Ramanujam Sridhar, chief executive of the Bangalore-based Integrated Brand-Comm Pvt. Ltd (estb. 1998), a well-known public relations firm, is a multi-skilled missionary of brand management. Apart from overseeing his firm, which has 80 employees on its muster roll and boasts blue-chip corporate clients including Omega Healthcare, Indus League, Manipal Education and Big Bazaar, Sridhar delivers marketing and PR lectures at IIMs in Bangalore, Kozhikode and Indore, and writes fortnightly columns for The Hindu and Deccan Herald. He has also authored the best-selling One Land, One Billion Minds (Productivity and Quality Publishing, 2006), a guidebook on the advertising industry in India, which has chalked up nationwide sales of 5,000 copies.
On June 5, this marketing guru released his second book: Googly — Branding on Indian Turf at a crowded press conference in Bangalore. “Googly delves into the factors that make some brands successful market leaders,” says Sridhar, who earned the sobriquet ‘Third Umpire’ after writing a column under this pseudonym for Hindu Business, frequently using cricket analogies to explain the complexities of advertising and marketing in India.
“The googly is a disguised ball in cricket. An experienced batsman will watch the bowler’s hand and anticipate a googly, but the inexperienced batsman will have a problem reading it. The Indian market is similar: you must learn to read trends. Since most Indians are familiar with cricket terminology, I’ve used analogies from the game to explain how to read disguised information and market trends. The feedback thus far has been very positive,” says Sridhar who, with over 20 years experience in advertising, has established his credentials in this industry.
An alumnus of Loyola College, Chennai and IIM-Bangalore, Sridhar’s first job was with Syndicate Bank. Eleven years later he realised his true calling was advertising and signed up with R.K. Swamy BBDO in 1983. Since then there’s been no looking back for Sridhar, who has had stints with India’s leading ad agencies including Mudra Communications and Pratibha Adver-tising, where he studied and acquired valuable business and marketing insights which he shares and sharpens while lecturing at IIMs countrywide, as well as the SDM Institute of Management, Mysore.
According to Sridhar, Integrated Brand-Comm is the “natural outcome of the wisdom and insights related to the complex, pluralistic Indian marketplace”. “After liberalisation and deregulation of the Indian economy, the market is flooded with innumerable products and brands, resulting in intense competition for the consumer’s attention. Brand-Comm offers fresh and novel marketing and communications solutions to enable our clients to impress their brands upon the minds of Indian consumers,” he explains.
Bitten by the writing bug, Sridhar plans to pen another follow-up book soon, even as he juggles his work and hectic teaching schedules. “I plan to write a series of easy-to-read books on branding and marketing to be distributed in train stations across the country. Everyone should be aware of the importance of branding their products, and themselves as well,” he says.
Write on, brother!
Paige Aarhus (Bangalore)