Titus Upputuru moves on from Dentsu; to join Saatchi & Saatchi

Upputuru moves to Saatchi & Saatchi as executive creative director of its Delhi operations

Titus Upputuru, who joined Dentsu last year as creative head, Dentsu Marcom, has decided to move on. Upputuru, who worked closely on Honda when the Japanese car brand transitioned from 'Pure Exhilaration' to 'It drives you', says he will miss the brand dearly. He will now head the creative function at Saatchi & Saatchi as its executive creative director in Delhi.

It is learnt that he will work on key brands at the branch, one of which is MTS, the new telecom player from Sistema Shyam Teleservices.

Titus Upputuru moves on from Dentsu; to join Saatchi & Saatchi

Upputuru says that the year spent at Dentsu had a lasting impact on him. "It's amazing how some brands can touch you," he says, speaking about Honda. However, there are two things that beckoned him towards Saatchi & Saatchi; one was the work created by the agency in global markets, a proof of which he witnessed at the Cannes last year; and the Saatchi & Saatchi trademark of Lovemarks.

Kevin Roberts, worldwide chief executive officer, Saatchi & Saatchi coined the term Lovemarks, which stands for those brands that have achieved the status of invoking loyalty beyond reason amongst consumers.

"Love is the best expression of affinity and every marketer is forever struggling to have that for its brand," he says, adding that he hopes to create some Lovemarks of his own.

Ramanuj Shastry, national creative director, Saatchi & Saatchi says that he has been a fan of Upputuru's work for a while (especially his work on Afghan Telecom while at Ogilvy). Shastry, who has also worked with Ogilvy in the past, is of the opinion that he must hire only those who are better and bigger creative minds than he, "and Titus possesses maturity and craft that commands respect".

Upputuru will take over his new responsibilities on February 5. Nandu Narasimhan, ECD at the agency, recently moved to Solution Digitas as national creative director. Solution Digitas is the digital marketing agency under Publicis Groupe.

Upputuru started his career with Madhyam DMB&B (now Publicis India) in the copy department. After a short stay at Trikaya Grey (now Grey Worldwide), he did a five year stint at TBWA Anthem (now TBWA India. Following a brush with Delhi based Ushak Kaal, he joined Ogilvy in 2003 and was with Ogilvy until early 2009, before quitting as senior creative director.

Have news to share? Write to us atnewsteam@afaqs.com