)
Don't want to miss the best from Business Standard?
Bright walls, glass facade and a yellow staircase behind them seem out of place in a dingy industrial estate in central Mumbai. It would seem that the world's most awarded advertising school, the Miami Ad School, chose the wrong location for its Asia debut.
But the 20-year-old school, whose students are much sought after in the global advertising fraternity, chose its India base because one of the directors, Raj Kamble, managing partner & chief creative officer, Strawberry Frog, has his agency next door. He can easily come by to supervise sessions.
Kamble and fellow directors Mangesh Rane and Rahul Kaloti, both founders of Mumbai-based ad agency Open Strategy and Design, have been involved in every aspect of the school right from designing the two-storeyed building to ensuring good quality students and faculty find their way into the programme. "We wanted to give back to the industry that had moulded and shaped us," says Rane, a pass-out of the JJ School of Applied Art and who has worked with Contract, Grey and RediffusionY&R. "The advertising industry requires skilled manpower and if we can aid that process by providing people skilled in copywriting or art direction, I think that is the best service we could do," says Rane. Kamble had quit the Publicis-Groupe-owned Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH) in January 2012 to launch Strawberry Frog, an independent agency, in November 2012
"The deal is that we pay the promotors of the Miami Ad School a royalty for the name and technical expertise they have lent to the programme. Barring the US, where there are four campuses, owned by the promoters Ron and Pippa Seichrist, at other places, they have partners like us who are their representatives," says Rane.
The hallmark of the Miami Ad School is that the batch size will not exceed 15 to 20 students who will have to take daily assignments from faculty from the industry. Students will have lectures via video conferencing with faculty located abroad. There will be modules on copywriting, art direction, design and photography covering eight quarters or semesters.
Sunitha Suresh, dean, says, "We have five students in the first batch and courses on copywriting, digital design and art direction. Two students have enrolled for the copywriting course, while three have enrolled for the art direction programme. We have the option of launching a new batch every quarter, an idea we are currently toying with."
There will be student exchange programmes, on the school's many campuses across the world, with a chance to intern at international agencies. The last quarter will be spent on completing portfolios before graduating. Kamble, Rane and Kaloti have the franchise to set up Miami Ad Schools across India. Students have been charged Rs 12 lakh for two years, which Rane claims is 50 per cent lower than that charged at other branches. "These are specialised courses from the best in the game. There is a price attached to it," says Rane.
Ad industry sources say that Abhijit Awasthi and Rajiv Rao, national creative directors, Ogilvy & Mather have been approached to devote three hours a week or thirty hours over three months at the school in the first semester, but the directors decline to confirm this. "We have the option of changing faculty every quarter. So, the set of teachers in the second quarter could change," Suresh adds.
Advertising education is offered by mass-com institutions such as Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Delhi, and Xavier Institute of Communication & Sophia Polytechnic in Mumbai. They help students get a ring-side view of the industry but a common grouse is that they don't equip students fully for the job.
The first batch begins classes on October 7, in line with all other centres located at 13 different locations across the world such as Hamburg in Germany, Sao Paolo in Brazil, New York, San Francisco & Miami in the US, Madrid in Spain and Istanbul in Turkey.
