Karmarama (advertising agency)

Karmarama is an independently owned creative British advertising agency based in London[1] and founded in 2000.

History

Karmarama was launched by partners Naresh Ramchandani and Dave Buonaguidi in May 2000. Prior to Karmarama they had worked together at HHCL and were creative directors of the London office of Chiat/Day before launching the first advertising agency co-operative St.Luke’s. There they created work for Boots No7, Midland/HSBC Bank and the Chuck Out The Chintz campaign for IKEA.

Dave then left to be the Creative Director of Channel 4 before teaming up with Naresh again two years later to launch Karmarama. They created famous campaigns for Selfridges Tokyo Life before merging with Outfit Communications and Ben Bilboul whom they knew from his role as IKEA account director at St.Luke’s. This led to the renewed relationship with the IKEA account. The agency produced three years of work, the most prominent being the Van den Puup campaign that also helped them secure clients such as Unilever and Heineken's Amstel brand. On top of this the agency made the headlines with their own ‘Make Tea not War’ placard for the Anti war March in 2003. The poster which featured Tony Blair with a tea cup on his head and a gun in hand has been exhibited in the Victoria and Albert museum and the Museum of Modern Art in Trento, Italy.

2005 saw the departure of the IKEA business and Ramchandani. However, in 2006 with a line-up of Bilboul and Buonaguidi and the newly appointed Sid McGrath as planning partner the agency won 14 out of 18 pitches and added clients such as The History Channel, Pipex and Costa Coffee to its roster.

In 2007 the agency was appointed to handle the UK advertising of [Nintendo] as well working with Coca Cola on the European product launch of their energy drink Burn.

In 2008 Nicola Mendelsohn, formerly of Grey and Bartle Bogle Hegarty, joined the agency as executive chairman. In 2008 Karmarama won the lastminute.com account, producing a TV first in the form of three 60 second ads running on consecutive channels for the brand. In 2009 the agency picked up clients including Global Radio (Capital FM, Heart FM Network) and Age UK (the merged Age Concern and help the Aged).

In 2011 the agency was appointed to the BBC roster of agencies, working on marketing to support a range of channels and radio stations. The same year Karmarama also received Investment from Phoenix Equity Partners to support further growth of the Karma Communications Group.

In early 2012 the Karma Communications Group announced its acquisition of the Crayon group, its next step in creating an integrated force in the independent agency sector. In 2013 the Karma Communications Group announced the acquisition of Grape Digital, a leading social media agency.

At the start of 2014 Jon Wilkins, former founder of Naked Communications, was announced as the new executive chairman for the agency.

In August 2014 Karmarama announced the acquisition of Nice Agency, leading mobile specialists who have built platforms for clients including Channel 4, first direct and Ticketmaster.

In November 2015, Karmarama established a joint venture with the data start up Ignition.ai, founded by James Harrison in 2014.

Karmarama were rated the number one creative agency in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies To Work For 2015

Ping pong

Founded on the love of ping-pong, Karmarama are the only advertising agency to have a team entered into the London league and continue to hold an open competition every year at their offices. They were consistently the worst team in the lowest division in the Central London League, apart from the 2007/8 season when they finished a highly creditable 3rd. From bottom.

Awards

Karmarama was named Agency of the Year 2011 by Marketing Week magazine.[2] In 2014 Karmarama was named as the top Independent Agency by The Drum magazine. In 2015 Karmarama was the highest ranked agency in the Sunday Times Top 100 Places to Work, coming 22nd out of all the thousands of businesses who entered.

References

  1. ↑ Sweney, Mark (June 2, 2011). "Ad agency Karmarama sells 50% stake to private equity firm". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
  2. ↑ Baker, Rosie (June 2, 2011). "Karmarama boosted by investment". Marketing Week. Retrieved 28 January 2014.

Further reading

External links

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