Check this out. Roughly 10 days after it picked up a silver Pencil at this year's One Show awards, Saatchi & Saatchi won a silver Statue at the Clio Awards 2003.

Evidently the two are set to tango. It was at Contract Advertising that Raghavan and Upputuru sowed the seeds of their long-standing partnership. Both joined the agency in 1995 and while Upputuru worked for three years and moved out in 1998 to work with Leo Burnett (and later McCann-Erickson), Raghavan stayed on till the year 2000 and then moved to O&M, Delhi. Upputuru joined him at the agency in October 2002. What really got the two going together, and influenced their decision to move out of O&M together, "…was a match in our ideologies," avers Raghavan.

Before Raghavan and Upputuru take on their newly designated roles, the two are off on a sabbatical. While Raghavan is planning to go back home - to the backwaters of Kerala -Upputuru is ‘almost' on his way to Greece! © 2003 agencyfaqs!