Idecafe launches its Rurban division- Ideacafe Roots

Ideacafe.agency announces the launch of its new rural and urban communication division Ideacafe Roots. While there is a thin line between rural and urban India post covid and the purchasing power and aspiration of Rurban populations have increased phenomenally, Ideacafe Roots aims at addressing brands communication needs in line with their expansion plans.  

To drive this initiative Ideacafe Roots brings on board Sandip Bansal, Practice Head, Roots whose professional journey in rural marketing began in 1989 with Video on Wheels, which was in fact the first structured approach to rural marketing in the country. He then joined Ogilvy Outreach where he played a pivotal role in developing Ogilvy Rural, the agency’s rural marketing arm. This was followed by his 8-year stint at Starcom, which he joined in 2005 and where he set up the rural practice called Xpanse Asia. He joined GroupM Dialogue factory 2012 where he held a leadership role. 

With over 35 years of experience Sandip shared that, “Helping brands build equity and share in rural India is what drives me, and I found Ideacafe to be the best equipped to drive this as it has the agility and fluidity of an independent setup which is often absent in large network agencies.” He further added, “As brands seek to increase distribution and reach across Tier2 and Tier3 landscapes, Roots was the answer to what is now more appropriately known as RURBAN LANDSCAPES”. Sandeep elaborated saying, “My focus is going to remain on aggregating and creating scalable, sustainable models that best address brand objectives at the local level, setting up our own teams that understand the need on ground rather than depending on outsourced assistance like network agencies are accustomed to do. We also will bring in Human Centric Approach into communication planning; a process for achieving goals for our clients & partners whether it be for a product adoption or behaviour change, this has been restricted so far only to social and developmental communication largely.” 

Joining Sandip as part of the senior leadership team is Shweta Lamba as Business Head of Experiential. With over 14 years of diverse experience in marketing, Shweta brings a wealth of expertise in intellectual properties, key account management, and experiential solutions that will elevate the Ideacafe Roots, offerings and drive growth. 

Throughout her career, Shweta has forged strong relationships with industry leaders, managing key accounts for renowned brands such as P&G, Britannia, Mahindra, Mondelez, and Duracell. Her extensive background in Urban and Rural Activations, Lifestyle Events, and Product Promotions uniquely positions her to lead our experiential strategies and deliver impactful solutions for our clients. Before joining Ideacafe Roots, Shweta held pivotal roles at leading organisations, including Entertainment Network India Limited (part of Times of India), Big Magic (part of Reliance), and GroupM’s Dialogue Factory. 

Also joining the team is Amish Morjaria to lead the fulfilment as National Operations Head – Roots. Amish comes with over 20 years of diverse & rich experience in business operations & buying across urban & rural activations and also managing large scale manpower deployment across retail channels. 

He is also known for integration of technology in fulfilment and its tracking & online orchestration securing objective delivery of the campaign. A must needed aspect of the business often looked over by others. 

Before joining Roots, Amish held pivotal roles at leading organisations, including Tech Smart, DDB Mudra, and GroupM’s Dialogue Factory. His innovative approach and commitment to excellence have consistently driven success in all projects. 

Nabendu Bhattacharyya founder Ideacafe.agency said “My focus is on the need of brands and the talent who can suffice the purpose of brands. While group companies are busy reducing manpower I believe certain businesses need local level manpower expertise and execution capabilities and that is the need gap for brands we would like to address. By providing accountability to brands staying on the ground and not depending on 3rd party solutions. We are at the investment phase and will build credible offerings for brand needs at the point of sale. Ideacafe Roots started operations a few months back and has onboarded 25 plus people across markets working for over a dozen national brands and expanding rapidly. Ideacafe Roots aims to become the largest Rurban brand in 2-3 years.”