Archive

Under the "Lloyd Spreading Happiness” campaign that will be launched by Amitabh Bachchan in March 2017, the company will set aside Rs 100 from every air conditioner sold during the summer season and use the collection to provide a minimum of 501 air conditioners to deserving hospitals around the country, explains Navroze Dhondy whose integrated marketing agency Creatigies initiated the proposal. "We will invite applications from all over the country. An eminent jury will identify the hospitals where air conditioners will be installed,” he explains.
The idea struck Dhondy when he and Lloyd director Nipun Singhal were driving past some shanties. This concept was meant to assist the "needy in our country where heat is a killer… More than 65% of hospitals in India do not have even a single air conditioner in their operation theaters, Intensive Care Units, Post Operative Care rooms, etc,” according to Dhondy. Bachchan announced that he was "keen to partner with Lloyd that had social responsibility as its cornerstone.”
Over the last 15 years Creatigies has promoted brands and companies like Unilever, Hero, Nestle, Sony, UB Group, Electrolux, Nivea, Citibank…"Creatigies has brought to us... ideas which have helped us hold our own with the big spenders,” appreciated Kapil Kapoor, chief operating officer (Global Business Development), Timex Group USA, Inc, one of their valued clients.  
"Reebok, as the No.1 brand in India, has been credited with many firsts in marketing and a lot of that credit would be shared jointly with Creatigies. Unlike any other agency, they understand the nuts and bolts of business and their solutions are practical,” attested Subhinder Singh Prem, former managing director, Reebok India.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Creatigies was conceived by Dhondy after he had witnessed the changing face of Indian advertising for two decades, starting his career with Lintas (Lowe), moving after eight years to Hindustan Thompson Associates (since renamed J. Walter Thompson) and later functioning as chief executive officer of TBWA/Anthem and Percept.
Reportedly the only agency that has worked with each and every IPL (Indian Premier League) cricket team, Creatigies’ eight-member team has also promoted the Association for Cricket for the Blind in India. Dhondy was instrumental in the launch of Wisden, the bible of cricket, in India and the creation of sms based cricket game shows such as Predikta. It is not just cricket for Creatigies. Football, hockey, Force India, Formula One racing, polo, kabaddi, marathon have been promoted by them too.
Yet another passion for Dhondy is photography and a dozen from the hundreds of images that he had captured on his HTC mobile camera last year are displayed in the 2017 desk calendar specially printed by Creatigies to celebrate its 15th anniversary. In an explanation to the calendar, 57-year-old Dhondy writes, "For many years as a wide-eyed lad growing up with a photographer as my grandfather, Jamshed M. Patel, the excitement and amazement of seeing images appear on paper in the darkroom was nothing short of magic… For me, a camera was like a natural extension, and clicking away was instinctive… Camera after camera was bought, and there was this never-ending yearning to see the images in the mind translate onto paper.”
Keen to see "the same spirit of entrepreneurship among Parsis that was exhibited by our forefathers centuries ago,” Allahabad born Dhondy mentioned, "My maternal great-grandfather (Maneckshaw Mistry) went from Bombay to Allahabad and set up his studio, and then set up two more in Nainital and Karachi. My paternal grandfather and my father (Dinyar) set up Singer distributorships in Allahabad. My initiation as an entrepreneur was when I sold some jeans and records and helped my friend publish a book while I was in college.” When he was studying for his MBA at the Motilal Nehru Institute of Research and Business Administration, Navroze ran his agency as a parallel business in Allahabad.

 

 

 

 

His knowledge and experience of marketing and communications, he happily shares with students at the sessions he conducts at education hubs like the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and Bangalore; Symbiosis, Poona; MICA, Ahmedabad; Management Development Institute, Gurgaon… "I never teach from a book. All my sessions are from real life case studies of the brands I have handled,” reveals Navroze, choosing to describe himself as "a hardcore Gemini, as mad as they come.”
Head of the Delhi chapter of the World Zarathushti Chamber of Commerce and trustee of the Delhi Parsi Anjuman, Navroze candidly admits, "This is one area that I feel very little has been done. There needs to be a lot more action.”
Religion, to Navroze, is a "way of life,” and he says he tries his best to live with "the simple but powerful guidance” from the tenets of good thoughts, words and deeds. "I try to give back more than I get from society. I am a liberal Zoroastrian who believes that change is essential and inevitable, and we should guide it in the right way. I truly hope we can reverse the trend and get the community to grow,” he responds to Parsiana’s queries by email.
His wife Nilufer is "an amazing home chef who inspired our daughter Anahita to become a chef (see "Soda’s ‘chilled out’ boss,” Parsiana, August 7, 2016). Our son Kurush is a media and communications graduate who is currently working as a designer in a social media company,” he informs us. Mother Meher who has been teaching English for the last 65 years and father Dinyar reside with brother Darius.
Providing a different perspective to Indian advertising, Creatigies is playing "an integral role in our own small way to constantly create ideas and opportunities” for nongovernmental and social welfare organizations. Among the institutions that have benefitted from Creatigies’ innovative concepts are Art4All, Agewell and Magiktuch. They feel their efforts are vindicated "in today’s dog eat dog world when brands and companies want to be the agents of change and contribute to society.”