Brilliance rarely goes unnoticed, especially in advertising. And when a blowtorch like Bharat Dabholkar comes along, you can expect to see some trail-blazing creativity as happened with the iconic brand Amul. So when this young maverick copywriter was asked to create an outdoor campaign for Amul butter, the brief was simple “Be brief. Be memorable.” At that precise moment, to use an advertising cliché, a star was born with the name Bharat Dabholkar.
Hailed as an advertising genius, Dabholkar created a milestone in outdoor advertising with a campaign where people were reminded of current issues with a catchy line or message linked to the brand Amul. The Amul mascot and the format outlived most other brands and gained top-of-the-mind position. It was funny, it was memorable and it was distinctly ‘Amul’. The campaign had unprecedented success and continues to run bringing up current issues, gossip and matters that citizens relate to.
Bharat Dabholkar went on to make advertising history with 14 awards and also created a new genre of ‘Hinglish’ advertising. His huge portfolio of accomplishments was not limited to advertising. While working for the ad agency Da Cunha which serviced the Amul account, he got involved in theatre just as passionately. Starting with acting and helping around in a couple of plays, he advanced to scripting, and here too, he showcased his prowess in ‘Hinglish’. This delightful mixture of English and colloquial local Hindi found instant acceptance with the new theatre-going audiences. The result was 29 plays written and directed by him.
He has also shared screen space with reigning superstars Salman Khan and Shahrukh Khan, with his forays in the Hindi Film Industry. He acted in a total of 17 movies of which he also wrote and directed one. Throughout all this success, he remained connected with his advertising roots managing Da Cunha Associates as its president until 1991 when he quit and started his own agency Zen Advertising. A decade later Zen was merged with Publicis Groupe’s Indian business with Dabholkar as head of the agency until 2003.
