Sean Colaco, vice-president, creative services, TBWA India, Mumbai, has quit the agency. He is all set to work for Creatively Active Communications (CAC), a newly rebranded ad agency.
Colaco’s partner in this new venture is Aneet Coutinho. Formerly the creative group head at Saatchi & Saatchi, Coutinho has been running his venture, CA Communications, for the past five years. Now, with Colaco on board, the duo has decided to relaunch the agency; the resultant entity is now called Creatively Active Communications (CAC).
Coutinho says, “We are not a startup; we have been doing business. With Sean’s arrival, the venture has gone through a rechristening and been rebranded as Creatively Active Communications. Sean will contribute in driving the agency forward and bringing more vigour into it.”
He adds that the agency has a strong base of clients, mainly from the finance, retail and FMCG sectors. “As of now, we are keeping Mumbai as our base, and any expansion plans will be need based and circumstance driven,” he states.
CAC will be based on the ad agency model, with all the typical departments and divisions. It will look after all media, ranging from television to print as well as below-the-line. Maintaining a lean structure, it will offer integrated services to its clients. Therefore, it will outsource specialised services, such as media buying and planning, from other agencies.
“At CAC, we will be delivering aggressively and offering clutter breaking and active solutions to our clients,” says Colaco. When asked about the agency’s nomenclature, he says, “The media scenario is highly cluttered and so are the solutions offered. We need vibrancy and dynamism – therefore, the new name.”
Of late, the larger Indian ad agencies have been witnessing a steady exodus of creative talent, with people moving out to start their own ventures, a recent example being that of Jignesh Maniar of ON, who quit O&M. Could this be because of some amount of frustration with a large agency setup? Or is it a need for independence? Colaco replies tactfully, “I have spent 15 years in the advertising business, but now I want to experience the ‘business’ of advertising. With Aneet’s help and resources, this will become possible.”
Colaco joins CAC after a 15 year career that saw stints at Karishma Advertising (a sister concern of Lowe), Grey Worldwide, Saatchi & Saatchi and Mudra DDB. He has worked across various categories, helping build brands such as Ambuja Cement, Woodland Shoes and Apparel, Mauritius Tourism, MTDC, SOTC, Air India, Ariel, Bajaj Allianz Insurance, Nivea and Godrej. Among the awards he has won are those at the A&M Awards, Ad Club Awards (Abbys), AAAI Awards, New York Festivals, Ad Fest, One Show, Cannes and Clio.
Madan Mohan, chief operating officer, Western region, TBWA India, says, “Sean is a good person to work with and I wish him all the best for his new venture.”