Arijit Ray, the new chief executive officer of Dentsu Communications, the largest agency within the Dentsu India Group (DIG), brings nearly 20 years of advertising experience to the table. He has worked with a number of agencies in Delhi and Mumbai including Rediffusion, Triton, McCann, Ogilvy, Saatchi & Saatchi and Mudra (now called DDB Mudra), managing key accounts and responsible for new business.
But this is Ray's first assignment as an agency head, and the 41-year-old is conscious of the task at hand. "Definitely, my canvas is far bigger now," says the client servicing man.
His last role, at Mudra saw him head the western region of the agency. Here, he aggressively added accounts in the four years he was part of the agency, between 2008 and 2012. But from regional to national, the scale of operations does change, he says. "But I am prepared for the challenge at hand," he admits.
Dentsu Communications' accounts include Toyota, Panasonic, Star Union Daichi, Indo-Nissin Foods (maker of Top Ramen noodles), ICICI Direct, Runwal Real Estate, Jet Airways and IOC among others. While Dentsu, by virtue of its Japanese antecedents, has attracted business from that country easily, it’s the non-Japanese accounts that Ray is keen to add aggressively.
"We can definitely expand that part of the business," he says. Ray declines to indicate the ratio of Japanese to non-Japanese businesses at Dentsu Communications. But with other DIG agencies Dentsu Marcom and Dentsu Creative Impact managing largely conflict accounts such as Honda and Suzuki, respectively, it comes as no surprise on whose shoulders the responsibility rests to expand the footprint of the Japanese giant, which is the world's fifth largest advertising group, in India.
Dentsu Communications has offices in Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Bangalore. The number of people across these offices is a little over 200. Plans are afoot to add more. But that shouldn't be a problem for this alumnus of the Mudra Institute of Communications Arts, Ahmedabad, who is regarded as a people's person by industry peers.
