From advertising to marketing to a fashion designer now… Vishwajeet Singh Rana’s journey

Vishwajeet Singh Rana (former country head of TBWA\Media Arts Lab and former senior vice president of Ogilvy) has launched an exclusive designer menswear fashion label called Sons + Fathers.

Rana has over a decade of experience in advertising and marketing, and has worked in five different countries. He mentions that the fashion label, which will offer classic menswear, is targeted at men who take pride in looking good and value quality over quantity.

Sons + Fathers has been founded with a primary focus on providing elegant, carefully crafted, ethically produced, handmade clothing for men. In a press note, Rana said, “Our philosophy is, fashion comes and goes, but style is eternal. Hence, we believe in timeless appeal and create clothes made of finest quality fabric, which will last you a lifetime if you take care of them. And we partner with small, but best ethical partners”.

Rana has designed the clothes and also directed the label’s introductory campaign film. Besides being an adman, he is a fashion designer, photographer (whose work has been exhibited in four countries) and claims to be interested in visual arts since he was in school. He studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, London and London College of Fashion.

Rana says that when he came back to India in 2006, he struggled to find good clothes for men and use to look forward to his trips abroad so that he could stock up. He mentions not wanting to buy clothes from fast fashion brands as they are not as long-lasting as investing in good quality suits and clothes. He says that growing up, his father, who would dress impeccably for every outing (he was a doctor), was a huge influence on his interest in fashion.

When Rana first began designing the collection, he initially made clothes in his own size before designing a capsule collection on his friend’s suggestion. His love for the visual arts stems from his interest in photography and he truly believes in the saying, a picture is worth a thousand words.

“We shot the ad film during lockdown and I handled the images on the site too. We were supposed to launch earlier, in April this year, but had to put our plans on hold due to the COVID pandemic and the lockdown.”

During his career, he has worked both as an adman and as a marketer, on the client’s side of the table. He has been associated with brands like Mercedes, Apple, BMW, Chopard and Giorgio Armani.

From 2007-11, he worked at Max New York Life as associate vice president of marketing, where he was responsible for handling experiential and brand marketing. Prior to his last role at Ogilvy, he worked as the head of experiential and brand marketing at HDFC Life for two years (2011-13).

His last role at Ogilvy and Mather was in 2014, and he worked as senior vice president till 2018. He recalls that when he wanted to get back into advertising, he had to choose between a role at Ogilvy and a role at international agency Wieden+Kennedy.

He says that a deciding factor for him was the fact that Ogilvy had won the BMW account (handling its social media, CRM and advertising mandate) and it was a no-brainer for him, as he is an avid car enthusiast.

From 2018-20, he worked as the senior vice president/country head at TBWA\Media Arts Lab, where he was responsible for building Apple’s India presence.

He mentions that working with Apple during this stint taught him the value of diligence. This was the time when Poonam Kaul had taken the reins as marketing head and he recalls that the company was process oriented and thorough, paying attention to every detail. He worked on the ‘Shot on iPhone’ campaign in India, among others.

“The kind of work that Apple did, it always looked to push the bar higher and higher with every campaign. The company is mostly seen as an outsider in India and we were tasked with building a local presence for the brand,” recalls Rana.

He recalls the ‘Shot on’ campaign with pride, as its cricket edition helped Apple establish a presence in India.

The campaign was set to a song called “Dreadlock Holiday” by the musician 10cc and the lyrics play out ‘I don’t like cricket… I love it’. The ad was shot on an iPhone XS camera and features kids from different corners of the country coming together to play for the love of the sport.