Hi!

I'm Ajinkya.

I love crafting stories.

I've been working for over a decade now, and I want to work with a cause-driven brand.

 

I feel like Heura is a great fit for me, as I feel I too am a good fit for the team and role.

And I love telling stories the right way to the right people.

But why?

Scroll right to find out

Because I’m a graphic designer and marketing manager with a decade of varied exposure in design, marketing, and content.

But how did I become this

design + marketing + social action guy?

And I’ve spent the last few years working on reducing plastic waste, coupled with an urgent endeavour in providing relief during the lockdown.

At first, when I was freelancing while in design school in Pune, Maharashtra, I was involved in the Save Pune Hills movement.

 

That got me thinking about the environment.

Next:

Travel shows and more thinking

While working as a graphic designer for Channel [V], I learned to adapt my design skills to any required visual language, since the range of visual output at an Indian youth channel was quite wide and diverse.

But then I moved to Mumbai, where I spent a little time making pretty things like these for a TV channel:

Later, when I worked with MTV and produced some travel shows, my visits to various nature reserves and several towns exposed me to growing problems of biodiversity loss and waste management.

 

That got me thinking more.

Next:

MTV Case Studies

Here's a trailer for the 3rd season of one of my travel shows.

(all videos after this one will auto-play with sound on)

 

At MTV, I conceptualised and executed various digital and interactive game shows for brands across industries. Here's where I learned how to adapt my brand's core offering to create value for other brands. And these are the kind of projects that taught me how to manage large, decentralised teams and how to deal with bizarre and unforeseeable problems.

Here's the case study video from Drive with MTV Season 2, a multi-channel content campaign we made for Tata Nano. Our 4-pronged 'social' road trips went through many, many part of India over 3 seasons, and dealt with everything from floods and fuel strikes to angry elephants and political riots, while the show kept going on.

Meanwhile, I was also sizing up social media content and engagement for popular TV shows such as MTV Unplugged and Coke Studio @MTV.

Next:

MTV Case Studies

Here's another show along similar lines that I conceptualised and executed for Ceat Tires. This road trip had no pre-set routes, and for 5 seasons, MTV Chase The Monsoon engaged with thousands of people on the ground, and millions of people online and on TV.

Next:

Entrepreneurial Lessons

This entire tenure at MTV was a wholesome journey and I got to learn a lot about a lot. 

When I started my own design & marketing agency in 2013, we worked with a music festival, a housing aggregator, and an online Right To Information platform, among others.

 

Here, I saw first-hand how trash affects everyday lives of common citizens.

 

That got me thinking more.

Next:

Return to MTV and Big Brands

Reading RTI queries from a variety of people gave me some deep insight into common problems faced by people in their daily lives.

Seeing our work all over the festival's campaigns and venue was fun till the festival was over and the beach and everything around it was full of trash, which included these very posters.

Afterwards, while heading a business unit at MTV, we were doing mass-engagement drives for various conglomerates, where I witnessed corporate apathy towards waste pollution, especially while organising ground events with thousands of people.

 

 

That got me thinking even more.

 

But conjuring and executing engagement campaigns for big brands was fun, so I kept going.

Next:

More MTV Case Studies

MTV Presents Nescafé Labs was a talent platform where we found and helped young talented people develop their talents with the guidance of experts and industry stalwarts.

 

This was a non-stop ongoing campaign where we went to new cities and colleges every month and organised massive events which saw participation in the thousands on the ground and in the millions online.

I led this project from conceptualisation through sale and execution, personally visiting each and every event in different parts of India.

 

This level of on-ground engagement was something I'd never experienced before, and the kind of multi-layered management required in such a property left me with a good amount of consolidation in my managerial skills.

 

A major failure here was that there were tens of thousands of little coffee cups thrown around as a result of all this. And while I could not get the client to pay for cleaning it all up, we were able to organise clean-up drives by involving conscientious college students following many of our events.

Next:

More MTV Case Studies

MTV Get A Job was quite straightforward - it was a show designed to help youngsters land great jobs.

 

While many youngsters continue to land many great jobs as this property runs into its 6th season, the team and I got to learn a lot about brand partnerships, college activations, event production, and how to match demand and supply in the job market while making it entertaining and fun for everyone involved.

Above is a call for entry explainer video that lays out the format of the show.

 

This second tenure at MTV also had me overseeing all the digital products, including the brand's website, streaming apps, and all partner apps.

 

I was responsible for leading the team that ran design, development, marketing, and monetisation of all our digital products.

Next:

The Vanity Industry

Later still, I let the currents of life pull me into corporate comforts, and I got some much needed management experience.

 

While I studied for my Executive MBA, I worked with age-old Indian media brands to help transition them into the 21st century.

 

Next:

The Mystery Jellyfish

I convinced the promoters at Balaji Telefilms, one of India's oldest and most mainstream production studios, to transition away from their older avatar towards a more digital-friendly, cleaner brand. I oversaw the implementation of this new brand language across all touchpoints, such as the streaming apps, tv spots, outdoor billboards, and print media.

 

Then I did something similar for Eros Now, the digital front of a media house established in the 70s.

I also set up the design teams and digital marketing teams, and oversaw the creative production and marketing ops at both these places, although I greatly lacked any creative control over the output.

 

But it wasn’t.

 

It was trash.

 

That got me to act.

Next:

Cleaning Up My Act

But one day, I was diving at my favourite spot in the Andaman islands.

 

Thirty feet underwater, I spotted what I thought was a type of jellyfish I’d never seen before.

I got heavily involved in organising beach and street cleanup drives along with door-to-door pickups of plastic waste.

 

But I found many gaps in such efforts.

 

I had to go deeper.

Yea, beach clean-ups are cool and all, but where does all this trash go?

 

Asking that question isn't a legit thing to do in beach clean-up circles in Mumbai, I learned.

We did this door-to-door pickup once, we did it twice, but we couldn't do it consistently.

Why? Because CSR money isn't free-flowing in every quarter, I learned.

Then I started a circular subscription service for household consumer goods and quit my job to focus on my endeavour.

 

I did everything from design to delivery:

branding, website design & dev, sourcing, online sales, direct sales, forward & reverse logistics, local vendor networking, and manual segregation of recovered waste.

 

I was also pitching a doc series titled "Trash Trails". But no one was biting.

 

Things weren't working out like I’d planned.

 

I had to go deeper.

Next:

More on Homebox

Homebox Express was a social enterprise working on making sustainable living accessible, affordable, and convenient to drive the inevitable shift towards a circular economy.

What was this service?
It was a circular subscription service - we send you a box full of new stuff every month, and take back the plastic waste from the previous month.

The presentation below will give you a clearer idea of what it was all about, and what I was doing before the lockdown.

This concept evolved in many ways, but the service was put on hold due to the lockdown. Following the lockdown, my work took a new turn, so I did not work to revive this business.

Next:

Trash Trails

With my background in producing content and travel shows, I thought it would be a good idea to bring attention to the plight of the trash problem in India.

This was a documentary series aimed at highlighting the various waste problems that are growing across the country.

 

I spent an entire year pitching this to my contacts across streaming paltforms and potential sponsor brands, but to no avail.

 

The presentation below lays out the basic concept for the series.

I'm going to make this series happen one way or another.

Next:

Research & Deploy

Then I decided to do some research, and created a chatbot to collect data from people.

 

The data was adequately insightful, and towards the end of my MBA, I compiled a report titled “Awareness, Attitudes,

Barriers, and Drivers Towards Adoption Of Low-Waste, Sustainable Lifestyle Solutions Among Middle-Class Indian Consumers”.

 

Doing the lit review was enlightening in itself, and the process of compiling this report helped me connect many dots in my head.

Next:

The Research Report

Below is the whole report of a few dozen pages. One cannot expect anyone to read it, but I can give you a tl;dr in person.

Next:

The Lockdown Strikes

As I began to grow the customer base for my subscription service, Covid-19 came around, the lockdown struck, and everything came to a dead stop.

 

Waste pollution, sustainability, everything took a back seat.

 

Yet, society had newer problems, and people needed help during the lockdown.

Next:

More on Lockdown Hero

So, to connect those who needed help with those who could help, I started a basic website: LockdownHero.com

Within a month, over 500 volunteers from 150+ pincodes across India joined the effort in various ways.

Some worked on translating the website into many languages, others took charge of their neighbourhoods and aided elderly, infirm, or at-risk people around them in their day-to-day lives.

Next:

More on Lockdown Hero

Not only did we have City Heroes, Area Heroes, and Neighbourhood Heroes, we somehow managed to remotely train Basti (slum block) Heroes who ended up providing rations to hundreds of families and stranded workers in slums across cities - all without most of us ever setting foot outside our homes. And with no prior training or experience in the field.

Next:

Destiny: Goa!

Meanwhile, we were also helping the Goa Police with their Covid-19 communication campaigns.

 

And as Mumbai began to reopen and basic services fell back in place, the need for Lockdown Hero began to subside.

 

But Covid cases were on the rise, and Mumbai was becoming uninhabitable, so I wrapped up my life there and moved to Goa to continue my work with the police.

Next:

More on Goa Police

We made content like this short video to help the Goa Police fight misinformation.

From basic infographics to detailed advisories, we created content for their social media and print campaigns.

Next:

New Purpose

While in Goa, I reapplied my skills to help local environmental movements spread their word.

 

I then spent a year working with rePurpose Global, the world's leading Plastic Action Platform dedicated to reducing waste by enabling companies to calculate, reduce, and offset their plastic footprint.

 

I helped create the preliminary marketing roadmap and targets, and also conceptualized and executed content campaigns while engaging with hundreds of purposeful brands worldwide, such as Grove Collaborative, AB InBev, The Hut Group, Google, and Colgate. I helped create and launch rPG’s first consumer advocacy campaign, which reached millions of cumulative impressions through influencers & actors.

Now, I'm looking for opportunities to apply all my skills, experience, and passion to a cause-driven organization. 

I feel like Heura is the opportunity I'm looking for. I would love to be a part of your team.

 

Thank you for your consideration.