Business stories: How OON, a women-led integrated marketing communications collective, was founded

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a day ago

As a child of the 1970s, I grew up in a typical middle-class Indian family. We had limited exposure and access to the world, without the internet and mobile phones, making life much simpler, with fewer distractions.
At barely the age of 11, I used to keep a scrapbook of ads that I liked, cut from Sunday's glossy supplements and magazines brought home by Dad. I was fascinated and intrigued by the snappy headlines, bright colours and pretty pictures. While no one at home knew about advertising as a profession, I was convinced that this was what I wanted to do.
I was my 'academically inclined' mother's worst nightmare. My two older sisters were conscientious about their studies while I played truant. When I scored 83 per cent in my main subjects in my 10th boards, my mother was in utter disbelief. She thought I could be her doctor or engineer daughter. But I chose to study commerce, as it had the thinnest textbooks. To my mom's surprise, I got admission into the only college in Hyderabad that offered B.Com (Hons), after ranking fourth in the competitive entrance exam, and she started hoping that I may become a chartered accountant.
But I was set on writing ads. Unfortunately, Osmania University did not offer advertising as a subject. I asked Mom if I could go to Bombay for my further studies, only to get a ferocious scowl and an earful about 'I could go wherever after I got married'. Fortunately, fate intervened. My sister, who married someone from Indore, figured that Devi Ahilya University offered a post-graduate diploma in advertising and public relations. After reassurances from my sister and brother-in-law that I would be under strict supervision, my mom let me go. I went on to win a Gold Medal, making my mom proud, and thaw a little towards advertising.
My first job was as a trainee copywriter with Rahul Jain's Swift Advertising (later acquired by Percept) in Indore. I got access to some of the best advertising books and my first computer here. 18 months later, I got an offer from Uxhur. A 50 per cent increment and the opportunity to work in a Bombay-based agency made me leave Rahul bhai's agency. In less than a year, this agency ran into trouble due to massive financial mismanagement, leaving me scared and without a salary for months.
An advertising veteran was appointed to clean up the mess. He started by shutting down unprofitable branches while keeping the promising ones running. When he arrived in Indore, I didn't know if I would have a job by the time he left. This CEO was Jameel Gulrays. He saw the eagerness and genuine effort of the team (Ashish, Mridul, Juhi, and me) and signed off on keeping the branch running. I was elevated to the post of the branch head. Just twenty-two years old and petrified, I refused to take this up, but Jameel egged me on by simply saying, 'You'll learn. I'll guide you.'
Soon, our work relationship transformed into a soul connection. At work, I was in awe of him, overwhelmed by his knowledge and celebrity status in advertising. At a personal level, Jameel's brutal honesty had me starry-eyed, as I had never met anyone so fearless with the truth.
But to a very young and naïve me, this choice was a hard battle. Our relationship defied every conventional, Indian societal norm – age, religion, culture, marital status, work dynamics – everything incendiary that could burn us both at multiple levels. Yet, I chose him.
What followed is a story for a five-season OTT series. But finally, in January 1997, I was in Bombay, the city of my dreams, the mecca of advertising. After 45 days of a frantic job search, I landed one with Chaitra Leo Burnett as a copywriter, on P&G's Ariel. I quit after a short stint to move to Ammirati Puris Lintas (now Lowe) as a bilingual (English and Hindi) writer on Unilever's Clinic Plus, Clinic All Clear, and later Nihar. After two years of writing hair commercials, I moved to Triton, where I was writing copy for everything from a vacuum cleaner to engine oil, to cooking oil, to chai and more.
When Jameel's MSME clients started requesting end-to-end execution in addition to advertising strategy, we set up Versatile Communications to provide print, film, radio production, events, media buying – everything communications. However, in November 2003, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. My second sister and I were primary caregivers, as she underwent treatment, first in Pune, then in Mumbai's Tata Cancer Hospital. The still-new Versatile Communications took a back seat, affecting business. Mom passed away in February 2005. With my finances at an all-time low, I was adamant about returning to the safety of a job and a regular salary, even as Jameel wanted us to re-energise Versatile.
I applied for jobs in both advertising and PR firms. The quickest response came from PR consultancies, with my first interview at IPAN (now Burson). The meeting with Radhika Shapoorjee went like a breeze. At the age of thirty-five, I marked my entry into the world of PR. Baptism by fire would be an understatement about my introduction to PR.
Monsanto, Lifebuoy, Fair and Lovely, and CRY were my clients. On day one at work, I got a call a couple of hours into the job with a client asking me to send him an updated media list. My senior-most team member said, 'Chill boss, I'll send it.' Within 30 minutes, I got a call from a now furious client, yelling about how we sent him an outdated list. I was convinced this thing called the media list was a troublemaker!
Nothing we did as far as the said client went was right. Things weren't any better with the other clients. I seemed to be constantly in the GM's room, seeking help. By the end of month three, I broke down and told my boss I didn't know how to cope. He shrugged and said, 'If you can't handle it, quit.'
The next working day, I told my team we would never again walk into the GM's room asking for help. My copy and advertising background helped me look at PR beyond media relations, and we went on to create some of the biggest campaigns, many firsts, and stellar work that set an example in Unilever and the consultancy. And I never did seek help from my boss again. This happened because I decided to take complete charge of my team and clients to move ahead.
When I moved to Corporate Voice Weber Shandwick in February 2012, my primary task was to help retain and grow the P&G mandate. Thanks to Atul Ahluwalia, I learnt the art of writing award entries here. My work on P&G's Gillette and Vicks, alongside campaigns Thank You Mom and Project Shiksha, picked up my first haul of seven SABRE Awards. There was no looking back.
I then joined 2020 MSL, Mumbai, as general manager in September 2013. The challenge of building a consumer practice in a B2B tech consultancy was just what I needed.
Glenn Osaki, the then president of MSL APAC, called me one day in early April 2017 and said, 'Rekha, you have created what very few professionals ever get an opportunity to create, or can only dream of creating.' This was the week after the Vicks Touch of Care campaign went viral and became a global conversation in advertising and PR circles. This film featured Gauri Sawant, a transgender activist.
After we won the pitch for Vicks in September 2016, the campaign was to go live in the next quarter. However, demonetisation derailed the launch, and the beautiful film got canned. In March 2017, Prachi Partagalkar from Publicis Singapore called and said, 'Rekha, we've created a beautiful film, and we think this is worthy of Cannes. But with no budgets, all the big plans have been shelved. Is it possible for you to help us with some support, just a press release to A&M media, so we can at least back the entry with some coverage?' I asked her to send me the film to explore what could be done. One look at the film and intuitively, I knew we could do something big with it. While my business sense said, no money, no time, the creative devil in me just could not let this go.
We devised a strategy to not just reach out to the A&M media but also pitch the story to general news channels and publications. The team frowned and said, 'But they just want A&M!' But they knew me well enough not to argue, so Shubhangi Chaturvedi and Amala Hosagrahar went about doing what was asked. This was the year the Supreme Court case for decriminalisation of Article 377 was nearing its close. If we went ahead with the plan to talk to consumer media, the first task was to get Gauri Sawant to trust us enough to agree to be the media face of the campaign.
The risk: she was not a trained spokesperson. She could be high-strung and emotional. And as a transgender activist, she could be easily drawn into a conversation on Article 377, completely derailing the messaging and the intent of our campaign. I spent a full day at her home, in the slums of Malad (a suburb of Mumbai), sitting on her cot, chatting with her and her chelaas (followers), eating and drinking with them. At the end of the day, she hugged me and said she would work with me. With Gauri on board, we took Publicis' Ajay Trivikraman and Prachi Partagalkar into confidence. We took Ritu Mittal, the marketing lead for Vicks in India, through our plan, covering bases for the brand in a politically, ideologically, religiously, and socially divided India. Every negative scenario and the brand's response was thrashed out. A strong backstory was put in place, focusing on 'where there is care, there is family'. Gauri passionately expounded our message, 'motherhood knows no gender'.
We had a narrative that captured the mind, and a film that stole hearts. Within twenty-four hours of our well-planned interviews, our phone started ringing non-stop for a story with Gauri. Four days later, a very excited Prachi called me and said, 'Congratulations, Rekha. You guys did it. The Vicks film has gone viral.' I thought I misheard the 'you guys did it' part. So Prachi repeated, 'No. I mean PR has made the campaign viral. We could not activate YouTube due to some glitch. We are just 72 hours into the campaign and already have four million views.' As it hit me, I screamed out to my team, 'Guys, Vicks has gone viral because of PR.' We drove stories with top global media – NPR, CNN, the ad being played at the UN-New York Times Women in the World Summit in front of world leaders like Justin Trudeau and Hillary Clinton. Gauri featured on the show Kaun Banega Crorepati and more such opportunities ensured that Vicks swept every award that year.
By the time I left, 2020 MSL was a strong consumer and brand PR firm, along with being a B2B tech specialist. My proudest moment was when 2020 MSL was listed in Campaign Brief Asia's 2020 Asia Creative Rankings as one of the hottest creative consultancies in Asia alongside advertising and creative agencies, and as one of the top twenty of India's hottest firms. My greatest gratification is also when marketing leaders redirect budgets to PR, recognising its superior returns.
My next move as the managing director of Zeno India happened just before the global COVID-19 shutdown. As I navigated the highs and lows of the pandemic and post-pandemic years, I set up a robust technology practice, with my trusted partner and friend Ketan Pote joining me from 2020 MSL. While I enjoyed my job, I missed active consumer brand work and campaign creation work for corporates and brands. So, I inched out of Zeno, to create my next big – Oon, a British dialectal for 'one'. This is arguably the world's first women's collective providing integrated marketing solutions.
If there is ever an epitaph written for me, I would like it to read: 'Here lies a woman who defined her life with unconventional choices and worked passionately to prove these were the best.'