‘Move beyond me-too branding,’ says Bharat Dabholkar at OAC 2025

In a presentation peppered with humour, and engaging anecdotes, Bharat Dabholkar, the celebrated advertising professional, former Managing Director of Publicis India, renowned actor and theater professional, shared his insights on what it took to creating a differentiator and stand out amidst the clutter.

Bharat elicited much laughter among the audience with his statements, while driving home the need to be creative to beat competition, “You have to be one step ahead. Don’t belong, but unbelong,” he said, reiterating the need to move away from he called ‘Me too Branding’. Explaining it, he pointed to the common mistake that brands make of following successful examples. Create your own success story by charting your own path. This was the crux of his message.

Being a seasoned advertising professional, theatre personality, actor and writer, Bharat quite naturally drew from his own life and interesting experiences to build a strong case for the need to do something different, engaging and attention-grabbing in order to create a strong brand statement and build recall.

He shared some creatively interesting campaigns – right from India’s own Amul campaigns, to The Economist ad campaign in UK, to draw attention to the need to think out of box. While the Amul campaigns (of which he was an integral part) were built on topicality, The Economist campaign he shared simply had a bulb that would light up when someone went under it with no other messaging on it. By sharing these examples, Bharat made his point very clear – do something bold, original and blaze a trail.

For the OOH industry gathered at the 19th edition of OAC, Bharat’s session was particularly relevant in terms of taking the medium to new heights. And that would mean doing something different consistently, so it can effectively make a difference to a brand’s marketing campaign.

The 19th OOH Advertising Convention (OAC) 2025, a landmark event for the Out-of-Home industry, unfolded under the theme ‘Mapping a New OOH-scape,’ and Bharat’s session underscored another aspect of the new OOH-scape.