Ex-Bates hand Shovon Chowdhury sets up Street Life

Street Life is the physical embodiment of ex-executive vice-president and general manager, Bates, Delhi, Shovon Chowdhury's idea of advertising. To him advertising is not conceived in air-conditioned conference rooms. "A lot of advertising has lost touch with the streets. It is a simple game made complicated…" says Chowdhury, the co-founder of small, full-service advertising agency Street Life.

Manas Chakravarty and K Ganesh, who were working at Bates before joining hands with Chowdhury, are the two co-founders of the agency. Both Chakravarty and Ganesh have experience in servicing and production. While Chakravarty has 20 years of experience behind him, Ganesh has put in 10 years in advertising and the two have worked together in JWT and Anthem besides Bates.

Street Life is housed in Archana Complex, Greater Kailash Part 1, Delhi, with 12 people and a ‘good mix' of clients. The agency handles the Catch range of beverages, which has moved from Bates, Delhi, Shapes, a trousers and apparel brand, Cutty Sark Whisky, Michelin Tyres and Plantronics, manufacturer of communications headsets. "Bates won Gulabri, the rosewater brand from Dabur and since Catch (which was a Bates account then) also had a rosewater brand, the business was given to us. It was a smooth transfer of business," asserts Chowdhury.

In addition to providing advertising solutions to its current set of clients, the agency gives strategic consultancy to the country's ruling party Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and to some of the key clients of Bates. Chowdhury also mentioned that Street Life contributed to the television campaign for the recently concluded elections in Rajasthan.

As far as the agency's media operations are concerned, Street Life has entered into a strategic alliance with New York-based, six-year-old media outfit BE International (BEI), which has offices in 45 countries and clients like Qualcomm, Peoplesoft, Casio, Alcatel and LG. The outfit conducts media and market research and the two entities (Street Life and BEI) will function like any other creative and media agency partnership. There won't be any revenue sharing though. An Indian management will run the media enterprise for which recruitment is underway. Chowdhury assures, "They will be well known senior people in the industry."

What Street Life also offers in terms of career opportunities is the chance to work on one's own terms. Chowdhury compares this method of working with that of a law firm. "In a law firm, when a lawyer thinks that he enjoys a great relationship of trust with his clients, he or she can take away the clients and work with them. In such an event, the firm offers the lawyer the opportunity to work as a partner wherein the firm provides the infrastructural support for the person to service his/her clients and the revenue is shared with the firm. In such a scenario, the person also has the leeway to walk away with the clients. At Street Life we are offering the same opportunity." © 2003 agencyfaqs!