New hands set to pep up JWT

Ex-Mudra senior Bobby Pawar & former Unilever exec Bindu Sethi to join today.

The JWT Mumbai office is waiting in anticipation for two high-profile entries. Bobby Pawar, who was chief creative officer at Mudra, and Bindu Sethi, a former Unilever and Grey hand will formally join the agency tomorrow.

While Pawar will be chief creative officer and managing partner, Sethi will be chief strategy officer. Both will complete the national-level team the advertising agency’s chief executive officer, Colvyn Harris has been putting in place over the last few months.

A few months ago, after the exit of Rohit Ohri as head of JWT’s Delhi office, Harris replaced him by hiring Sanjeev Bhargava, the erstwhile chief operating officer at DraftFcb, also in the national capital. Also hired was an expatriate, Max Hegerman, as the head (digital) of the agency.

Harris says getting this kind of talent was in no way easy. “Bobby, for instance, took eight months to decide on whether he wanted to join us,” he says. “I expect him to bring aggression and risk-taking ability that has characterised his work through the years.”

As for Pawar, for the four-and-a-half years he was in Mudra, the agency was recognised as a force to reckon with, giving strong competition to the likes of Ogilvy at the annual creative awards, the Abbys, at the Goafest. It was during Pawar’s tenure that Mudra came up with notable campaigns for brands such as Volkswagen. The creative head, who has done time in the US with agencies such as BBDO and Ogilvy, says he expects to push the creative envelope at JWT. “My mandate is clear: to do cutting edge creative work,” says Pawar.

Sethi, on the other hand, will add the much-needed depth to the strategic planning department — an area that is rapidly gaining ground in advertising. She will have a full-fledged team under her with two executive planning directors Arpita Malik and Mythili Chandrashekar reporting directly to her.

Pawar, in contrast, will have three national creative directors — Senthil Kumar, Swati Bhattacharya and Tista Sen —reporting in to him. Each in the trio has one’s own individual set of responsibilities. Kumar, who is a veteran JWT hand, will overlook the creative departments in the Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata offices, besides working on the Unilever Radiant business, which is the FMCG giant’s portfolio of laundry brands in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He is the global creative director on Unilever Radiant. Bhattacharya. Sen, meanwhile, will head the Delhi and Mumbai creative teams at JWT, which are two of the largest offices for the agency.

Harris says building both the depth and breadth of talent at JWT has been part of his strategy to infuse new life into JWT.

While JWT is amongst the leading advertising agencies in the country, the perception that it is not a tour de force on the creative side has stuck on despite some good work in the past including The Times of India’s Lead India campaign in 2008 for which the agency won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Advertising Festival that year.

Harris says he expects the tide to turn for the agency in 2012 with a high-powered team now in place. “We have strong people both at the local and national level. So expect some action from us,” he says.

While Harris declines to indicate his new business strategy, industry sources say JWT may look to win back advertisers such as Pepsi and Airtel, which chose the smaller Taproot last year to launch key campaigns.

JWT is also consolidating its acquisitions such as Mindset, the Hyderabad-based ad agency, where it acquired a majority stake last year.