Biprorshee Das
Advertising

Deepesh Jha and Anish Daryani head to Ogilvy Africa

Jha heads to Ogilvy Africa from Lowe Lintas India, where he was executive creative director, while Daryani was business head at Everest Brand Solutions.

After Rediffusion-Y&R's Sandeep Madan moved to Ogilvy Africa as managing director earlier this year, two more advertising professionals are headed for the same place.

It is learnt that Lowe Lintas India's Deepesh Jha and Rediffusion Group's Anish Daryani have joined Ogilvy Africa.

Deepesh Jha and Anish Daryani head to Ogilvy Africa
Deepesh Jha and Anish Daryani head to Ogilvy Africa
Jha had joined Lowe Lintas in July 2010 as executive creative director. He joins Ogilvy Africa in the same capacity and will be based in Ogilvy Africa's headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.

Prior to his stint at Lowe, he headed the creative output at Rediffusion-Y&R, Delhi.

Daryani, on the other hand, ends a three-year stint at Rediffusion. In April, he moved to Everest Brand Solutions, Rediffusion-Y&R's second agency, on secondment as business head.

He takes on the role of general manager at Ogilvy Africa, and will be based in Lagos, Nigeria, heading the Nigerian operations.

Madan headed to Ogilvy to handle the Airtel brand, which is one of the major accounts handled by the agency. Jha and Daryani, too, shall work closely on the brand in Africa.

Airtel bought over Zain Telecommunications in June 2010, which marked its entry into 15 countries of the continent. The brand was launched in this market in October 2010. Ogilvy Africa, which handled the Zain Telecommunications business, was awarded the Airtel brand, as well.

What is interesting is the fact that like Madan, both Jha and Daryani have been associated with the agency that is known for building the Airtel brand in India before the business moved to JWT last year.

At Ogilvy Africa, Jha will once again handle the creative side of the Airtel business in the continent. His mandate shall be to co-ordinate with all the countries, and oversee the work created locally in the markets besides creating the (pan African) brand work, which will be created in Nairobi, and later rolled out and adapted locally.

In a career spanning more than 15 years, Jha has worked with several agencies. He began with Bates 141 (then Clarion Advertising), moved to Euro RSCG in 1997, followed by McCann Erickson the next year. Spending five years in McCann, he worked on brands such as Reckitt Benckiser, Dettol, Perfetti (Alpenliebe and Big Babol) and Sprite.

He returned to Euro RSCG as associate creative director in 2002; later, he headed to JWT, where he looked after accounts such as Glaxo SmithKline, Pepsi and Reckitt. After moving back to Euro RSCG for a brief period, towards early 2005, he joined Cheil as an experiment, working on the Samsung account.

In 2006, he shifted to Publicis and went on to head the Nestlé and ABN Amro accounts, before moving to Rediffusion-Y&R towards the end of 2007.

Daryani is armed with close to a decade's experience in advertising. Prior to Rediffusion, he also worked with Ogilvy Kolkata.

He joined Rediffusion in Mumbai as brand partner on Kingfisher Airlines and soon took charge of other key businesses such as Tata Motors and Tata Nano. He further undertook a corporate role in the agency as business head, business development and also oversaw corporate communications for the entire group before his move to Everest Brand Solutions.

While Jha or Madan could not be reached for comments on the development, Daryani, on his new role, says, "The entire world is looking at Africa for the growth it has to offer. I am excited about riding this wave of development, and using all the learning from my experiences in India in an entirely new socio-cultural environment."

Daryani adds, "Moreover, I am returning to Ogilvy, an agency I am familiar with and for which I have immense respect. With everything put together, it promises to be a challenging experience, which is too good to resist," he adds.

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