Percept H’s Chennai branch head, Suresh Mohankumar, joins JWT

Suresh Mohankumar, branch head, Percept H, Chennai, has returned to his passion: strategic planning. He has joined JWT, Chennai, as strategic planning director.

But why shift from leading an agency to being part of a team in another?

Mohankumar explains, “I have worked in the planning function for over five years. I was beginning to miss it at Percept. Even the stress of handling a branch and new business wins was tiring me out. Since I wanted to get back into planning, I thought that with big clients like Ford, JWT was the best platform for me.”

Mohankumar started his career in 1993 with RK Swamy/BBDO in the client services function. He moved on to join Contract, Bangalore, where he worked on BPL Audio and Carbon. In mid-1997, he joined Lowe (then Lintas), where he worked on brands such as Tanishq and Arvind Mills. After a three-year stint there, he decided to venture into strategic planning and joined Mudra to spend another three years there.

In 2003, he joined Contract once again, but this time in Chennai, where he played a dual role, planning as well as servicing. In 2004, he joined Percept H, where he helped the agency bag such brands as My TVS, VVS Oil and Natalia.

According to Mohankumar, his most memorable project was for Tanishq while working at Lowe.

He says, “Tanishq was launched in 1994, with a premium, high-fashion positioning. The problem was that people believed Tanishq to be an unaffordable brand. They didn’t want to even venture into the outlets.”

But the bigger challenge, says Mohankumar, was to wean the consumers away from their family jeweller, with whom they had been dealing for generations and so enjoyed a high comfort level.

Tanishq went on to launch a 22-carat jewellery collection as opposed to the earlier 18-carat one. In addition, it introduced a machine called the Carat Meter, which checked the purity of jewellery.

“It was our idea to bring the machine from the factory to the store,” Mohankumar recalls. “As a result of our efforts and the campaign that followed, footfalls increased tremendously, as people queued up to check the purity of their jewellery. In the process, they realised two things. Firstly, they noticed Tanishq’s collection and, secondly, most of them realised that their family jeweller was cheating them with lower weights.”

The sales, claims Mohankumar, increased from Rs 22 crore to around Rs 120 crore within the span of a year.

Mohankumar is hoping to turn around brands at JWT as well.

© 2006 agencyfaqs!