J Janardhan joins Rediffusion, but the show’s not over at Showdiff

Janardhan has spent most of his working years in the advertising and sales function

There’s no stopping Rediffusion in terms of new additions to its team, more so since the agency did away with the client servicing function recently. In that context, J Janardhan has joined Rediffusion as branch head, Chennai. He has been in charge of the South operations of Showdiff, the joint venture between cricketing legend Ravi Shastri and Rediffusion, since April 2006, and will continue to look after the firm.

Making the announcement, Mahesh Chauhan, president, Rediffusion DY&R, says, “Janardhan’s activation and media capabilities, coupled with strong relationship skills and passion, makes him a perfect candidate for heading the Chennai branch.”

Janardhan has spent the maximum number of years – 13 – of his career in the advertising and sales sector. He began his career with the ‘The Times of India’, Coimbatore, in 1993 as an executive in advertising and sales. From 1995 to 2000, he served as branch head of the advertising and sales function at the Pondicherry branch. He also headed ‘Madras Plus’ of ‘TOI’, Chennai, for a couple of months, and stepped out as deputy manager.

He moved to join Vijay TV in 2000 as manager, advertising and sales, Tamil Nadu, following which, in 2001, he moved to ‘TOI’ for his second stint at the Bangalore office. In 2002, he joined Living Media’s ‘India Today’ group as senior manager on the same function, and was with the organisation till 2004. In September 2004, he joined the ABP Group as branch head, advertising and sales, for Tamil Nadu and Kerala. He stayed there till 2006 and then joined Showdiff.

Speaking about his joining Rediffusion, Janardhan says, “I believe that Chennai has tremendous potential for great advertising work and our objective is not only to garner more business for the Chennai branch, but also to live up to our clients’ expectations in terms of the strategic and creative and thereby synergise our efforts with the client.”

At Showdiff, Janardhan has worked for clients such as Ford, Singapore Airlines and British Council. Showdiff offers an array of services in the domains of celebrity management, event conceptualization and management, in-film placement, content syndication, sports marketing and sponsorship and rights