The Work That Made Me: Rajeshwari Rao
Rajeshwari Rao is senior vice president and executive creative director at Wunderman Thompson India. Based out of Mumbai, Rajeshwari is the creative head on the agency’s Unilever’s business in addition to several other important businesses. In a career spanning close to two decades, Rajeshwari has worked across agencies including Ogilvy, McCann, DDB and BBH on brands like L’Oreal, Mercedes, Brooke Bond, McDonald’s and Garnier to name a few.
The ad/music video from my childhood that stays with me…
Rajeshwari> Michael Jackson’s Black or White. Everything about it. Beginning with the music of course. But the video was so ahead of its time. The message, the dance, the face swaps. It is all just too cool.
The ad/music video/game/web platform that made me want to get into the industry…
Rajeshwari> There isn’t one specific thing though. I was just always a very visual being, I guess. I still have all the multiple CDs and DVDs of the amazing music videos and films that I used to download then to be able to watch later.
The creative work that I keep revisiting…
Rajeshwari> There’s plenty. But there are some things that stay with you. One of my all-time favourites is the Mercedes ‘Duck’ commercial. The simplicity of it is outstanding. I ended up heading creative for Mercedes Benz in India for a while much later. So, life did come a full circle for me in a sense.
My first professional project…
Rajeshwari> If I remember right, I believe it was a brochure I had to design for an automobile brand. I poured my heart into it.
The piece of work that made me so angry that I vowed to never make anything like *that*…
Rajeshwari> There was a recent ad campaign for a certain brand of deodorants that was very distasteful towards women and made a joke of something as serious and ghastly as rape. I could and would never want to be associated with work like that.
The piece of work that still makes me jealous…
Rajeshwari> There are lots. But I’d like to give four examples of the top of my head.
1. The music video of the song ‘Rain’ by Madonna. There was a digital clapboard in the video when the concept of a digital clapboard was unheard of.
2. The Dior commercial with Eva Green shot by Wong Kar Wai. It’s just a stunning piece of work.
3. The BMW film series The Hire, a series of eight short films (averaging about ten minutes each) produced for the Internet in 2001 and 2002. A form of branded content, the shorts were directed by popular filmmakers from around the globe and starred Clive Owen as ‘the Driver’ while highlighting the performance aspects of various BMW automobiles. The series made a comeback in 2016, fourteen years after its original run ended. While all of them are superb, the one featuring Madonna shot by Guy Ritchie is a favourite.
4. The outstanding film titled ‘Viva La Vulva’ by Libresse. Progressive, stunning, amazing.
The creative project that changed my career…
Rajeshwari> It wasn’t a project but the fact that I happened to be the first creative to challenge and execute work locally on a global beauty brand that preferred to get only adaptations made of work executed globally up until then was something that gave me tremendous excitement and confidence in what I could achieve. A highpoint of sorts.
The work that I’m proudest of…
Rajeshwari> There are ad campaigns you execute, films you write and layouts you make and then there’s something that you manage to create for a brand that attempts to change the world even if it is 0.01% at a time. One such piece of work I’m extremely proud of is a Social Experiment that we attempted on a tea brand I had the good fortune of working on which shows you how a conversation over a cup of tea can help break barriers and bring people closer.
I was involved in this and it makes me cringe…
Rajeshwari> I think I can safely say that I have had the good fortune of not having had to be involved in any work that I’d not want to put out or that makes me cringe.
The recent project I was involved in that excited me the most…
Rajeshwari> I’m currently involved in a project I’m most excited about and can’t wait for the world to be privy to it soon.
