“Time to get some inspiration!”
Mitesh and Aazib were best buddies. Aazib was a smart, talented and creative boy. He liked to take part in advertising competitions. He was able to deal with the creative aspect of such events very naturally. Mitesh was the IT expert. He managed the technical part. Their duo won most of the competitions. After graduation Aazib wanted to do MBA in Marketing and Mitesh wanted to do M Tech in IT from the Unites States. College ended, years passed, both of them became very successful in their respective fields and countries, but they lost touch with each other.
Mitesh wanted to grow his business in India, so he began to talk to his friends here about leading Ad agencies. He happened to look at the Forbes Magazine of that month and he was stunned to see the cover page. It was his teammate, his friend, Aazib on the front page, the new CEO of one of the most prestigious Ad agencies in India. Mitesh was happy because he had found a way to get in touch with his old friend and also because his friend was the CEO of one the leading Ad Agencies in India.
‘The ever-changing Advertising field of India.’
Advertising in India in the past meant printing ads in the classifieds and jingles on radio. After the television was invented, ads were shot and displayed on TV. Door to door publicity, advertising mailers, marketing hoardings soon followed.
Some of these advertising methods still exist, but most of them have become old and obsolete.
But soon the times changed and so did the field of Advertising in India. With the introduction of social media, knowledgeable customers and competition, it became necessary for the media companies to strive to do better.
Fact file: Digital marketing is the new marketing. Digital marketing industry is estimated to be worth $68 billion. While all the other sectors are struggling with a growth rate of 5 to 10%, the media industry is growing at a rate of 40%. And the growth is not going to be stagnant in the coming future.
‘Get inspired by the big shots of the Advertising industry who are MBA graduates also.’
Leaving aside the change brought about by technology, the growth in advertising as an art is the result of certain outstanding creative minds.
Some of the best MBA colleges in India have been producing graduates who have changed the face of advertising in India. They are making an impact on our lives on a daily basis, but we might not know about them.
Some of the MBA graduates who made it big in the industry and the highlights of their career are mentioned below.
1) Prasoon Joshi
Prasoon Joshi is known for being a famous lyricist, screenwriter and ad-guru, but not many people know that he is a student of MBA Marketing from IMT Ghaziabad. Yes, that’s surprising! Prasoon is the the CEO of McCann World group India and the Chairman. He is also a writer and poet, mainly in Hindi and English languages. The Government of India awarded him the Padma Shri in 2015 by for his contribution in the fields of Arts, Literature and Advertising in 2015. He also won himself the Filmfare Best Lyricist Award three times, in 2007 and 2008 and again in 2014. Prasoon has also received the National Film Award for Best Lyrics twice, once for his work in Taare Zameen Par, and the second award for Chittagong.
He started writing a book at an early age of 17. While pursuing MBA, he decided to fuse his love for culture and art and his passion for advertising to build a career in the field.
He started his career with one of the world’s leading agencies, Ogilvy & Mather. He became a creative star in the company. Prasoon rose to be executive creative director of the flagship Mumbai office within ten years of joining. In 2002, he joined McCann-Erickson as executive vice-president and national creative director. By 2006, he was the regional creative director of South East Asia. In December 2006 he was elevated to executive chairman for McCann Worldgroup India and regional creative director for Asia Pacific.
2) Kunal Jeswami
Kunal Jeswani, the Chief Operating Officer of one of the most prestigious advertising agencies of India, Ogilvy and Mather. He is an alumnus of one of the very first PGP batches of MICA, Ahmedabad. He completed MBA specialization from MICA in 1996 and started his career by working for Enterprise Nexus. After that, he became the Managing Director at The Republic. Before he became the Chief Executive Officer of Ogilvy and Mather, India, he enjoyed working as Senior Vice President, President & Country Head and Chief Digital Officer. Some of his clients include Unilever, Cadbury, Vodafone, the Indian Premier League and Tata Motors.
3) Madhukar Kamath
Madhukar Kamath is the Chairperson of the Governing Council of MICA. He is an Economics graduate from Loyola, Chennai and he studied Management at XLRI Jamshedpur. In 2011, Madhukar helped Omnicom in acquiring Mudra Group and in steering its integration into DDB Worldwide. This new entity became the DDB Mudra Group. Currently, he is the CEO and MD of DDB Mudra Group. With more than three decades of experience, he has spent close to twenty-five years in the DDB Mudra Group. He is responsible for the acquisition of Clarion and bringing Bates and Zenith Media into the country, facilitating the entry of Abbys in Goafest, opening the doors for Media Agencies into AAAI and chairing the highly successful AdAsia 2011 in Delhi.
4) Diwan Arun Nanda
Diwan Arun Nanda, Chairman and Managing Director of Rediffusion- Y&R is a graduate of IIM Ahmedabad. He was the advisor to the late Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru and also a jury member to Cannes Film Festival. Between 1993-1995 and 1999-2000, he led Advertising Agencies Association of India as President. He holds the Distinguished Alumni Award by Loyola College, Chennai and IIM-A.
You could be one of them too! So, don’t waste time and start preparing. If you have any doubts or queries, or if you want to share something, do write to us. We’ll be happy to help you.
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Image Sources
[1]: http://www.pinkvilla.com/files/images/k_23.jpges
[2]: http://images.indianexpress.com/2015/03/prasoon-joshi.jpg?w=438?w=370
[3]: https://www.mica.ac.in/alumni-in-news/kunal-jeswani-becomes-the-ceo-of-ogilvy-mather-india
[4]: https://www.mica.ac.in/madhukar-kamath
[5]: http://www.iimahd.ernet.in/institute/about/alumni/illustrious-alumni.html