WPP’s Ogilvy group launches 82.5 Communications an India-specific creative agency

WPP’s Ogilvy group has launched 82.5 Communications, an India-specific creative agency catering to Indian companies, Indian startups and entrepreneurs. 82.5 Communications will be headquartered in Mumbai, and also have offices in New Delhi, Bengaluru and Kolkata.

Piyush Pandey, Chief Creative Officer Worldwide, Executive Chairman India, Ogilvy, said, "82.5 will meet a key need in the creative services market for an agency that is tailored to help realise the aspirations of emerging Indian companies, entrepreneurs and brands as well as MNCs who want to ‘Indianise’ their brands and forge a connect with Indian audiences." Piyush further added, "Such challenger brands are often very strong in their respective categories or geographies, and invariably seek the same qualities that they themselves exhibited, in their creative agencies: passion, agility, out-of-the box thinking and a deep desire to grow."

Elaborating on this, Sumanto Chattopadhyay, Chairman and CCO, 82.5 Communications said, "The focus will be on finding ingenious, bespoke solutions to client’s problems. India has for long had a culture of finding interesting and effective solutions to everyday problems—we are, as a nation, very creative. It’s this creative mindset that we hope to inculcate in 82.5. The rationale for our name, incidentally, is that 82.5 is the longitude of Indian Standard Time. As an agency focussed on Indian entrepreneurship and Indian ingenuity, we felt this name would be apt."

The accounts of Soho Square, another creative agency belonging to the Ogilvy group in India, will now be managed under 82.5 Communications. V.S. Srikanth, who was the Director and CEO of Bates CHI & Partners India, will be the CEO of the new entity, responsible for steering 82.5 Communications in the intended direction, and for implementing plans to deepen and widen 82.5’s engagement with its existing clients.

Samrat Bedi, President-West, Chandana Agarwal, President-North, Sharmista Dev, Head-Kolkata, Naveen Raman, Head-Bengaluru, Siddhartha Roy, EVP Planning, Anuraag Khandelwal, ECD, Mayur Verma, ECD, Mukund Sharma, ECD and Ranadeep Dasgupta, Group Creative Director, complete the core team of 82.5 Communications.