By: Amith Rahul
In a world where products are crawling and vying for the consumer’s attention, Eeksaurus through their effectual narrative and design centric approach have brought ideas that have enabled brands to break free from the clutter.
In a world where products are crawling and vying for the consumer’s attention, Eeksaurus through their effectual narrative and design centric approach have brought ideas that have enabled brands to break free from the clutter. The medium was never a challenge for these creative geniuses being proficient with 2D, 3D, and pioneering clay animation/stop animation for advertising and recently plunged into live action, Eeksaurus has successfully weaved stories by combining modern sensibilities to Indian aesthetic traditions.
Eeksaurus was established with a core objective of creating ads with high quality live production combined with animation. Eeksaurus’s 40 member creative team areconstantly evolving their craft, exploring new ways to tell stories and create quirky and kitschycontent that strikes a chord with the audience. Suresh Eriyat the founder and creative director of Eeksaurus firmly believes that it is not difficult to create content in new formats if one has a strong design background. Taking this thought ahead, Eeksaurus is aggressively pursuing original content and IP which would be a huge market in future as far as the creative domain is concerned.
Having worked with leading brands such as ICICI, Dominos, Britannia Nurtrichoice, Horlicks, Nestle, UNICEF, Rotary International, Sony Pix Films, Bank of Baroda, Sulekha.com, Google, Usha Janome, Woodland, Dulux, Cadbury Gems, BP, Ixigo, Levis and Channel [V] , Eeksaurus recognizes the need for fresh perspective in each campaign they work on hence in the future are looking to have multiple creative directors in the company who have the ability to combine their strengths with the core vision of Suresh.
Studio Eeksaurus’s work has been recognized by leading advertising associations. Having won over 100 international and national awards for its work on ad films like Usha sewing machine, Sulekha.com, Levis , Public service film on female infanticide just to name a few.
A young and passionate Suresh, Founder and Creative Director of Studio Eeksaurus had a quite interesting journey into the field of design and advertising. Suresh’s childlike curiosity and enthusiasm led him to explore unchartered a territories and he became one of those few people from Kerala to have joined The National Institute of Design (NID). At NID, Suresh mastered the technique of animation that can be deployed to make a film. During his tenure, he interned with the animation exponent Ram Mohan which gave him the impetus to explore the potential of animation and break from the ordinary to spin memorable stories. Suresh began his career with Famous Studios and later in partnership with the owner Mr. Arun Roongta,setting up Famous House of Animation. Here he learnt to weave animation in advertising.
Remember the story of rabbit and tortoise? He actually adapted to this concept to create the first iconic clay adfilm in India for Amaron Batteries. At a time when agencies and creative art directors thought about animation and technologies only as an afterthought or fillers in their campaign, the Amaron commercial boosted sales for the battery client by 10 folds.
Suresh set up Studio Eeksaurus in 2009, India’s first studio which has mastered the art of intertwining animation with live action to synthesize new ideas and unforgettable brand identities. Suresh has a keen eye for detail; his work is a reflection of that fact. He takes effort in understanding the history of the brand and come out with ideas that are evidence to the core ethos and culture. Be it using ancient instruments or traditional art forms he has done it all. Who can forget the Google’s Tanjore ad campaign, though the brief was simple, Suresh added the desi tadka to it by recreating the web pages in Tanjore art style. Suresh along with his team went to Tanjore and met the family and understood what the art was and how they worked, he came back to recreate everything for the internet in a Tanjore art style. He quite literally tanjorised the internet!!
With a portfolio of over 300 ad films, and over 100 national and international awards,Suresh’s work has been recognised at key industry platforms. He has been on the jury panel of the Clio awards since 2007 which are considered to be the Oscars of advertising and also is a part of many other national and international juries. His vision for the Indian animation film industry has made him an integral member of the advisory panel to the Minister of Information and Broadcast. With his firm belief in design process for solutions, Suresh has been instrumental in creating a market for animated ad films by going beyond the traditional technique and storytelling. The vibrancy of colors and modern sensibility, combined with the nuanced heritage of the designs,has led him to work with leading Indian and international brands such as MTV, Coca Cola, Britannia Nurtrichoice, Horlicks, Sulekha.com, Google, Usha Janome, UNICEF, Dominos, Nestle, Rotary International and Gems to name a few.
1.Since How long have you been into Advertising industry?
I have been in this industry for more than 15 years and have worked on more than 350 ad films till date.
2. Can you brief us about the beginning of Eeksaurus?
After a glorious decade at Famous House and setting up the Famous House of Animation, it was time that I along with my wife Nilima, set up Studio Eeksaurus in 2009, India’s first studio with an ideal in mind of mastering the art of intertwining design, animation, live action and other mediums to synthesize new ideas and unforgettable brand identities. Through Eeksaurus apart from working on live action ad films, we are also looking at creating our own content through animated short films. While the initial few months were difficult, today we have got our feet on the ground and have worked with brands such as Honda, Cartoon Network, Samsung, ICICI, Britannia Nurtri-choice, Nestle, Dominos, Luv It, Horlicks, Sony Pix Films, Bank of Baroda, Sulekha.com, Google, Usha Janome, Woodland, Dulux, Cadbury Gems, BP, Ixigo, Levis to name a few.
Having won the first ever award for India at Annecy 2015, the world’s oldest, and most prestigious animation film festival, it was definitely a great boost to us to tell us that we are going in the right direction.
3. What’s on the horizon – are there two or three future trends, issues or opportunities you believe will significantly change or impact the ad industry?
I think the trend of targeting each individual for marketing a product or a message or a brand is going to be the trend. Right now it all works like fishing.. Put a large net and some get hooked on, many don’t. In the near future more focused advertising is going to evolve using user targeted apps and stuff. That’s what I think looking at the logical progression of things till now. In tomorrow’s consumer market, each individual is going to matter and will make a difference. Because of this trend, more custom made products also would evolve.
4. In today’s economy we constantly hear about the role of “creating value” and “delivering innovation” as strategic brand necessities – are agencies contributing to this equation. If so, how and how can we do more?
Basically consumer needs a value for anything that he pays or else there are umpteen others who are looking at selling the same/similar product. Only if one’s product is delivering better value than the other would that product stand a chance to break the ice with the buyer. Innovation hence plays a key role in both product development as well as advertising. Mundane advertising is a passé. Advertising not only has the potential to grab eyeballs with its innovation, it also has to convince the customer to go try out the product.
5. Do you think that the advertising industry has evolved with time and technology?
Yes, in an unbelievably short amount of time, new technology has changed the way that we interact with our world, on a daily basis. It’s had an impact on our lives, from the tools we use at work, to the abilities of the phones in our pockets, to the way we spend our free time. It has had an impact on almost every industry, and advertising is no exception. New technology has had a huge influence on both the channels through which we receive advertising and the amount of control that we have over those channels. Today, we use our computers as much as our TVs.
6. Is traditional advertising going to get vanished?
No I don’t think traditional advertising will vanish anytime soon because in our country people will consume newspapers & television as a medium till the next decade. I have been hearing people talking about TV and newspaper getting wiped out since some 10 years in the international market. Neither has it been discontinued there or here. So my conclusion is that every medium would evolve as per the times and the changes in the culture and lifestyle.
7. What are your thoughts upon the shift happening from traditional media advertising
to digital/social media marketing, and how are clients responding to it?
Again traditional media would adapt to take a new form while digital/social media would take the front seat. Clients have already checked into the new possibilities arena within the digital/social media marketing avenues. As much as the users have adapted to smart-phones effortlessly, it is the same with clients also who want to capitalize the new age marketing means.
CB
