Media Release

Mumbai, Sep 28: National creative director at Ogilvy and Mather India (creator of zoozoo, pug ad and many more) during Vishwakarma pooja which was on September 25 at Jankibai Hall, Andheri West.

It was a great honor to have him, the evening came to an end with his thought provoking words which said all careers need hard work and dedication be it a doctor, an engineer or an artist. Like his parents every parent should appreciate their children to work towards their interests. It was an evening filled with gratitude and encouragement for all the youngsters.

Rajiv Rao is a huge icon of the Indian advertising industry. He has come a very long way to reach the position of an NCD in the no 1 advertising agency in India. His extreme hard work, dedication and 'out of this world' creativity has got him here. For him 'work is worship'.

He has won almost all possible international and national awards that every advertising person would dreams to achieve. He has been on the panel of judges at a lot of international awards. He has been in the top 5 slots of creative advertising people of India many times. He has travelled all over the world for work and awards and has been honoured for it.

After achieving so much he is still a very humble person and keeps his feet on the ground. He has worked with many top celebrities like Amitabh Bachchan, Aamir Khan, Rahul Dravid, to name a few.
 
His work reflects his simplicity. All the ads he has created are very simple yet most unique, creatively. He believes that the viewer should get the message as easily as possible. 

Life in the school days
Rajiv studied in Don Bosco High School Borivali. As a school student, Rajiv loved the subject of drawing and craft. He never liked maths and science. He always aced in drawing and craft. He has won numerous prizes in school drawing competitions. He used to love drawing so much that he used to voluntarily do my drawing and craft homework too. 

Life in JJ School of Arts
Rajiv was a very creative student in college too. Most of his assignments used to get exhibited in the college exhibitions and he won many prizes for them too. From then itself he was a perfectionist. He used to stay awake late in the night to complete his project perfectly. Yet he used to wake up on time to get back to college. 

International recognition in Ogilvy
Rajiv joined Ogilvy in 1999 and that was really a turning point of his life in advertising. His first international award was achieved in this agency. It was a campaign for The Cancer Patients Aid Asscociation (CPAA.) It was called second hand smoke kills which has bagged several international awards including two Gold Lions at the 2002 Cannes International Advertising festival in the Public Health category.

When Maxtouch now Vodafone job was offered to other creatives in the agency, no one was interested in taking up the client. Then Rajiv and his late partner Mahesh V took up the task on their hands. From the clay print ad of Orange, Pug ad of Hutch to Zoo Zoos of Vodafone, every campaign was refreshingly new and used to get a smile on people’s faces. Vodafone has the biggest and best campaign in the Telecom sector.

A message from his brother Nikhil Rao
I am very thankful to God that he has made me Rajiv’s younger brother. He is the best brother in the whole world. He has always been with me in my good and bad times. If I ask him for a favour he just does it for me without questioning and does not expect anything in return. I am very proud of what he has achieved in life and even prouder to see his simplicity. Whenever I tell people that I am Rajiv’s younger brother, they feel very happy.