The Webchutney Blog

From Samosas to Sushi!

Khushboo — Thu, 23 May 2013 08:38:24 +0000

Knock Knock! Who’s there? The Japanese. The Japanese who? The Japanese who think you are very pretty. Ha ha. This is a delightful joke. Let us explain why. As of 23rd May 2013, Webchutney, the digital agency you keep hearing about is now part of the Dentsu India Group. Insert drum roll, lightbulb dancing moves and a spirited rendition of We are the Champions!

We know the industry has heard about this brewing acquisition over the past several months, it nonetheless gives us great pleasure in formally announcing our association with Dentsu India. Seriously, it’s going to be amazing.

First some facts, Dentsu has acquired 80% stake in us which means we are now free to monkey around for the remaining 20 percent of our time and energies. Also, we will continue to operate independently under the current queen and country. However, this acquisition gives us a whole new world of rock solid support, leadership and direction, much like that protein and vitamin shot that goes into an already delicious banana strawberry and mango smoothie.

Sudesh has this to say, “サディッシュサマリア、私たちの無敵国立クリエイティブディレクターは、これが侍の戦士になるための軍隊のための絶好の機会であると考えています。確かに、上司。” (C’mon, you know we had to)

Wait, wait. Sidharth also needs to say a few words. Now in verbatim, ” I’m insanely overjoyed and totally blissed out about this acquisition, it feels like the last ten years have been building up to today, and we really couldn’t have found a better partner for obsessively shaping the digital industry in India. I do want to send a heartfelt thank you to Sarbvir Singh and the team at Capital 18 for believing in us at a time when we needed it most. He has been the mentor everyone deserves.”

All right, now you know what we have been up to and don’t forget, we told you first after sealing the deal. Thanks for always sticking by us! Now we have to go, all that champagne isn’t going to drink itself. We think this is also a good time for a sushi lunch for 200!

The ‘Age’ Old Battle

Khushboo — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 08:12:37 +0000

Why I can’t stand urban 20- somethings

by Meghana Bhat, ECD

This probably makes me sound like an old disgruntled person envious of the age, beauty and promise of immortality that these kids wear on their sleeves or skinny jeans. Well, obviously I am, and I’m going to go right ahead and rant (yes, kids this is how that feels!) Sure, growing up in the sunshine of India’s millennium boom must have been nice. Children of yuppies, living in a time of plenty, of great possibility, these kids have it all. Brands love them, economists love them (demographic dividend and all that) and of course they love themselves. But I’m not sold. Maybe because I work so closely with their kind, I’ve become wise to their entitled ways. Yeah, yeah… they’re not all bad, but I’ve identified a few choice specimens who tick me off on a daily basis.

1. The Indian ‘Hipster’: Less than 5% body fat, skinny jeans and nerd glasses and of course an iPod full of indie Indian music – the hipster trend has arrived in India. Except that ‘rejection of mainstream culture’ apparently translates to exact copying of the ideal of the American hipster. While we’re on the subject, somebody please kill Bollywood kitsch.

2. The ‘I’m awesome because I exist’ believer: There should be a law that limits how much one person can ‘believe in himself’. Agency heads, you know what I’m talking about. The ‘Give me a promotion because I’ve actually managed to not get fired for an entire year ‘– types. Or the 20-something intern complaining about ‘I’m being undervalued/ ’. Reminds me of a joke by the great comedian Louis CK– “Hey 20-year-old, we know your job sucks, that’s why we gave it to YOU!

3. Those annoying kids from the CCD ad: A grown boy sitting in a café eating coffee/ice-cream/whatever shots… Of course your dad would be pissed. He’s seeing you grow up into a lazy, entitled ass that eats ice-cream all day and preaches ‘sit downism’. India, be afraid. Did someone say demographic dividend?

4. The ‘Likes everything but loves nothing’ type: There’s a reason why Facebook picked ‘Like’ & not ‘Love’ and after working with several 20-year-olds on a regular basis, I finally understand why. The idea of loving something enough to do it exceptionally well is lost on this type that’s too busy snacking on everything to really commit to one thing. How will I be able to ‘have a life’ if I’m too busy doing what I’m paid to do, they whine. And here I naively assumed that people get into advertising because they’re passionate about it!

So, there you have it. A not-so-definitive guide to the annoying urban 20-something. Not exactly unbiased or maybe even entirely true, but hey I work in advertising. We love our stereotypes. And the truth is, at the end of the day, if a genie could grant me three wishes, I’d ask for money, fame and oh-to-be-20-again!

THE REBUTTAL

by Nipun Kumar (20 something), Associate AE

While I understand the grievances you put forth eloquently, I’m unsure if the stereotype fits only a 20 year old something.

My opinions, too, may be biased because of obvious reasons but I see stereotypes in 30 years too:

1. But I’m-still-young: For the lack of appropriate colloquialism.

You can see them wearing body hugging t-shirts and leather pants dancing like a swag with their pot bellies, pulling out bhangra moves one after another on Eminem tracks acting like they’ve just graduated. We 20 year old something, of this generation, are kind and empathetic and refrain from making fun of such individuals. We let them be.

2. The Rebel: While the 90s were known for Grunge, some of the 30 year old somethings are still caught in the era. Case in point is when you pop to any concert and they’ll try so hard to be a Rebel, it’s almost amusing. Forcefully moshing, drinking unabashedly and trying to fit in. I witnessed the aforementioned live at a Metallica gig.

3. I-still-live-with-my-Parents: If you thought that 20 year olds living under parent’s tutelage is embarrassing, then this is the absolute zenith. I have witnessed people in their 30s still dependent on their parents.

4. I’m-open-but-sex? omg!: While they will openly endorse western culture, cat bites their tongue when it comes to discussing sex. A great chunk of this very species may be indulging in adultery and infidelity but are devout followers of the Indian religion and consider against their principles to discuss sex, hypocrisy that even a hippopotamus would pronounce an “exemplar”

While it is true that we may not love anything with true devotion but we do like a lot of things. Pardon for the gyaan, but “Only fools and fanatics are absolutely certain”
Not loving anything may also be borne out of the belief in nihilism. (Sorry for dropping too many big words)

One does not need to be a necromancer to see that the opinions may be very biased as a young 20 year old something scripted this reply. But it’s easy to typecast any generation is all that he tries to say.

Webchutney Harlem Shake

Khushboo — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 09:04:52 +0000

The unsettlingly hilarious new viral sensation has made its way to Webchutney.

Watch the Delhi office shake the Harlem way!!

12 Months of Chutney

Khushboo — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 10:08:13 +0000

As these 5 young creatives complete their first year at the House of Chutney, we decided to find out what made them stick around this long.

Shray Chawla (Junior Copywriter, Webchutney Delhi)

If there was ever a superlative of ‘craziest’ then I would use that to describe the year I’ve spent at Chutney. The exposure right from the start was amazing with my first ever campaign being the 5^th Airtel Delhi Marathon.

Epic Chutney Moment - I’m a non-alcoholic who likes to be around drunk people. Don’t ask why because I am still trying to figure it out. Jokes apart, I was at an after office hour party when Sattvik asked me, “Why don’t you drink?”. And that was the start of a long conversation which ended rather abruptly because he thought that he was trying to sell ‘drinking’ to me.

I’m sure he doesn’t remember this conversation.

Advice to budding copywriters-

Write well to write well.
Deadlines are like women. You may not understand them, but you have to accept them and that too with a smile.

PG Aditya (Copywriter, Webchutney Mumbai)

About myself- Bred in Chennai. Buttered in MICA (Ahmedabad), and Chutneyed in Mumbai.

What I love about Chutney Mumbai?

- If I had to rate Chutney on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the best it can ever be… I’d get a bigger scale.

- Seeing over 300 Pigeons doing it on our balcony.

- There’s this tradition called the ‘Gangbang Brainstorm’ (yes, we’re kind of kinky that way) where all of us group-up, racking our heads to think of ideas for a brand we all love (no, it’s not an insurance brand). It’s usually utter chaos, much laughter, lots of bright sparks and ultimately… sexed out ideas.

-There’s just one thing I’d change though, I’ve heard of this guy called PG Aditya who pilfers everyone’s food. If I were me, I’d buy the poor soul some lunch.

Shortcuts to success for budding copywriters-

Yes, take the Worli Sea Link to reach Andheri. It’s the fastest shortcut to Webchutney, Mumbai

Sonali Mushahary (Junior Copywriter, Webchutney Delhi)

Exciting.Fun.Crazy. From working on the most amazing brands to getting trolled by colleagues, there has never been a dull moment at Chutney since the day I joined. Can’t believe it’s going to be a year already.

One thing I realized is that working hard becomes much easier when you love what you do. Chutney feels like home now. In terms of work I’ve done I think managing social media for Coke Studio Season 2 was the highlight of my year. It introduced me to the thrill of trending. To cut a long story short, it was a great brand to work on and I got to learn so much.

Memorable Chutney Moment – Off the top of my head I remember one evening, two weeks after I joined, Sayak announced that it was going to be a long night. I reached home at 3:30 in the morning. And the thing is, I was happy! It’s really nice that at Chutney, they value inputs from interns. That’s a big encouragement. More than that makes you feel like family. By the way, after that, there’ve been lots of late-nights and all-nighters. Not complaining.

Suparn Pandey (Junior Copywriter, Webchutney Delhi)

I love working with Webchutney because it’s the only place where I can be myself. This year has been great. I am happiest about the fact that I get to work with some really weird and wonderful people. I have-a-made many learnings here. Iz good.

I really loved working on Budweiser. I handled their social media for some time. I made them trend on Twitter a lot of times, so that was nice. And Bud Station was great fun too.

Crazy Chutney Moment- I remember this one time I was building a match-stick skyscraper on the conference room table. I wanted to set fire to it because it’s awesome fun. But for some reason, such behavior is often frowned upon by most people. Sattvik asked me what I was up to. I thought my pyro ambitions would be extinguished pre-maturely. He just told me to video-tape it and keep some water ready. The fire was awesome. And now there’s a nice black scorch-mark on the conference room table. Ah, good times…

Pooja Vasu (Web Designer, Webchutney Mumbai)

Memorable Chutney Moment

When I joined chutney, the office terrace was being terrorized by this huge, majestic eagle. On my very first day I got to hear all types of scary stories about the bird so I decided to venture onto the terrace during the coffee break to see what the fuss was all about. I eventually ended up talking to a guy from office for 15- 20 mins without knowing that the person was our CEO.OOPS..!! Well happy that it wasn’t a disaster..!!

What has been your greatest learning in the last year?

You automatically become one of the most sought after people in office if you get tasty dabbas.!

One thing you could change about the Mumbai office.

Steal the punching bag from the ZAF gym !! So next time you are stressed out, you know what to do…*breathe in, breathe out and punch* (skadoosh- Po style)

Now Hiring in Mumbai!

Khushboo — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 07:31:14 +0000

We are hiring again. And this time we’re on the look out for a Client Servicing Director, Account Manager and an Account Executive to join the Mumbai Servicing team and Social Media Executives to work with the creative. All positions are full time and based in Mumbai.

Please write to us for detailed job descriptions or send your resumes with a covering note to samar.abbas@webchutney.net if interested, and remember to read this before applying.

Game-Set-Match!

Khushboo — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 10:24:28 +0000

We all love to love Roger Federer. A shining beacon of athletic achievement and sportsmanship, he is the quintessential Good Guy Greg of Tennis. We just had to give him a kick-ass Chutney tribute.

So, on the 28^th of December, 2012, we released The Life and Times of Roger Federer, a graphic novel for iOS to celebrate his life and stellar sports career.

It’s a fun-to-read biography of Roger Federer that uses intuitive touch-based navigation to great effect. Flipping between pages is as easy as turning a real page.

Readers can actually interact with the comic and its characters to reveal interesting bits of the storyline. Catch the journey of a thoroughbred stalwart, it’s available on the App Store for just Rs. 110.

Get it here: ?http://www.webchutney.com/life-and-times/roger-federer/

Read about the app on Afaqs and Medianama.

Our Crappiest Idea Yet

Khushboo — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 09:51:23 +0000

Webchutney is proud to present ‘Peeloo’- an Interactive Loo Service.

You saw a glimpse of this at the Yahoo hack, but the real deal is live now. What we’ve tried to build (and succeeded) is an interactive loo service which removes the queue from the loo.

Sounds Interesting?

Here’s how it works

This project took months of research, testing, development and hits & misses to come up with, and we are glad today to have succeeded in doing the same. We are sure that this is only the beginning in experiential digital advertising from the house of webchutney.

Big Shout out to the team that made this possible

Gurbaksh, Abhishek Saxena, Hemant, Mandeep, Akshay Raheja and Sattvik!

Check the website out here

Our Chutney brings all the boys to the yard

Sidharth — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:07:17 +0000

So you’ve probably read this about us recently. Here’s our official response.

Over the last decade or so we’ve made WebChutney into something we’re all very proud of. We’ve built an impressive client roster (Airtel, Coca-Cola, MasterCard, Unilever to name a few), our talent is fantastic and we’re growing like a virus. So naturally, all the boys are in the yard. And we’re loving it. Its great fun being the prettiest girl in the room, all the compliments, the wooing, we’re thrilled that we’re finally getting the respect we’ve worked hard to earn. The thing is though, this has been happening for quite a while. Of course we’ll go on a few dates with every one of our suitors because all of them are pretty amazing. It’s an honor to be considered by the biggest agency networks in the world. But it’s too early for us to take a decision & settle down.

So don’t believe everything you read in the news about us. When we’re ready to make a commitment we’ll shout it out from the rooftops. Meanwhile, watch our latest sexy move.

6 Success Mantras for Digital Agencies

Khushboo — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 06:27:03 +0000

The digital industry has seen an explosive growth over the last few years, and 2013 is set to be an exciting year. Digital marketers can no longer view their contribution to a brand as a means to end. They need to take risks, be innovative and prove to be a brand’s most valuable partner.

There is no ‘golden rule book’ that guides us to achieve the same, but having worked with one of the best digital agencies in the country, here are some of the things I picked up along the way…

Tell everyone you’re an agency, but act like a startup
The great thing about being the guys who straddle technology and artistry is that you can build stuff for brands. Learn from tech startups how they do it. Take more risks, create a culture of innovation, be faster and leaner, and learn to launch in beta. In fact, teach your clients about it. Brands are hardwired against the ‘iteration’, but tech startups know better than anyone that a product is never really ‘finished’ and iterative development helps ensure it stays relevant.

We recently worked with a financial brand to create a digital travel experience that has seen over three iterations in the duration it’s been live. We’ve been learning from customer experiences, independent research and our own observations to consistently improve what has now become an owned asset for the brand.

Ideas are important, but Skill is critical

In a digital world, where anything seems possible, everyone has ideas. But only few have the skill to execute. Invest in getting the most skilled guys to produce your idea as much as you would in finding the best thinkers. And I don’t mean just the technologists. Digital agencies often tend to make do with anyone who can barely string together a sentence or make collages on photoshop. You need artists, writers, scientists, and engineers. People, who will obsess about a missing comma, spend hours searching for the right font or throw a fit about an inelegant line of code. Those are the guys who will take you to Cannes.

To coninue reading , visit http://www.exchange4media.com/49164_6-success-mantras-for-digital-agencies.html

Webchutney and Pepe jeans present an f1 gaming contest powered by the f1 key

Khushboo — Mon, 26 Nov 2012 06:55:39 +0000

What if you could be a part of the Formula One excitement by simply pressing the F1 key on your keyboard?

Pepe Jeans and Webchutney present ‘One with F1′- A Formula One themed gaming contest application for all the speed freaks out there who want a piece of the racing action.’ The application consists of 4 mini-games that tests users on their speed, racing knowledge, reflexes and timing.’And of course, each of these games starts by pressing the F1 key on the keyboard!

What makes this even more exciting is that the winners stand a chance to win the grand prize ‘main grand stand tickets to the Indian Grand Prix along’ with official Red Bull Racing Merchandise and a chance at a pit-stop tour!

Here’s a look at the 4 mini-games.

Task 1: The Speed Freak

Rather than a generic racing game, the user races the machine by typing certain sentences that will appear on the screen as fast as possible.

Task 2: Enter The Machine

In this the user assembles a Red Bull race car through a jigsaw puzzle in a stipulated time

Task 3: The Fastest Quiz

This task is a rapid fire multiple choice question quiz of 5 questions on Formula One racing.

Task 4: The Gear Shifter

The car is moving fast! But the track ahead is tricky full of bends and deceptive straights. Keep your eye on the speedometer and shift gears accordingly!

http://www.mediavataar.com/index.php/news/digital/5034-pepe-jeans-and-webchutney-present-an-f1-gaming-contest-powered-by-the-f1-key

http://www.brandstoday.in/2012/11/23/webchutney-launches-pepe-jeans-campaign/

http://www.medianewsline.com/news/120/ARTICLE/9856/2012-11-23.html