Utterly, Butterly, Relevant

Rahul da Cunha has balanced theatre, advertising and writing for over 35 years. Teaming up with art director partner Prashant Godbolee, he started his advertising career in an agency called FULCRUM, helmed by the great Kersey Katrak. They later worked for Alyque Padamsee at LINTAS and together they created the campaign ‘Hamara Bajaj’ for Bajaj Scooters which won ‘Best TV Commercial’ in 1989 at the Ad Club Awards (ABBY).

This was followed by a stint at Contract India, where they created campaigns for Philips Audio, Finolex Pipes & Cables and Camlin. His campaign for Shoppers Stop won the agency the Art Directors Guild Award for Best Print Campaign, New York in 1991.

He has worked with daCunha Communications since 1993. In 1995, he teamed up with writer Manish Jhaveri and cartoonist Jayant Rane, to work on the Amul Butter Topical campaign. The campaign has entered the Guinness Book of Records for the longest running outdoor campaign (1965-2019).

The trio creates a new Amul topical every second day, covering everything from cricket to Bollywood, from popular culture to politics. His team has also launched the Amul beverage brand, Amul Kool, Chill your Dil.

He has also written columns for newspapers. He wrote a column titled Two Paise Worth, for Times of India from 1999-2003 Rahul also writes a weekly humour column for Sunday Midday, titled Zara Hatke.

Manish Jhaveri is an award-winning creative director who has been in Advertising since 1992. He has been associated with the witty Amul topicals since 1994 and is by far the longest serving writer of these cheeky topical ads. Manish also consults a couple of other agencies and works directly with a number of clients. 

Humour and Manish share an abiding relationship. Manish has been associated with many film award shows including IIFA and has conceptualised and written more than 300 corporate shows with Jaaved Jaaferi. He also works as a scriptwriter with a number of event production companies. 

Manish considers the iconic Amul campaign to be his crowning glory. His association with Rahul da Cunha and Jayant Rane has produced over 2000 topicals over the last 27 years and created many ‘smile’stones along the way.

Jayant Rane has been an illustrator with the daCunha Ad agency since 1986.

Born in Kolhapur, Jayant developed interest in painting during his school days. He holds a G.D. ART Diploma from J J School of Arts. Jayant is also a fine artist  having been trained under various masters and has done many portraits as well as mythological paintings.

Known by most the industries as a Doyen and innovator, Bunty Peerbhoy is a second generation advertising man and one of India’s leading advertising professionals 

A person with conviction and a clear vision, he created the country’s first Marketing Communications Group – The MAA Group, which consisted of a number of independent and specialized communication companies. Each specializing in a different skill –

Financial Advertising, Direct Marketing, Public Relations, Retail Solutions, Brand consultancy and Health Care Advertising.

He spent 55 years taking MAA to be amongst the top ten advertising agencies and is known to have introduced computers for media planning, operations, traffic management, financial accounting and MIS. He imported the first Macintosh computer for graphics and animatics, converting the studio from a wet process to a completely seamless and dry process.

Bunty Peerbhoy has been a guest lecturer at IIM Bangalore and several other institutes. He has also been instrumental in designing the course for Advertising specialization with IIM Bangalore.

He has served on the Boards of the Advertising Agencies Association of India and the Advertising Standard Council of India and is a member of “The Tiger” initiative setup by the world bank.