Karan Rawat launches AutumnWinter Communications & Design

The 360-degree advertising agency also has a separate production arm called SpringSummer Films.

Karan Rawat's (former president and executive creative director of Umbrella Design) new venture AutumnWinter Communications & Design aims to become a "brand custodian" - right from the development stage to providing clients with marketing solutions. It will be based in Mumbai.

The agency will ride on Rawat's expertise in handling fashion and lifestyle brands in his 18-year-long career in the advertising industry. Rawat insists that AutumnWinter is not just another agency. "As an agency, we insist our client to show us the products when it is developing so that we can give our inputs and they can then implement it. This makes cracking the campaign - creatively and strategically - easier for us," he says drawing parallels with his popular "Green Fold" campaign for Killer Jeans, a joint collaboration between client and the agency (Grey).

At present, the agency has seven accounts including Integriti deodorant, Integriti clothing (the complete line), Lawman Pg3 deodorant, Lawman Pg3 clothing (the complete line) from the KKCL (Kewal Kiran Clothing Ltd) portfolio and three brands from the house of Addons Retail. These are, Addons (bags, accessories, shoes) - a mass premium brand, PINK - for the college going youth (value brand) and D'VITI - a high-end jewellery brand to be launched soon.

Rawat has also ventured into direction and his latest endeavour is the TVC he has written and directed for the lifestyle brand Integriti. There are two additional films he has directed over the last few months, which will be aired soon under his production house.

Touted as the "Killer Jeans" boy, Rawat announced his exit from Umbrella Design early last month. Prior to that, he spent a little over two years at Grey Mumbai as executive creative director. Rawat started out with McCann Erickson as a visualiser and, after a year, moved on to JWT, where he worked as a senior art director for five years. Later, he joined Enterprise Nexus (Bates India) as creative director for six years. He worked as an independent creative consultant on the Killer Jeans and Easies accounts for a couple of years.

Some of the other key brands he worked on at Grey include Reliance Communications, Parle Wafers, Adani Group (Shantigram), Bharti AXA, Parle-G, Bajaj Alliance, Audi, Kinderjoy, Nutella, Ferrero Rocher, Honda Brio, Lucky Strike (ITC), Servo 4t and Vimal.

At Umbrella Design, he won two accounts for the Kewal Kiran Group -Lawmanpg3 and Integriti Clothing, which went on to win four golds and a silver at Goafest this year.