Started many moons ago as copywriter.

Currently Regional Creative Director, Mumbai and South, Contract Advertising.
Last position: Executive Creative Director, Contract Mumbai. Personally written many memorable and award winning campaigns on brands like Cadbury (brands like Eclairs, Halls, Celebrations), Shoppers Stop, Tata Indicom, HSBC (Bank brand/Premier/PowerVantage/MyHome/MyTerms), Asian Paints, Bajaj Auto, NIIT, Kinetic Auto, SKF Bearings, Allianz Bajaj, Waterburys Compound, Blues Bizaar, JK Tyre, Ceat Tyres…

Juror, Cannes Direct Lions, 2011.

#66 on MEDIA Top 100 Creative Directors, Asia.

Winner: The CUP for newnationalanimal.com
Best Of Show – Direct Integrated, 360 Lotus and Lotus Root at Asia AdFest 2010 for www.newnationalanimal.com
Silver + 2 Bronze Spikes 2009 for www.newnationalanimal.com
Cannes Nomination 2009 for www.newnationalanimal.com

Winner: Over 200 International and National Advertising Awards and Certifications.

Why are you into Advertising?
Quite simple, really. My parents wanted me to become an engineer. (It’s kind of a Malayali thing, some of you will get it.)  Then, despite seeing me fail the various engineering college entrance exams miserably, they then insisted that they still saw a professional buried somewhere in the recesses of me. And made me enroll for B.Com in the hope that I would become a Chartered Accountant, one day. Needless to say, I flunked that miserably as well.
I started out in life trying to make people sample a then (late 1980s) popular brand of cigarettes. Couldn’t. Standing on pavements in hot and sticky Calcutta made me dizzy and nauseous.
I almost made the grade to sell Vacuum Cleaners, door to door. (No prizes for guessing the brand. Discovering that lugging it around wasn’t exactly the lift my career needed.)
My father then got me a job in a company called National Plywood Industries. He knew the Managing Director and, suddenly, I was the assistant to the Purchase Officer. (That sounds fancy. It wasn’t. I pushed registers. The only thing fancy about it was that the office was, incidentally, at 5, Fancy Street, Dalhousie, Kolkata.)
But it was here that I had my first close encounter with advertising. Apart from pushing registers, I also had to disburse payments to suppliers. One of which was the advertising agency, Clarion. I saw illustrated storyboards for TVCs attached to bills. And I started to think, “Hey, perhaps I could do this?”
Now, it’s safe to say that about the only thing I did reasonably well in school was dream. And write a bit. Essays I wrote got published in the school mag.
But there wasn’t any magical break in advertising in store in Kolkata for me as my parents relocated very soon to Kerala.
I then, tried to get a job in advertising in Chennai. But I just couldn’t plumb the dank, dismal, dark depths of a hell – hole called Triplicane. So I packed my bags in less than a week and ran back really quick to Kochi.
I finally got a job in Kochi itself in a small agency called Space Ad run by a gent called Gireesan who introduced me to Bill Bernbach, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and copious quantities of Hercules XXX rum, not in any particular order.
After about a year of having a ball in Kochi with Gireesan and almost losing my liver to jaundice, rum, arrack and various other spirits, I finally landed in the Field of Opportunity that is Mumbai.
And got my first job here in a small set up that handled Eagle Flasks and Fantasie Chocolates (among others) called DART (Dynamic Advertising & Research Team – fancy that!!!)
Very early into the game, I realized that there was really little else I could have done in life. Sure I was a drop – out from conventional life, especially professionally. But I was born for this. I was born to dream. To conjure words and pictures out of my head. And I found advertising a great medium to help people appreciate the essence of what I’m trying to say. And I also found the ability to be able to influence people to make choices with my words and pictures quite thrilling. (Of course, this need not necessarily mean that all of society’s drop – outs will do well in advertising.)

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After completing my graduation in visual communication in Chennai, I headed to Delhi to work for a fashion design company, to design tee shirts for prints for their US & Europe markets. Soon, I got interested in trend spotting and later I moved on to become a fashion trend analyst. This I would do for four years until my love for advertising pulled me Back to Chennai ( I used to freelance copy while I was in Delhi). One MG was started by my friend and classmate Nishant, when he asked me to join One MG as the creative head, I jumped at that opportunity. It’s been 3 years I have been working here as the creative head along with Nishant.

Why are you into Advertising?
Right from my collage days, I have been enamoured by ability of some visuals and text to lure masses into doing irrational things, things that they are so proud of it, but would have never done it if they hadn’t seen the ad or promotion. I have always wondered as a kid, what would I do when the giant gulab jamun and the poori would drop, in the old Sundrop oil commercial, that fascinated me, probably the reason why am here.

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Anindya Banerjee aka Andy introduced advertising to his family of doctors and engineers almost 15 years back. After working in agencies like Contract, Ogilvy and Mather, Publicis, Law and Kenneth, he soon realised that advertising today, starts conversations about a brand. Or changes it.

 This helped him in creating the very successful Me and Meri Maggi campaign for Nestle. The relaunch of Limca. The introduction of McVities Digestives biscuits in India, the launch of Domino’s Cheese burst Pizza . The introduction of high profile Unitech Golf and Country Club.

In these 15 years, he’s won over 50 national and international awards that include Cannes, Asia Pacific Ad fest Lotuses, Abbies, Emvies and Effies.

Anindya is also a guest lecturer at Sri Aurobindo Centre for Arts and Communication, New Delhi.

Why are you into Advertising?

Some people play with toys. Others play around with gadgets. I like playing with ideas. I was trying to figure out what to do with my life when advertising chose me. One day while flipping through a newspaper, I came upon an ad for NIIT created by Contract (Bhupesh Luther and Neil Johnson). I don’t remember the exact words, but it said something like  “The college cutoff list was 92%. I got 90%. Does that make me a failure?”

I didn’t join NIIT. I joined advertising.
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A Mechanical Engineer from REC Warangal (now NIT Warangal). 42 years old. Grey beard and a bald head. Meet Hari Prasad. Creative Director, Trikaal Advertising, Hyderabad.


Why are you into Advertising?

By accident. Post engineering I was looking at various options – from journalism to an MBA to the UPSC to film editing to direction and having tried all of them for various periods of time, struck upon copywriting which I loved enough to stay put. And so hence, I guess it answers why I am into advertising.

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