Mudra wins Olympus camera biz; Menezes is the new creative boss

When agencyfaqs! broke the news of Ramesh Ramanathan, ex-chief creative officer, Mudra, calling it a day, the very obvious question popped up: Who will replace Ramanathan? And, considering Ryan Menezes had joined Mudra at a very senior level as national creative director from Saatchi & Saatchi, curious eyes had fixed the gaze on Menezes in anticipation.

A call was made to Madhukar Kamath, managing director & CEO, Mudra Communications, to find out who now would pilot the creative department at Mudra. Kamath, surprised by the question, said that it was, of course, Menezes. Without a speck of doubt.

But the interesting part is while Menezes' scope of responsibility has increased, he remains the national creative director. Now did that mean that the search for the CCO was still on? This query was met with an ambiguous reply. "Ryan is in charge. And, as far as looking for talented people is concerned, that, of course, is an on-going process." Beyond this point, Kamath refused to be drawn into further conversation.

Unfortunately, from the time the slot of the chief creative officer was created, both the CCOs had barely stayed long enough to make a significant impact on the creative output.

Kaushik Roy, now head of marketing at Reliance Infocomm, had been appointed as Mudra's first CCO last June. In the space of a month, Roy quit and assumed the office of head of marketing at Reliance Infocomm.

For nine months, the position of the CCO remained idle until the appointment of Ramanathan, who resigned five months later. Kamath, however, assured that despite the frequent change at the helm, the creative product has been least affected. "Mudra is not dependent on one individual. We have a team of exceptional people at all the branches, so there is no question of the creative output being affected."

In the course of discussion, Kamath also shared the news of a new business win. This is the Olympus Camera business. "This is a DDB-aligned business that we have just won," Kamath informed. Since the win was a very recent affair, information on the communication brief was not available off-hand. Kamath, however, mentioned that it was a multi-crore account.

This win comes close on the heels of the departure of a big business from Mudra - Reliance IndiaMobile. Mudra, which used to be the sole agency for Reliance IndiaMobile, now shares the account with two other agencies.

Kamath, however, refused to view the loss of the business as a setback reasoning that account movements were a reality of the advertising business. "In fact, we are very proud of our association with the RIM brand." Mudra's involvement with Reliance IndiaMobile has been from the time of the creation of the brand to its launch. "The campaign on RIM was a huge success. It has successfully impacted the consumers and that makes us feel very good..." said Kamath.

In addition to the Olympus Camera win, Mudra has won some more business from its existing clients - Godrej, Paras Pharmaceuticals and Rasna. "To me getting more business from the same client is more challenging. And, I wonder why is the media so obsessed with new business wins, because organic growth is always a bigger challenge," Kamath concluded.

© 2004 agencyfaqs!