In pursuit of creative concepts

Published On: April 6, 2018 08:43 AM NPT By: Anweiti Upadhyay


There is no escaping advertisements these days. Advertisements are not limited to TV infomercials now. Ads can be created and branded in or through all kinds of – but not limited to – digital media because of the colossal advancement in technology in the last two decades. And all these ads are – in almost all cases – created by marketing agencies. One such agency, in particular, that is steadily gaining popularity in the advertising world in Nepal is Project A. 

Launched back in 2012, Project A has a stellar clientele track including Volkswagen, Nepal Telecom, Varosa, Sagarmatha Bank, WorldLink, Dairy Development Corporation (DDC), Vespa, and many more. Creative director, Ayush Dhoj Bista introduces Project A as a research based market branding and brand consulting company that is not limited to design and traditional marketing.

Commenting on the naming of the brand, Bista jokes saying it is because the whole team really likes the 1983 Jackie Chan movie with the same name before adding, “Coincidently, all of the initial founders’ names start with the letter A.” These initial founders Bista is referring to are Bista himself, the business development director Aneesh Man Singh Basnyat, finance director Anish Narshing Pradhan, and director Amar Singh Basnet. The official board member quota has been upgraded to accommodate six members now – the founding four, Roshendra Dhoj Khadka who is listed as the executive CEO, and Adhish Poudyal who is listed as a director.

About six years ago, Bista was working at a marketing firm when the founding four got the idea and incentive to start their own, more innovative marketing company. “The company I was working for was going downhill. There was no saving it and I had already gathered sufficient knowledge on how the world of marketing actually worked,” says Bista about Project A’s beginnings. The other three founders did not really have much experience or knowledge about marketing but their previous crafts did help. Managing director Basnyat was, at the time, a model so he had the basic PR skills that is so important in marketing. Pradhan was in the finance sector and Basnet apparently organized events for his college programs that had helped develop immense planning and coordinating skills. 

Although Project A is quite busy these days working with numerous different clients at the same time, this was not always the case. “People did not really believe in us and what we were doing during the first two years. We were a bunch of guys in our early twenties and they just assumed we would not deliver their vision properly,” reminisces Bista. He confesses that he got particularly peeved by people who did not even take their well thought out and researched ideas into account before suggesting some ancient alternatives to work on.

Project A got a good boost after working with Nepal Bangladesh (NB) Bank and that was when the company’s popularity among clients actually took off. Bista additionally credits Project A’s work with a reputed media house as another huge wave of boost for the company’s credibility.

The team ostensibly cites coming up with ideas as the most challenging part of the work process. “By this point all ideas have been worked on so it’s kind of stressful to come up with ones that no has noticed before. We want our work to stand out so every other idea does not bode well with us,” explains Bista. The said idea has to sit well with the whole team before they start working on it and because of this the team, at times, crosses the line of mild squabble but it has never gotten past that. “I think this level of scrutiny and dissension is very healthy for a creative team,” he adds. 

Bista admits that Project A has signed some big and exciting projects with different companies but refuses to elaborate further on it because of the confidentiality policy between them. On the whole, Bista claims the Project A team is pretty happy with what is going on and the pace they have adopted. They do not have any big and extravagant plans for the near future and are satisfied with continuing what they are doing, which is changing the world of branding and advertising one client at a time. 


 


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