Dhar & Hoon parts ways with M&C Saatchi, launches Serum

It is now official. Dhar & Hoon have terminated their short-lived relationship with M&C Saatchi. Recently, there was some buzz within the industry about this development. It is learnt that all ties between the creative workshop and the agency have been closed since September 30. The duo, Abhinav Dhar and Ajit Hoon, in association with Chetan Marwah, have now launched a new entity called Serum – Marketing & Communication Services.

Ajit Hoon, partner in the entity, says, “In July this year, we decided to part ways after giving a three-month notice. Our disassociation with M&C Saatchi emerged because we felt our expectations from this merger were not being met. When we negotiated the deal with M&C Saatchi, we had multiple offers. We decided to go with them thinking that M&C Saatchi, an independent, international and young agency, would look beyond the conventional model of advertising which we believe is not relevant in India.”

Adds Hoon, “We do not believe in the traditional way in which advertising is done and this is why we are setting up a new marketing communication company called Serum.”

The thought behind Serum is that brand personalities reside inside consumers’ minds. However, traditional agency models rely too much on long-drawn processes involving multiple parties, which often end up sacrificing the real connect between the brand offering and the consumer.

“Serum’s processes will be completely different,” says Chetan Marwah, also a partner in the company. “I will apply my experience in the research and planning space to revitalise brands. As the name suggests, we will make our clients’ brands immune to competition.”

Executives at Serum believe that brands are just like people, and the brand-consumer relationship has just as many dimensions as those between two people. Serum will uncover the beauty of the brand through the consumer’s mind, without treating the consumer like a guinea pig in a focus group. “We will find out the various brand values, brand dimensions, and emotional aspects of the brand, by chatting to consumers in a setting in which they are comfortable, rather than sterile focus groups,” Marwah says.

After unearthing how the brand is perceived by consumers, the brand positioning will be tested by applying the four Ps of marketing to it. Serum will then craft the brand message. “This message will now be more credible and believable, as it stems from the consumer himself, and not some marketing manager,” Marwah says.

He is quick to clarify that Serum is not just another brand consultancy. “It is a message optimiser,” he says. Besides delving into all aspects of the brand, Serum will also make creatives for it. If need be, services will be outsourced from specialists in various fields, depending on the brand job, be it media, BTL, web design or even retail planning. Relationships with some of these specialists have already been established.

Dhar and Hoon are both industry veterans. In 1994, they formed the agency, Dhar & Hoon, which soon earned a reputation as a creative hotshop. Marwah, on the other hand, has an Economics (Honours) from Hindu College. He is a Summa cum Laude from Business School Lausanne. He has worked both in India and abroad, in companies such as Mudra, Sparkplug, TATTOO (a research led brand consultancy firm), Perspectrum (a Percept Group company), and has even worked as a consultant for Dhar & Hoon, at one point.

Hoon claims that Serum is already receiving a good response from its clients and that the company is actually in the process of bagging a few accounts.

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