Respected Indian adman Ravi Deshpande launches independent integrated communications agency, Whyness Worldwide

Ravi Deshpande has today launched his much speculated next venture after stepping down as Chairman and Chief Creative Officer of Contract Advertising, India in June this year. He had been with Contract India for over 20 years across two long employment spells.

His new shop, Whyness Worldwide, is an independent integrated communications agency where he is the founder, chairman and chief creative officer.

Partnering Deshpande (pictured) in Whyness is Anand Mahurkar, founder of Boston-based Findability Sciences, a big data company with a back-end in India, and Clement Derock and Frederic Lalande, founders of French design and branding specialist, Seenk.

“We are an integrated communications agency for the new world,” said Deshpande. “We address brand challenges with solutions that combine human insights, creativity, design and technology. In a sense it is an agency that bridges the gap between traditional agencies and digital agencies.”

He said the reason they started Whyness was to take the next big step in seeking answers on how to communicate to the people of the new world.

“We redesigned the way we work, right from our structure and alliances to our talent strategy. We were convinced about the kind of work we want to do. And it matches with the kind of work our clients and marketers are asking for. We wanted to mix up things and produce surprising results that actually work for brands and companies. Design and Strategy combined with technology, Creativity mixed with Algorithms.”

Deshpande says Whyness is built with a perfect blend of planners, technologists, designers and creatives who will work as a unified team under one roof just to be able to deliver on this promise.

“We wanted to work with people who are not like-minded. Whyness will work with Findability Sciences seamlessly, we will use their expertise of turning big data into a smart data. This process will help our clients understand their customer better, help them produce accurate strategies and also helps them analyse their own performance. Our alliance with Seenk, Paris will add more value to our thinking in design. In addition to this we will use the talented graduates from our school of design called ‘Ecole Intuit Lab’ to add fresh perspective to design.”

Deshpande also wanted to ensure that they produce things that people can actually use in their everyday lives. A way to associate brands with people in a way that not only helps brands but also people. 

“We feel passionately about delivering communication solutions that travel. So that stay longer in people’s minds. That’s why, we will ensure that all our work is cross-platform, shareable and usable by the people it’s intended for, leading to a much fuller brand experience.”

Read Firstpost’s interview with Deshpandi here.