Samyak Chakraborty quits DDB Mudra, Chief youth marketer will float agency with Pratap Bose

By Pritha Dasgupta

KOLKATA: High profile exits continue in DDB Mudra. Samyak Chakraborty, the agency’s chief youth marketer, is joining hands with Pratap Bose, the firm’s former COO, to float an independent youth marketing agency. The joint venture, with Bose and Chakraborty as equity partners, will focus on creating intellectual properties for brands and explore rural youth marketing.

"We are still working on the brand name and will launch the agency in the next two months," Chakraborty told ET. "We think nobody in the country knows the youth and therefore we are going to spend heavily on research," he said. The youth marketing agency will be part of the communications conglomerate that Bose will launch by end of June but will have a separate P&L (profit and loss), sources said.

When contacted, Bose declined to comment. ET in its May 12 edition had reported that several senior employees of DDB Mudra are exiting to join Bose's new venture.

According to sources, the youth marketing agency plans to start with a team of 15-20 employees and will invest Rs 5-7 crore in the first year. Chakraborty said, "We are looking at a wide spectrum of people and not just typical marketing professionals." Chakraborty said the recent exit of Mandeep Malhotra, president at DDB Mudra, and the new structure of the agency is the reason behind his resignation.