Campaign India Agency Report Card: Origin Beanstalk

Type of agency: Advertising
Company ownership: Independent
Key personnel: Singh Upendra Thakur, Shom  Mazumdar, co-founders, Iqbal Raj, national creative director
Accounts won: Edvance Learning, MTV Consumer Products Division, Edelweiss, R City Mall
Accounts lost: Future Media, Orchid Ecotel, Axis Print Media

Origin Beanstalk has had an eventful year, especially considering the establishment of new units under the parent company. In addition, the agency has been on a hiring spree through the year and now has Percept/H’s Iqbal Raj as its national creative director. Raj will also head Meta Films, Origin Beanstalk’s new entertainment and films venture. Yajuvendra Gore, too, has joined the agency as creative director for art, partnering Mustafa Kapasi who is the creative director for copy. Origin Beanstalk has roped in Charulata Bansal as the managing partner for  “Strings – Customer Attached”, the new CRM and activation unit. Her last stint was with Result McCann.
The agency picked up some small businesses in 2009, such as Edvance Learning, Edelweiss, MTV Consumer Products Division, Jupiter Hospital and some real estate clients such as Sunteck Realty and Rosa Realty, amongst others.
They’ve been old enough now to shift gears and challenge the large agencies —  something they’ve not been able to do.

Campaign Score: 5
 
How ORIGIN BEANSTALK rates itself: 6

Actually how we rate ourselves is just an exercise we do to fine tune our goals and to see how we can get to where we want to be. The ratings that really matter to us are the ratings our clients give us. In that department we have fared better than expected, and yet less than we want to. We are firm believers in the axiom that you are only as good as what you will do next. And it must, perforce, be better than what was done before. Unlike the general trend, we have had more ups than downs in the last year. We have strengthened our creative team. We have initiated new businesses. We are looking to build on that. Our biggest learning is that if you genuinely partner your client from initiation of strategy onwards, even a ‘small’ agency such as ours need not be ‘client driven’. Amen!