'There's life after takeover'

Ray + Keshavan, the design and brand consultancy firm that was taken over by WPP last year, is right now working out the brand persona of all the four upcoming modern airports "" at Mumbai (this has already been unveiled), Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore. It is conducting a branding strategy and design exercise for Tata Capital and will soon sign up to shape the Nasscom brand.

Life for Sujata Keshavan, the managing director, who now owns 49 per cent of the firm that was unique when it began in 1994, goes on the same way as before. "We keep on taking contracts as we like, we have the same staff of around 30."

But Keshavan quickly adds that it is important who takes you over. "Our acquirers themselves have grown through acquisitions and we have the necessary space. This was important for us in choosing whom to be taken over by."

There are also two clear gains from being taken over by a global firm. Ray + Keshavan earlier did not have any consulting capability. "We were a pure-play design firm," she recalls. The parental MNC has processes which a somewhat free-wheeling boutique can acquire to its advantage.

The transition from standalone to a part of the global creative fraternity is best illustrated by the various projects that Ray + Keshavan have done for Airtel. "We (including WPP) have done three projects for Airtel "" redesigning its identity, combined four different earlier identities into the umbrella Airtel brand and then the retail branding done by London." Another new trick the firm is passing on to its clients is "brand engagement" through which you manage the task of making a firm's employees live the brand.

For example, if innovation is critical for a firm, then how do you link employees to it? Does your office reflect creativity? "This link-up with a firm's HR strategy addresses the critical issue of managing attrition."

Keshavan set out to build the firm with Ram Ray, an iconic figure in the Indian advertising, to "make Indian brands world class". She feels that she has achieved this with Himalaya, whose offerings, embracing beauty and wellness, are born out of knowledge quintessentially Indian, are now available around the world.

But brands are taken over and this is what happened to MTR Foods after its branding by Ray + Keshavan and the phenomenal initial success. More interesting was the case of Nutrine, which got taken over even as it was being reinvented. Even curiouser was the case of Farex, for which Ray + Keshavan did a lot of work. Then it changed hands more than once and "now our work is getting implemented".

And finally, the brand definer itself got taken over. "In this global age, without a global facet, I found we would not have been able to hang on to our staff. You must look at it in a dynamic way. You design with a long view, but life is so changeable. However, whether a brand identity we create lasts or not, what we unfailingly do is help it get much better valuation."

Designing the brands of firms in the same space does not seem to be a problem. You cannot do that in FMCG advertising (the same firm can't handle campaigns for Pepsi and Coke), but it is different for airports. Mumbai airport can't really take away the passengers of Hyderabad.

Fine, but what about banks? Before the year is out, Ray + Keshavan will have either refurbished or created the brand identities of as many as four banks. Bank of Baroda (public sector), J&K Bank (regional) and Kotak Bank (private sector) are not direct competitors. But what about Canara Bank whose new brand identity will be unveiled by the year-end?

It is obviously happy that an old customer such as Keshavan is busy giving its persona a makeover and definitely hopeful that its share price will go up and the client age profile will go down, the way it did after the rebranding of Bank of Baroda was done by Ray + Keshavan.