Marketing services | Advertising | Communications | Content strategy | Agency set up & Business Development | Brand services (Activations, Events, Experiences & Partnerships) | Ethnic marketing | Wines marketing and content

My professional journey

I am a senior marketing services, advertising, communications and business development professional with a career footprint covering Holland, Nigeria, Ghana, Côte d'Ivoire, Caméroun, Sénégal, India and the UAE.
 

My work in the advertising and communications industry focusses on crafting better strategies to help brands be more relevant to their audiences. I have worked on both B2B and B2C brands in FMCG, international remittances, banking, financial services, healthcare, higher education, mobile apps, aviation services, luxury cosmetics and telecom.

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I learnt the hard science of "commerce" and the delicate art of "customer management" during my early years in sales and marketing in industries as diverse as FMCG, building materials, metals trading and luxury cosmetics.

I moved into advertising at a time when good communication was the outcome of insights, creative skills and not inconsiderable leaps of faith, and was not "created" by an algorithm. My first agency taught me the ropes of ATL and BTL advertising, public relations, media planning and creative strategy, and also how to "sell" ideas! I was fortunate to have participated in the growth of iconic Indian brands such as Tata Indica, Amul, Zodiac Men's Wear, HDFC Bank and Stepstone.com (India's first online recruitment portal).

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Along the way I also developed a love for short and long copy.

This holistic and large-scale exposure to the advertising industry equipped me with the skills (and that little bit of insanity) required for managing a full service agency (business development, client relations, P & L management, stakeholders management, investor relations). These have been put to the proverbial "trial by fire" in my current location, Dubai, where I helped set up not one, but two BTL + experiential agencies.

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Using a combination of business development skills, a consistent "client-first" philosophy and the ability to mentor and encourage my team to deliver stretch targets (a reality in startups in any field!), I built these agencies to respectable positions in the hugely competitive non-ATL advertising market in the UAE.

Apart from setting up the operations of these agencies, and managing an average annual business portfolio of USD 1 million, I have had the privilege of working with local, regional and multinational brands on a variety of projects, of which two - the Western Union Camp Ka Champ reality singing contest and Dubai Municipality Clean Dubai campaign - are trailblazers in the industry in the UAE for their uniqueness and innovation.

Other brands that I have worked on in the UAE include etisalat, Air BP, Britannia, Abu Dhabi Tourism, Abu Dhabi Convention Bureau, Nivea, MoneyGram, Dabur, Himalaya Herbals, Lipton Tea, Fair and Lovely, Clear Shampoo and Fair and Handsome

I have designed and introduced the concept of "Brand As A Service (BrAAS) - using the brand not merely to deliver product value and relevance but also to improve overall customer values and livelihoods. I designed this concept to help brands navigate the highly heterogenous UAE market, where traditional media are limited, the audience is extremely fragmented along socio-economic-linguistic lines and the "one size fits all" approach does not work.

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I work and consult primarily in the following areas:

• Marketing services: full brand visibility services including brand launches, brand experiences, consumer insights and engagements, ethnic marketing

• Digital Marketing: decode the mysteries of brand visibility & engagements in the complex digital world through full funnel marketing campaigns, digital advertising (DSP management), SEO strategy & content management

• Advertising: tactical and strategic solutions for building brand saliency, client management, media & creative strategy, general agency management

• Agency set up & Business Development: establish full service advertising agencies, operational management of agencies (new client acquisition, new business pitches, P & L management, business pipeline management)

• Brand Services: manage the "last-mile connection" between brands and their consumers through brand partnerships, activations, events and customer engagements

• Ethnic Marketing: customised marketing campaigns and engagement solutions for homogeneous customer segments

• Media & creative strategy and analytics: design, evaluate and implement effective media and creative plans to maximise investments in traditional and digital media

My professional milestones include:

• Design and implementation of a new customer segment strategy for Britannia Industries in the UAE, to expand the brand footprint within the Filipino community (2nd largest expatriate community in the UAE)

• Creator and producer of "Camp Ka Champ", the Middle East's first and largest reality singing contest for blue collar workers, covering nearly 250,000 workers

• Implementation of unique customer engagement & acquisition solutions for Western Union (GCC & Africa markets)

• Launch of 3 new corridors for Western Union through intensive ethnic marketing campaigns (UAE:Kenya, UAE:Ethiopia and UAE:Yemen)

• Expansion of the PR division of FCB-Ulka Advertising, one of India’s top tier advertising agencies, leading revenue growth of 20%+ per year

• Implementation of a key account strategy for the Professional Products Division of L’Oréal India, which contributed 10% of annual Salon Division sales in the 1st year

• Set up of an exports division for West Africa & a domestic sales division for Nigeria’s largest building materials group, part of Comcraft Services Ltd, UK, growing the business to USD 2.5 million per year within 3 years of trading.

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I am bilingual English - French and also speak 3 Indian languages.​​

I strongly believe in the power of humour, empathy & cross-cultural understanding to build exemplary teams.