Tag: Wunderman Thompson

India – India-based retail fashion brand Lifestyle has launched its new campaign, with an aim to encourage all fashion lovers to elevate their style with the brand’s latest collection ahead of the seasonal celebrations.

Called ‘Glam up & Style up’, the campaign is comprised of two quick, snappy, and fun 15-second digital-only films, which were conceptualised by Wunderman Thompson Bengaluru. Both films showcase the stylish range of season must-haves available at Lifestyle with a high celebratory vibe, almost like the trending reels made by fashion influencers around the world.

Inspired by the reel format, the brand intends to leverage the current trending format of a short-form social video as a new way of engaging with its customers. Each of the two films features four stylish ensembles from Lifestyle’s latest range with the transitions choreographed in easy and fun dance moves. The original upbeat background track of the film adds to the vibe, urging everyone to groove in style this festive season.

Lifestyle said that it intends to amplify the campaign through multiple celebs and fashion influencers grooving to the peppy track from the film and recreating the video in their own style. With the launch of this campaign, the brand intends to highlight the importance of having fun while you explore your options at Lifestyle, becoming the brand of choice this festive season.

Rohini Haldea, assistant vice president and head of marketing at Lifestyle, commented that they are delighted that this festive season their customers will discover Lifestyle’s on-trend styles through an entertaining film, to flag off a series of celebrations. 

“This is the first time that the brand has taken inspiration from a trending social media video format to break the festive clutter and engage with its shoppers in a fun and unique way. We are very excited and invite all our shoppers this season to not just style but groove in style with Lifestyle,” said Haldea.

Meanwhile, Priya Shivakumar, senior national creative director at Wunderman Thompson India, shared that it’s that scrolling through-your-phone-and-stumbling-upon-that-reel-you-just-can’t-skip moment they were looking to recreate through the lens of a brand with style at its heart. 

“Lifestyle’s eye-catching new collection also unveils its range of exciting festive looks. With music you want to dance to and clothes you want to reel, Lifestyle looks to make you sway to its beats and recreate your own reel moment, giving yourself many ways to glam up and give yourself a style upgrade,” said Shivakumar.

India – Creative agency Wunderman Thompson India has appointed two new senior hires for its Mumbai office, as the agency embarks on an accelerated growth path of creative transformation with a continued focus on driving relevance and scale, inspiring growth for its clients. 

The new hires are Rakesh Varma, the new vice president and executive business director at Wunderman Thompson Mumbai, and Abhay Godbole, the new vice president and client servicing director at Wunderman Thompson Mumbai.

Varma has over 15 years of advertising experience, having worked across a diverse range of brands with a special liking for the automobile and the auto ancillary category with brands like Volkswagen, TVS Motorcycles, Ashok Leyland, and Gulf Oil. He has been associated with leading brands like Hotstar, Radio City, FBB, Gelusil, and Tata AIA, amongst others. Varma has also an in-depth understanding and experience in brand strategy, campaign planning, and leading integrated marketing efforts. 

Meanwhile, returning to Wunderman Thompson is Godbole, who was instrumental in leading the much-lauded ‘Mutual Funds Sahi Hai’ for AMFI during his previous stint at the agency. He has close to two decades of experience in marketing communications working across categories like FMCG, automobile, and BFSI. Passionate about advertising and creativity, Godbole believes any marketing challenge can be addressed through compelling creative solutions. 

Commenting on his new role, Varma said, “At Wunderman Thompson, we’re building a future that’s as exciting as its legacy. And I’m really fortunate to be a part of this transformation. With its diverse brand portfolio, integrated service approach and promising growth vision, WT is all set to thrive. Looking forward to nurturing some of the long-standing client relationships and creating new ones.” 

Meanwhile, Godbole also commented, “I am delighted to be back at Wunderman Thompson, one of India’s finest agencies that has nurtured and built multiple brands in the country. Wunderman Thompson is in a unique position of creating the agency of the future, an agency that is capable of delivering the best of both mainline and data-led digital communications. I look forward to being a part of this exciting and transformational journey.”

Anurag Tandon, managing partner at Wunderman Thompson Mumbai, noted that as they continue to diversify their client roster and grow their talent base, it was critical for them to have the right hands on deck. 

“Rakesh and Abhay bring with them extensive experience and domain knowledge that will propel us to drive growth in key industry domains and deliver the best outcomes for our clients. Both our senior hires have an impressive track record of building strong consumer brands and I am looking forward to scaling new heights with our client partners,” said Tandon.

India – The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI), a regulatory body for the mutual funds sector, has launched its new recruitment campaign that reinforces the need and attractiveness of ‘Mutual Funds Distribution’ as a career option with long-term earning potential for individuals with entrepreneurial aspirations.

Titled ‘Karein Shuru?’, the comprehensive campaign was conceptualised by Wunderman Thompson Mumbai. It includes four TVCs that depict how individuals from different walks of life – be they fresh college graduates, individuals in rural India, mid-career professionals, or small business owners and entrepreneurs – have opted for ‘Mutual Fund Distribution’ as a profession. 

Moreover, the campaign showcases the attractive career opportunity with its productive earning potential, benefitting not only themselves but in the process earning goodwill from the members of society who they serve as Mutual Funds Distributors. It targets fresh graduates and enterprising individuals with entrepreneurial aspirations.

N.S. Venkatesh, CEO of AMFI, noted that their in-house research revealed that an increasing number of individuals today aspire to have good earnings and yet be their own boss, and even help in serving the society at large. 

“Our unique ‘Karein Shuru?’ campaign would precisely help these individuals achieve this aspiration. As a Mutual Funds Distributor, they can help their clients generate wealth over the long term and in turn be rewarded with an enriching career,” said Venkatesh.

Meanwhile, Samarth Shrivastava, senior VP and executive business director at Wunderman Thompson Mumbai, shared that the campaign is designed to build consideration for an active career option when people are forming decisions about choosing a career path. 

“We dug deeper in our study phase to understand the pain points & highlights of this profession and really nuanced our storytelling to the ground realities attached to this profession which you will see in a series of films targeting different target groups & ethnicities,” said Shrivastava.

India – Contract Advertising, a Wunderman Thompson group company, has won the mandate for Haldiram’s, an Indian multinational sweets, savouries and retail/restaurant company headquartered in Delhi.

The mandate will include brand strategy and creatives for the domestic market, the export market, as well as in retail/QSRs. The account will be handled out of Contract Mumbai’s office.

Haldiram’s has manufacturing plants in a wide variety of locations in such as UP, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Bihar, J&K, Guwahati in India.

Pankaj Agarwal, managing director at Haldiram’s, said, “Haldiram’s has always been trusted for their quality offerings. As a key player in the snack, sweets, and restaurant sector, we are known to generate excitement amongst the consumers. We, as a brand, are constantly innovating and trying to raise our high-quality standards.” 

He added, “To make consumers aware of our wide brand portfolio, we needed an advertising agency that understands our constant rise and the consumer’s changing mindsets. And that is why we are excited to partner with Contract Advertising to build effective marketing communications and reach new heights.”

Meanwhile, Divya Batra, marketing head at Haldiram’s, commented, “Over the years, Haldiram’s has expanded its range from traditional namkeens to western snacks, frozen snacks, ready to eat, ready to cook, chocolates, and many more food categories. To communicate the same to our consumers, we needed an agency passionate about reaching and engaging with consumers impactfully.”

Ayan Chakraborty, EVP and general manager at Contract Mumbai, said, “Haldiram’s is an iconic brand, and it is a household name in India. We are proud of being the agency that has been given the responsibility to craft the narrative for this brand in India and abroad. “

Lastly, Rahul Ghosh, SVP and executive creative director at Contract Mumbai, commented, “At Contract, we have a bit of history with Made In India powerhouses. Haldiram’s is one such global success story. Getting to work on the narrative of this iconic brand is the kind of challenge that is a part of our DNA.”

Hong Kong – Wunderman Thompson in Hong Kong has announced new appointments in its creative and strategic leadership teams namely Wilson Ang as executive creative director and Anant Deboor as head of strategy.

Ang was previously the group creative director at JWT while Deboor had spent more than a decade within the agency.

Ang joins the agency as one of the first creative leaders applying creativity and innovation into digital transformation for clients. In the past 20 years, Ang has worked on Hong Kong and regional accounts as varied as AIA, Disneyland, HSBC, IKEA, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble and Samsung with over 10 of these years in digital and traditional leadership roles. 

Speaking on his appointment, Ang said, “2022 is destined to be a year of transformation. There are a few things at the core of this celebrated agency, and network at large, that strongly resonate with me. Whether it is an unabashed love for ideas or the wonderful management team one gets to learn from. WT is bubbling with opportunity, and I’m looking forward to working with WT’s creative force to explode its massive potential.”

Meanwhile, Deboor brings a wealth of varied experience, previously working client-side as a global head of strategic marketing, independent board-level marketing strategy consultant and advertising/branding agency-side business leader and planner across Asia-Pacific.

On his appointment, Deboor commented, “As someone who cut his teeth in the ‘thinking, planning’ Thompson world, it gives me immense pleasure to return to the family. New name, newer more advanced capabilities but the same awesome people, and still the same culture and feeling. Wunderman Thompson is home. And really looking forward to doing my bit to help WT Hong Kong return to being the biggest, baddest, most lusted after agency office in all of Asia-Pacific.”

Speaking on the appointments, Maggie Wong, chief executive officer at Wunderman Thompson Hong Kong, said, “We are absolutely delighted to welcome Anant and Wilson back to bolster our strategy and creative teams. Wilson brings with him the passion and expertise in fusing creativity and technology to deliver innovative and meaningful solutions. Anant is an accomplished strategist with decades of experience. I’m confident that they’ll inspire fresh perspectives and collectively take Wunderman Thompson HK to new heights.”

Meanwhile, Sheung Yan Lo, regional chief creative officer at Wunderman Thompson, commented on Wilson Ang’s arrival, “Wilson used to work with us in JWT and it’s great to welcome him back to our new family, Wunderman Thompson. He is one of the very rare creative talents in Asia who embraces data, technology and creativity in work to solve clients’ market challenges.”

India – Wunderman Thompson India has officially launched Wunderman Thompson Health (WT Health), which is a new specialized practice, offering a unique suite of services which will help health and wellness brands connect more meaningfully with consumers across all platforms of communication.

WT said this is in response to the healthcare sector witnessing exponential growth in recent years. With a multidisciplinary team of 100 plus, WT Health composes of experts across creative, medico-legal, compliance & public health to ensure that technology, creativity & data are drivers of humanizing the healthcare & wellness experience.

Commenting on the launch, Wunderman Thompson Health’s Global CEO, Patrick Wisnom, said, “The launch of Wunderman Thompson Health India is a proud moment for our network. It’s a recognition that our India business has evolved to become a key global healthcare hub. Not only serving the needs of local clients, but also working with our international network agencies, to efficiently deliver dynamic omnichannel content to our global clients. This is an important next step in the expansion of our international healthcare network.”

With vast experience across renowned health and wellness brands such as GSK, Zydus Wellness, Sanofi, Unilever, Pfizer, Bayer, and Abbott, amongst others, WT Health said it will be focused on driving excellence in an evolving healthcare sector and delivering products that are insight-driven and innovative to make a positive impact with key stakeholders.

James Hammond, Wunderman Thompson’s head of healthcare for APAC, commented, “The launch of Wunderman Thompson Health in India is a major milestone for our healthcare business in this region. We’re very proud of our what our team in India has accomplished in a relatively short period of time. We see this as proof that our unique offering, fusing data, technology, science and creativity is producing real results for our healthcare clients.”

Shamsuddin Jasani, CEO of Wunderman Thompson South Asia, also said, “We couldn’t have chosen a better time to launch our specialized practice of Wunderman Thompson Health as the healthcare market is poised for exponential growth owing to an unprecedented demand for robust health and wellness solutions. Health and wellness brands are on the lookout for a partner that understands the specific nuances of healthcare marketing, and we believe we can provide business solutions to brands and can unlock growth by leveraging our core strengths of creative, strategy and martech.” 

USA – Wunderman Thompson has launched the WT Inspiration Beach, an immersive metaverse activation to celebrate the start of advertising’s biggest festival in Cannes together with the metaverse platform, Odyssey. The virtual beach would allow people from all over the world to experience the agency’s unique take on creativity, content, and connectivity. 

The WT Inspiration Beach has been custom-built from the ground up in partnership with Odyssey. The virtual beach features collaboration spaces, a networking lounge area, as well as a creative showcase of Wunderman Thompson’s most inspiring pieces of work. Later this week additional features including an interactive shopping space and a DJ booth will also launch to keep visitors engaged in new ways.

‘Inspiration Kiosks’ have been placed throughout the beach to present Wunderman Thompson’s take on key industry themes including Sustainability; IE&D; Data and Technology; Brand Creativity and Effectiveness; Talent; and Business Transformation. 

Gareth Jones, SVP of global marketing at Wunderman Thompson, said, “At Wunderman Thompson we’re always looking for innovative ways to create a more inclusive customer experience. This is why we’re excited to launch the WT Inspiration Beach, a virtual activation in the metaverse to allow our clients and colleagues around the world to experience our take on creativity in a unique and highly immersive environment.” 

Reid Santabarbara, CEO of Odyssey, commented, “As brands seek to enter the metaverse, many are looking to Wunderman Thompson who are thought leaders in this space. Through our collaboration, we’re able to provide these ambitious brands the most accessible, highest-visual-fidelity streaming metaverse platform on the market today. In creating the WT Inspiration Beach, our product team, led by Odyssey CTO Maxime Long, has captured the creativity and inspiration of advertising’s biggest festival and delivered an experience that demonstrates the limitless opportunities of the metaverse.” 

Wunderman Thompson was one of the first agencies to launch their own metaverse, debuting the space at CES 2022. The global network has published two original reports about the rise of this new frontier of customer experience: ‘Into the Metaverse’, launched in September 2021 and the follow-up report, ‘New Realities: Into the Metaverse and Beyond’, launched in May 2022, which found that awareness of the metaverse has more than doubled in less than a year.

London, United Kingdom – As many people are turning to social media to break up their day, the global chocolate brand KitKat has launched a new interactive campaign on Instagram called the ‘Blink Break’, a fun distraction from the mundane every day that gives people the chance to have a break from what they are doing and go head-to-head in an AI-powered staring contest.

Built by integrated marketing agency Wunderman Thompson and using MediaPipe’s cutting-edge Face Mesh technology, the online game is enabled with a single camera input that uses machine learning to recognise a face and detect blinking, returning results literally within the blink of an eye. Participants face off against progressively more absurd animals the further through the game they get, from a lemur to a snowy owl. With a pause in the action between each level, those who play are also encouraged to compete against each other and share their results using #blinkchallenge.

Wael Jabi, KitKat’s global strategic marketing and communications lead, said, “KitKat has famously encouraged people to have a break since 1957, and this campaign shows a whole generation of digital natives the benefits of taking a break in one of the most relevant contexts for them.”

Meanwhile, Paul Shearer, Wunderman Thompson’s global chief creative officer, noted, “Developing cutting-edge AI technology that responds within the blink of an eye is an unexpected move for KitKat, but gives the brand a chance to show up and show off their legendary positioning in a fresh and relevant way to a new audience.”

This new interactive game is now available on KitKat’s global Instagram channel, with posts coinciding with the infamous mid-afternoon slump when people are most in need of a light-hearted distraction.

London, United Kingdom – To mark the 21st International Missing Children’s Day, which was celebrated last 25 May, Child Focus, a Belgian foundation that supports the prevention and investigation of missing children, has launched a new campaign built around a website that can only be kept alive by the general public – just like the collective hope for the return of missing children.

The new website, which was created in partnership with Wunderman Thompson Antwerp, features moving portraits of missing children that demonstrate exactly what happens when those children disappear from the public eye – they gradually fade from view. Based on the number of visitors to the website and the number of missing person notices that get shared by using its ‘share now’ button, the portraits of seven children, all of whom have been missing for years, will either fade or become more visible.

The campaign also partnered with French illustrator Nabil Nezzar, who converted the original pictures from the children’s missing persons notices into lifelike, hand-drawn portraits. These children featured on the site are Liam Vanden Branden, Nathalie Geijsbregts, Théo Hayez, Antoine Plomteux, and Ken Heyrman, as well as Vincent Lamouris, and Gevriye Cavas.

Inevitably public attention for the website will decrease after a while but according to Kasper Janssens, Wunderman Thompson’s creative director, that is precisely the strength of the campaign. He said, “Keep Hope Alive acts as a lasting motivator to keep hope for missing children alive. And if the day does come that the children fade entirely, website visitors will instead see a relevant message that will motivate them to rekindle that hope, however small it may seem at the time.”

The campaign is available across social media and digital billboards, bearing the line ‘Don’t let missing children disappear’, to remind people that as long as they keep thinking about these children, they keep hope alive.

Japan – Wunderman Thompson Tokyo has appointed Akira Suzuki as its new chief executive officer. Suzuki joined the agency from TikTok For Business Japan where he was director and head of Global Business Marketing.

Suzuki is one of the youngest CEOs of the company in APAC, and Wunderman Thompson believes that with his background in technology and advertising, he is well-positioned to integrate the company’s strength in creativity and digital capabilities to redefine the agency’s offering.

As a part of TikTok For Business Japan’s leadership team, Suzuki was in charge of shaping the future of the business through the intersection of business, creativity, and engineering. Facilitating growth through people-focused strategies, Suzuki built a diverse team across functions and launched multiple fast-growing business units, including Creative Labs, the Marketing Strategy team, and the B2B Marketing Communications team in Japan.

Before TikTok, Suzuki had both creative and strategic positions in Dentsu Japan, starting as a Strategic Planner in 2007, before eventually joining the leadership team as Creative Director and leading a team of 20 creatives in 2016. Suzuki’s vast experience covers many industries such as automobile, FMCGs, consumer tech and more. 

Ewen Sturgeon, International CEO of Wunderman Thompson, said that with the evolving nature of the industry in Japan, Wunderman Thompson will greatly benefit from a leader who is unafraid to explore the intersections of our capabilities, and who seeks out opportunities for growth for our clients.

“I am delighted to welcome Akira to Wunderman Thompson, to lead our Japan office. Akira is a new age creative technologist, strategist and business leader,” said Sturgeon. 

Suzuki commented, “In addition to its traditional agency functions, Wunderman Thompson Tokyo’s strength lies in its digital capabilities, particularly in the CX, Data, Tech, and EC domains. By leveraging these strengths, we will redefine Wunderman Thompson as the best Growth Partner for solving business challenges and leading business transformation for brands in Japan and beyond.”

Suzuki said that today, digital means that everything is measurable, which means transparency of results and accountability for the work delivered to clients.

“It is no longer acceptable to take a one-step-back approach to client work. Instead, we seek to be a partner, more proactively involved in the conception, implementation, and validation of their business and commit to increasing sales, profits, and corporate value as the common goal of both parties. We look forward to becoming the Growth Partner for our clients striving for ambitious growth,” he added.

Across the region, Wunderman Thompson has also recently unveiled new leaders within the year. The China division has announced Joyce Ling as its chief transformation and strategy officer, while in the Philippines, Joe Dy returns as CCO.