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As the ad industry sees more and more consolidation, legendary agency JWT dons yet another avatar. It will henceforth be called Wunderman Thompson after its merger with the digital agency. Founded in 1864 as Carlton and Smith Agency, it became J. Walter Thompson and was America’s flagship advertising agency for much of the 20th century, helping brands like Ford and Kodak reach cult status. Now, with the WPP network deciding to merge it with digital agency Wunderman, the new entity will be called Wunderman Thompson and will be headquartered in New York and London. Mel Edwards of Wunderman will become global CEO of the agency, while JWT worldwide CEO Tamara Ingram will be its global chairperson. WPP has been on a consolidation spree, folding its digital agency Possible into Wunderman, and then merging its media agencies Maxus and MEC into Wavemaker. Its design consultancies have been merged into one agency called Superunion. The question the industry is asking is that will these mergers go beyond mere name changes and reflect in the output of work? Also, it remains to be seen what impact the move will have in India, where too JWT has seen many avatars, starting life here as HTA.
Treebo’s brand rejig
Hospitality chain Treebo Hotels, set up in 2015, has gone in for a big brand rejig. It has refreshed its visual identity to reflect that it is more than just a hotel chain now, having extended into other areas. In addition, it has segmented its portfolio of hotels into three sub-brands — Trip, Trend and Tryst. According to Siddharth Gupta, Co-founder, Treebo, the rationale behind the rejig was, one, to realign the overall brand identity with the vision of being the most loved travel network, serving every traveller. Treebo recently extended into homestays and also acquired an events company. The second reason, explains Gupta, was to create sub-brands to enhance the experience. “As our portfolio grew in size, it was quite evident that not all our properties were similar and it was not getting clarified up-front to the customer.” So Trip will operate in the ₹1,000-1,500 price range, Trend in the ₹1,500-2,500 price range, and Tryst will be a premium budget brand in the ₹2,500-Rs 4,000 price range.
The new brand identity of Treebo centres around a four-coloured pinwheel which replaces the green polygon shaped logo the company had been using so far. “It represents a childlike feeling of wonder,” says Gupta. Gurgaon-based Dev Kabir Malik Studios, the agency behind the work on beer brand Bira, has done the new brand design for Treebo.
Flaunt your flaws
Titan has been pushing the needle when it comes to projecting women in a refreshingly new way, breaking stereotypes. Titan Raga’s latest TV commercial takes the conversation further by questioning the ideals of feminine beauty. The campaign “Flaunt your Flaws” asks women to show off dark circles, chipped nails, bruised feet, scars, with pride. The scars/marks of a mother, a breast cancer survivor, an army officer or a performer represent their achievements, hard work, triumph and passion. And they should be worn with pride, is the concept behind the campaign conceptualised by Ogilvy. The sentiment is worth an applause.
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