The most important item for advertising agency employees is a pencil. You use it to develop your initial ideas after receiving a brief.
Then, in 2022, you will smile with pride when you receive another (pencil) from The One Show. CEO and MD Aditya Kanthy and CCO Rahul Mathew (left to right in the cover image) were beaming when DDB Mudra Group won a bronze pencil for its EatQual work for QSR giant McDonald’s and four pencils for its Game Responsibly campaign for gaming giant Battlegrounds Mobile India at this year’s D&AD Awards.
Kanthy informs afaqs! that DDB Mudra Group’s revenue grew by double digits in 2021, with the pair serving as the company’s two primary public faces. It will continue to grow at a similar rate in 2022. According to the company, its growth exceeded 25 per cent between 2020 and 2022.
DDB Mudra Group is a creative services company that accounts for most of its revenue. “Sixty to sixty-five per cent of our revenue comes from digital work,” reveals Kanthy, who credits the company’s “pretty diversified group of clients from various categories” for helping it mitigate some risk over the past two years.
Clients of the Group include McDonald’s (QSR), Stayfree (personal care), 7Up (beverage), Meesho (e-commerce), and Battlegrounds Mobile India (gaming). The group has won over 100 new assignments between 2020 and 2022.
Over fifty new clients, including Airtel, Instagram, Facebook, Meesho, Rupay, Hayu, Parle Platina, Tata Cliq, Infosys, Xiaomi, H&M, Porter, Life Insurance Council, IIFL Wealth, and Rajasthan Tourism, joined the group in 2022 alone.
The era of techvertising
Regarding new clients and their campaigns, actor Shah Rukh Khan’s voice was recently heard reading multiple scripts for Cadbury, while deepfake technology cast a child and Salman Khan in a Pepsi advertisement. Is technology supplanting creativity as the primary request of clients?
Kanthy and Matthew are at odds. Kanthy asserts that even the best technological work in the world is meaningless without insight, idea, creativity, or skill. Mathew observes, “You cannot use emotion without creativity, nor can you use technology without creativity…”
India as opposed to international honours
Creativity is the foundation upon which most work and brands are constructed. As a jury member for this year’s Abby One Show and D&AD Awards, Mathew identifies “context” as the significant distinction between Indian and international advertising awards shows.
Everyone attempts to comprehend the local context. I discovered that international jurors delved deeper and sought context. When work from India arrives, there are nuances that people don’t understand, and you’re sitting there as the voice and nuance of the piece, which makes you highly anxious.
Mathew believes India is a land of brilliant ideas, but we must improve the presentation of our submissions. The best-case studies are exceptionally skilled at communicating only what is necessary. Kanthy chimes in, stating that Indian submissions are improving daily.
