25 years of agency experience across 3 countries with a hands on experience of handling brands across various categories like automobiles, IT, travel retail, and consumer electronics makes me a good fit in the marketing and advertising field. A founding member of Watermark, General Manager and Creative Director.

For the last 10 years I have been actively writing copy and doing concepts for the agency. Prior to that, during my 15 years as a client servicing manager, I was closely involved with the creative team in all my accounts.

I am a licensed pilot, and my passions apart from flying are fast cars and trap shooting.

An artistic bent of mind since childhood, hunger for knowledge, a DIY mindset, and always wanting to find ways of doing things differently made creative field a natural profession.

We are an advertising and marketing agency based out of Dubai. We provide services to a host of well-known MNC accounts throughout the Middle East. Our services range from creatives, marketing support, exhibitions, events, marketing consultancy, and retail. We have a small but dedicated team of motivated and multi-tasking individuals. The cross nationality and cultural mix makes it a melting pot of ideas. I manage the company operationally and am responsible for business development, profitability, and creative quality. I officially work as the general manager and creative director in the agency.

Explore the unknown. Deviate from the obvious. Deliver the unexpected.

Something that touches the heart of the intended target audience and establishes an emotional connection.

In addition to the usual drafting of a proper brief backed by research, we do a mental walkthrough for every assignment identifying the flow and touch-points. We base our communication on the touch-points and relevant messages. This is then tried with people unrelated to the industry or the process to determine the ease of unaided understanding.

The continuous flow of knowledge that you gather with the research that follows every brief and the excitement of doing something new every time.

Clean, simple, avoiding the most obvious and providing an unexpected twist.

Yes it surely does. I think no other country or city in the world probably has so many nationalities living in such a small area as Dubai and the UAE. The cross cultural environment brings a whole new learning process every day. The broader your horizon, the better your creativity will be. The encouragement provided by the UAE Government in terms of various platforms provides increased interaction and exposure.

Recognition in any form is always encouraging and helps boost self confidence and a feel-good factor. It further reaffirms our commitment of providing the best designs and plans for our clients.

LOGITECH VC VIRTUAL CLASSROOM ON THE GO - Logitech has been at the forefront of enabling students and teachers to continue education through virtual classrooms and distant learning during lockdowns with their products. In order to enhance the experience for the students and teachers, Logitech continues its quest to not only improve their current products, but to also find possibilities of using existing products in a more productive way. Who can be better at giving this input than some senior members of the Education industry. Logitech put together some devices that are easy to rig up, comfortable to use, and can go a long way in helping set up classrooms anywhere for distant learning. Called the "Virtual classroom on the go" a mouse, a stylus, a camera, and a presenter were packed in an equipment travel case and sent to the selected few, inviting them to be a part of our endeavour to keep improving the virtual classroom and distant learning experience. These products were a window to showcase the larger Video Conferencing technology. This pack also helped industry decision makers to experience these products firsthand and see how they could use these to make a difference for their students across the educational institutions they managed. As these were very senior members of the industry, the pack had to be eye catching, premium looking and generating curiosity to open it and check out. The pack was certainly well received and there were emails within 48 hours from all respondents who connected us to the heads of individual schools to look at possibilities of implementing the Logitech Video Conferencing technology in the schools and requesting for a technology demonstration.

THE MICROSOFT SURFACE MOBILE DEMO ZONE AND LAB - The new Microsoft Surface range has a host of devices ranging from laptops, convertibles, desktops and touchscreens. High end, power packed, and classy devices, the range helps address a wide spectrum of needs and styles. Redington is a leading distributor of Microsoft in the region and in conjunction with Microsoft, was looking at providing a an experience for key partners for the full Surface range at their premises and enable training and product familiarization by taking the experience to the partners' premises. Instead of just delivering the devices, the client wanted to create a memorable experience that would not only create excitement but also complement Surface by being out of the box and classy. The agency created a custom designed experience zone using the Microsoft identity and product brand guidelines. The experience zone consisted of multiple individual stands, custom made for the surface devices and also displaying the range of accessories. The stands were compact, with wheels which made them easy to deploy and move. Individual self-contained units allowed for the experience zone to take the form and size of the room available at the partner premise. When the sales team of the partner walked into the conference room expecting a demo, they were surprised to see the conference room converted into a Microsoft Surface zone overnight with a full set of Surface devices, ready for them to train on and get familiar with the product at their own pace. In addition, the zone was on loan to the partner to also invite key customers to their premises for a demo. When the customer could not make it, the zone could easily be moved with minimum manpower, time, and effort, providing the Microsoft Surface experience to the end enterprise customer.

THE MX ANYWHERE 3 - "THE ALL TERRAIN MOUSE" - The MX Anywhere 3 Mouse from Logitech is one of the most advanced mouse with features which ideal for professional and personal use. It can switch between 3 computers, track across almost any surface-including glass, can scroll sideways apart from it being ergonomically and aesthetically designed. To promote the product during the launch phase, Logitech wanted to send the mouse to some key tech media editors as well as some influencers and get them to try the mouse. The objective was to create awareness, get them to use it, and get favourable reviews. The agency was asked to design a media kit to help achieve the above. We chose a feature that would easily associate with a favourite pass time in the UAE – Off roading. The vast desserts support this activity providing an ideal creative hook. The mouse works on any surface and that makes it a – “ALL TERRAIN MOUSE” The creative used this concept and designed the media kit like a display of an off-road vehicle mounted on a chassis with large wheels giving it an all terrain look. This unit was mounted on a base with a backdrop of the desert for right ambience. Once the product was lifted, there was a ready reckoner with the features. The reverse had a small quiz linked to each point thus making it engaging and easy to recall the features. Below the ready reckoner were three mouse mats made of laminate, glass and one regular mouse mat. The user could use the different mats and get to experience the “All Terrain” feature. Once the mouse mats were removed, there was a tray with inlays indicating that it can be used as a pen and miscellaneous item holder. One Logitech branded pen was also provided. This ensured the unit had a longer shelf life, a functional benefit, and served as a constant reminder. Intrigue, education, trial and retention were all achieved.

There was actually no challenge. The ideas flowed as we were discussing the brief and the clients have always been eager to try out new ideas and support creative concepts.

It definitely helps existing clients have more confidence in us and gives us an edge when pitching for a new client.

• Knowledge

• Dynamism

• Creativity

Multicultural environment, concentration of many nationalities in a small area, and a government that creates an ideal environment for exchange of ideas and flow of information. In addition to these, multiple platforms are available to showcase creative ideas and reach out to a larger audience. Also, being a smaller area, we do not have to worry about operational difficulties while executing a creative idea. This makes it easy to think out of the box and unleash creativity.

With digital media and social media being the way forward, creative industry will need to focus on engagement to establish higher recall and build a brand relationship.

Creativity has no boundaries, so be hungry to explore. Be ready to step out of the comfort zone and follow your instincts.

Creativity is all about broadening horizons. The more knowledge you gather, the broader your horizons will be. While books and internet provide a constant source of information, movies, music, sports, travelling, current affairs, comics are great way of not only knowing about many different things, but also enjoying the process. Cultivating a hobby inculcates the ability to go deep into something and understand it better. Whoever said that “listening is an important part of a conversation” knows what they are saying. It is amazing how much you can learn and different views you can gather by just listening to people. These resources are all around us and most are free.

My parents. Both are career soldiers and have instilled integrity and a never say die attitude in me through their own example of not only handling challenges at domestic front, but also in national security and defense.

Integrity, passion, conviction, and hard work.

I would like to thank MUSE for providing this wonderful platform for us to showcase our work and be recognized.