The Hindu Business Line : O&M Creative Director quits; to join Ambience

FOLLOWING the spate of high profile exits from O&M, it is now the turn of Mr Pushpinder Singh, Senior Creative Director at O&M, who is leaving after nine years to join Ambience Publicis as National Creative Director.

He has already proved his talent by being a regular winner at the Abby awards, not to mention bagging the Golden Lion at Cannes. Apart from O&M, he has been with agencies such as Trikaya Grey and Leo Burnett.

Explaining the reason behind joining Ambience Publicis, Mr Singh says, "The agency's creativity has always been undervalued. In fact, if I were to evaluate the Ambience as a scrip, I would say it has been undervalued all this while. I intend putting more aggression into its system."

Besides, Mr Singh will be joining Ambience Publicis with the added responsibility of being the creative head for all its accounts, unlike in O&M where he dealt with only a part of its creative work.

At O&M, the accounts handled by him included that of Close Up, Tata Safari and British Petroleum, among others. At Ambience Publicis, he will have the onus of dealing with mega accounts such as that of Vicks, Lakme and Marico's Parachute brand.

Mr Singh will also have to prove that he can continue his winning streak at the Abby's (the Mumbai Ad Club awards). While O&M has always been way ahead of the others at the Abby awards, his presence in Ambience Publicis should hopefully give his erstwhile agency some competition at the Ad Club awards.

As Mr Singh says, "While there has always been a gap between O&M and the other agencies at the Abby's, I will try and make Ambience win some as well."

As for going to Cannes Lions festival this year, he said he was still undecided considering his unfinished assignments at O&M.