New Delhi: Advertising agency Rediffusion founders Diwan Arun Nanda and Ajit Balakrishnan on Monday announced their decision to step back from the day-to-day management of the ad agency.
Mogae Media founder and chairman and industry veteran Sandeep Goyal, who served as president of Rediffusion from 1997 to 2001, will take over as the managing director.
The 48-year-old agency has been acquired by Goyal led Integrated marketing and communications agency Mogae Media which was set up in 2012. The deal also includes sibling agency Everest Brand Solutions.
While Nanda will continue to mentor the agency and will stay on as chairman, Balakrishnan will step back from all day-to-day operations here. "He will focus his attention on Rediff.com, the technology world and public service and will be always available to Rediffusion for any guidance it may need going forward," said the agency in a statement issued on Monday.
One of the largest independent full service ad agencies, Rediffusion was set up in July, 1973 by Diwan Arun Nanda, Ajit Balkrishnan, and Mohammed Khan. In 1994, agency holding network WPP had acquired Rediffusion and merged it with US agency Young & Rubicam (Y&R) to form Rediffusion Y&R. In 2018, Nanda and Balakrishnan gained 100 per cent control of the agency to become an independent entity once again.
Over the years, it has created some of India’s most iconic and memorable advertising for brands like Jenson & Nicholson, Eveready, Parle, Garden Vareli, Godfrey Phillips, Tata Tea, Lakmé, Telco (Tata Motors), Colgate Palmolive, Citibank and Maruti Suzuki.
It was also credited for launching the brand Airtel in 1995. The agency currently works with Tata Sons, Parle, Tata Trusts, Tata Motors, State Bank of India, Liebherr, Larsen & Toubro, Brookfield, PGIM, Orra, Eveready, Dey’s Medical, Sulekha, Danone, Sun Pharma, Dr. Reddy’s, Audi India and many more.
“Rediffusion has been known over the years for ‘advertising that became famous and part of the language and the culture of the people’, and helped brands build long term, and lasting equity with consumers”, said Rediffusion chairman Diwan Arun Nanda on Monday.
‘Whenever you see colour, think of us’ for Jenson & Nicholson was a path breaking campaign. So was ‘Hum Red & White peene walon ki baat hi kuchh aur hai’ for Red & White cigarettes, ‘Annu taazgi de de’ for Tata Tea, ‘Gimme Red!’ for Eveready and the recent ‘Isko laga dala, toh life jhingalala’ for Tata Sky. Rediffusion was also responsible for creating the cult ad film featuring AR Rahman, with the very memorable Airtel brand tune that has had the highest number of downloads in history.
