Ex-IBD’sAnil Kakar floats creative outfit ‘Gasoline’

Anil Kakar, who had quit IBD India in June 2010 as Executive Creative Director, has announced his own venture called ‘Gasoline’, which aims to be a ‘complete creative communications partner’.

by Tasneem Limbdiwala
Published: Jun 6, 2011 9:05 AM | 3 min read

Ex-IBD’sAnil Kakar floats creative outfit ‘Gasoline’

In the last two years post the slowdown, the Indian advertising industry has witnessed quite a few senior creative directors moving out from an MNC structure and floating their own ventures. Joining this list is Anil Kakar, former Executive Creative Director with IBD India. Kakar has floated his own venture, named ‘Gasoline’.

Speaking to exchange4media, Kakar said that Gasoline aimed to a complete creative communications partner. He elaborated, “Gasoline will offer everything you would expect from an advertising agency. And a few things you wouldn’t. Like creating mobile and web-based applications, editorial design, viral marketing, designing retail environments, the works. In essence, Gasoline will be about advertising and much, much more. The idea behind Gasoline is to create a platform for like-minded creative people, who can seamlessly extend and synergise communication across traditional and non-traditional media, which in turn, will ensure greater consistency in the creative output.”

In June 2010, Kakar had decided to move on from IBD India. During the last one year, he has been involved with some freelance projects. On his decision to float his own agency, Kakar explained, “Essentially, I think there has always been this lurking need to break out and do something different and naturally, this seemed like the logical next step.”

The agency will be located in South Mumbai and, as Kakar divulged, the last few months were spent getting the backend in place. “We are one of the few agencies to have acquired our own office space in Tardeo. Our infrastructure is already set up, we have a few consultants on board and we’re ready for business from day one,” he added.

Kakar, however, refused to divulge the names of the clients, saying the process was still in the nascent stages. He was, however, clear that the agency was open to both project based and retained based models, depending on the nature and scale of the project.

Kakar has a career in advertising spanning over 17 years. In 2005, following in Ajay Chandwani’s footsteps who had quit SSC&B, Kakar joined PerceptH as Creative Director. He was soon elevated to Executive Creative Director and given the role of Mumbai Head, where he spearheaded the team to win over 40 local and international awards in just two years. He had played a vital role in leading the creative team on the Canon pitch and ended up winning the business. At PerceptH, he had worked on brands such as FedEx, Siyaram’s, J Hampstead, Times Ascent, Economic Times, and Firangi, among others.

In 2008, he moved within the Percept Group to IBD as Executive Creative Director, where he played a key role in working on the brand image of Panasonic. His recent works on Panasonic include campaigns featuring Ranbir Kapoor, starting from the ‘Neighbour’ commercial to ‘Bollywood Dreams’ to the one currently on air, titled ‘One moment’, which features Kapoor along with Virender Sehwag and Baichung Bhutia and highlights the importance of a single moment in time.