Publicis Groupe to bridge the gap between large companies and tech startups through the Drugstore India initiative led by Anil K Nair

Over the last ninety years, Publicis Groupe has worked closely with its clients to build some of the most iconic brands around the world.  Today as we enter the era of the fourth industrial revolution wherein the lines between physical, digital and biological spheres are narrowing, it is imperative for large companies to avoid the ‘Kodak moment’.  The goal is to help Publicis Groupe clients brace for this change by helping them innovate and stay ahead of disruption. They intend to do this by bringing together some of the sharpest minds from within the tech startup ecosystem in India and  the Publicis Groupe brand builders to ‘hack’ solutions on the various brands that we work with across the Groupe.

The Publicis Groupe has always strived to help their clients constantly stay ahead of the game. In the late 50s Publicis Groupe founder Marcel Bleustein-Blanchet started the Drugstore near Arc de Triomphe in Paris to bring multiple brands physically under one roof, with the express idea of getting ‘consumers to experience brands and for brands to get to experiment with them in return’. Today, they invoke their founder’s vision to bring this concept of disruptive innovation thinking and prototyping to all clients and help them ‘thrive at scale’.

Drugstore India is an innovation facility that fosters relationships between large companies and early stage startups for mutual benefit. This innovation thinking will be mentored by the best of minds across Publicis Groupe companies such as L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi, Publicis India, Leo-Burnett, MSLGROUP and Razorfish. True to the spirit of today’s startup ecosystem, where collaboration matters more than competition, the idea for a platform such as Drugstore is just right and timely.

The idea of the Drugstore is fundamentally based on the spirit of identifying and harnessing these innovations and innovators and bridging the gap between needs and resources.

Drugstore India will collaborate with leading players in the Indian startup ecosystem like Zone Startups amongst others to bring some of the proven and agile innovation programs such as Minibar, Meet the Makers, Demo Days, Supper Club, Rapid Prototyping & Incubator Accelerator to capitalize on inventions and have radical outcomes in the process, products and services.

Besides helping our successful client brands stay successful, Drugstore will add strategic marketing value to the emerging startup fraternity through both physical and cloud based access to brand building resources across the Publicis Groupe and by collaborating with them to help them acquire scale expertise and by mentoring and immersing them on turning any business into a successful brand.

Publicis Groupe has successfully launched the Drugstore in London, Sydney, Johannesburg and Zurich and the first Drugstore edition in Asia is now officially starting in India and will be based in Mumbai.

The Drugstore India team will be led by Anil K. Nair CEO, Digital L&K | Saatchi & Saatchi (pictured above) along with a core team comprising of Sreeraman Thiagarajan, Publicis, Parth Nagar & Aarti Samant, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, Sanju Menon, Leo-Burnett, Suryasen Kundu, MSL Group, and Swapnil Puranik, Razorfish, and under the overall mentorship of Praveen Kenneth, Chairman & Managing Director, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi.