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, I am also the General Manager in addition to wearing the Creative Director’s hat. A “never say die attitude” and a passion to outperform ourselves ensures a fast paced life for the team and me.

Work for me is not a profession but an avenue to test my limits of coming up with better ideas and solutions. 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.

When not running the agency, I chase my other passion of flying. With a pilot’s license under my belt, the weekends are spent soaring the skies in a Cessna 172 or a Piper Archer. Being up there alone in the open skies amongst the clouds opens up the mind and refreshes the creative cells.

On the ground, I indulge in my passion for cars. Spare moments are spent in detailing and maintaining my cars in addition to going for long drives on beautiful UAE roads. When not in motion I like going for trap shooting. These three passions ensure that my spare time never has a dull moment.

I have always had a creative mindset and have dabbled in painting, sketching, carpentry, model making to name a few in my younger days. Being an avid DIY person, I love trying out new things. A creative profession therefore was a logical extension to this penchant. The research required for each assignment before working on the creatives or marketing strategy, not only enhances the level of knowledge, but allows you to look at unrelated things from different perspectives making it interesting and challenging at the same time. With every assignment catering to a different requirement, the learning never stops.

We are an advertising and marketing agency. We provide services to a host of well know 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. While we all work together for a common goal, 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.

A creative design is something that should easily connect with the lowest denominator in the targeted client base and yet provide an unexpected element.

While we follow the usual method of briefing, research etc, we do a full virtual walk through in our minds to define the target audience’s journey. This helps us identify touch points and their expectations at these points. Workable ideas and solutions that would deliver a memorable experience is then developed These concepts and ideas are then always tested with people not connected with the industry, thus providing an unbiased feedback. We often use kids as a sounding board. My young daughter being a regular at this. Surprisingly, their “matter of fact “approach and suggestions have made us rethink many of our campaigns and revert to simpler routes leading to highly successful outcomes.

Learning. Every client is different. Every job is different. The amount of self-education that needs to be done before every assignment pertaining to industry, competition, best practices really opens up a whole new world almost daily. It also helps develop a lot of cross client ideas and use best practices from unrelated industries to great results.

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 has so many nationalities living in such a small area as Dubai and the UAE. The cross cultural environment brings a whole new learning every day. The broader your horizon, the better your creativity. The encouragement provided by the UAE Government in terms of various platforms provides for increased interaction and exposure.

Thank you. Winning the award this year has been very encouraging Especially for the creative on “Educating the Girl Child. The recognition by Muse has made us even more determined to pursue the cause in the best way we can to promote the message. Needless to say the wins have also reaffirmed our commitment to always provide the best to our clients. Their appreciation for these wins has been heartening and encouraging.

MICROSOFT SURFACE/REDINGTON VIP INVITE

This invite was sent by Microsoft and Redington to their VIP Partners for one to one meeting to discuss strategies for 2020. The invite was designed to communicate the importance of the relationship and how working together would benefit both. A table top plant representing the relationship with the concept of CHERISH. NOURISH & FLOURISH was used to communicate that a cherished relationship, when nourished lovingly can help in a flourishing outcome.

EDUCATE THE GIRL CHILD

“Educating the Girl Child“ is a cause close to our heart. This creative was aimed at changing the mind set of people who believe education remains the domain of the male child while the girl child is destined for household work and bringing up the family. The creative used regular household items and added a twist to highlight how right education can help realize the true potential of a girl child resulting in contribution to society and the family in addition to help build the nation. Originally done in Hindi, the English was added to help communicate the message to the international audience. This was put in social media in addition to being sent out to groups as a WhatsApp message

TRIBUTE TO GANDHI

This social media post was created to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th Birth anniversary, The creative used a Snellen chart to show his values through his iconic round spectacles. The line "Because one man chose to see things differently” described his vision, belief and strength and determination that resulted in India’s independence through non-violence.

The biggest challenge we were anticipating was budget allocation for the Microsoft/Redington project. In times of economic hardship, it is very difficult to get a budget for a untested route, especially if a normal printed invite would have also worked, though with a much lesser impact and recall. The client however loved the idea and was able to secure the required budget.

The creatives for “Educating the Girl Child” and “Tribute to Gandhi” were not expected to have this problem as these were internal assignments. Our challenge however was mainly for ensuring an effective distribution so it could have a wider reach. While we used our social media pages for it, the success would have dependant on forwards via WhatsApp. It was therefore important to identify the right groups to ensure continuity of the chain and ensure wider distribution.

Winning any award is always encouraging. Winning the Muse for a second time has helped established our credibility as an agency for great ideas and creatives.

• Knowledge

• Dynamism

• Creativity

As mentioned in Q9, the UAE is one of the few places in the world where you see so many nationalities residing in harmony within a relatively small area. A melting pot of so many religions, cultures, ethnicity and languages, it is but natural for creativity to flourish in an environment like this. The UAE Government also encourages and provides many platforms in the form of free zones, exhibitions, seminars, trade shows, cultural festivals, music concerts etc that help in a free flow of creative ideas.

The creative industry is thinking digital and churning out content meant for digital. Undoubtedly the digital media allows for more engagement and recall in addition to a faster reach and the flexibility to change content. The coming years are going to see the creative industry adapting and keeping pace with the fast evolving technology and the mindset of the next generation. Does that mean it is the end of the traditional media and creatives as we knew it?

I, for one, would like to think not. Depending on the end result, especially incase of smaller and more defined audience, we have still used traditional mediums, especially direct mailers. The creativity has not only helped us break the clutter of the digital, but also enabled us to have a meaningful engagement and very high recall with the target audience. The current COVID 19 pandemic has seen a rise in demand for the print media as more and more people are looking for credible updates. Many brands have reverted to this medium, though temporarily, to reach into the houses of the customers during lockdown. The way ahead though will be keeping pace with technology. VR, holograms, augmented reality allow for creativity to explore whole new world hitherto un-thought of.

Do not set boundaries. Creativity is an open field. Be hungry for knowledge. The more you learn, the wider your horizon and more creative and innovative your ideas.

Creativity is all about broadening horizons. The more knowledge you gather, the broader your horizons. 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” knew what they were 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 are my inspiration. They are both “self-made” and have seen many hardships along the way. They have not only made it through but have supported their families and helped bring up their siblings along the way. Their dedication, sincerity and “never say die” attitude made army a natural profession for both of them. Having being brought up by career soldiers, selflessness, dedication to family and country, integrity and self-respect with motivational life stories have been an integral part of growing up with a fair portion rubbing off on me.

Integrity, passion, conviction and lots of hard work.

I would like to thank MUSE for providing a wonderful platform for smaller agencies to showcase their work and be recognized through unbiased judgement process. Having you work put up against illustrious creative talent from around the world and winning an award in this forum is very motivating.