Independent homegrown advertising agency Rediffusion has recently completed 50 years of operations in India. It was launched on July 2, 1973, by IIM graduates Diwan Arun Nanda, Ajit Balakrishnan, and Mohammed Khan.
Mergers and acquisitions have also been part of Rediffusion’s journey in India. From 1994 to 2018, Japanese ad giant Dentsu and Madison Avenue-based Young & Rubicam (WPP) were 20 percent equity owners in Rediffusion. In 2021, Tanya Goel and Dr. Sandeep Goyal of the Mogae Group bought out the original owners.
“Rediffusion has been a trailblazer of the Indian advertising business. We are proud of all that we have achieved over the past 5 decades,” says Dr. Sandeep Goyal, MD of the agency.
Today, Rediffusion has three subsidiary agencies – Everest (digital first), Next by Rediffusion (new-age brands), and Wellth (healthcare). It recently launched Ladyfinger – an all-women ad agency. Recently, the agency has also partnered with the University of Lucknow to launch The Bharat Lab to track and analyze consumers from the country’s heartland.
Rediffusion employs nearly 400 employees and handles advertising for Parle, BMW, Tata Trusts, Dabur, Taj Hotels, Kansai Nerolac, Tata Power, L&T Realty, Orra, Brookfield, Liebherr, Zydus, among others.
At the time of its launch, co-founder Nanda said, “We will create advertising that becomes famous, part of the language, and the culture of the people.”
The agency did manage to create some popular ad campaigns, from “The zing thing” for Gold Spot to “Whenever you see color, think of us” for Jenson & Nicholson; from “Annu taazgi de de, taazgi de de Annu” for Tata Tea to “Gimme Red” for Eveready.
Rediffusion alumni include commentator Harsha Bhogle, cricketer Ravi Shastri, and actor Rahul Bose. Some of the key leaders in Indian advertising have also worked at the agency. This includes Prashanth Kumar (GroupM South Asia CEO), Partha Sinha (Bennet Coleman President), Anupriya Acharya (Publicis Groupe South Asia CEO), Rana Barua (Group CEO, Havas India), and Harjot Singh (McCann’s global CSO).