THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Right from his schooldays, he dreamt of Paris. As a student, when his teacher asked him to draw something on board, David Subhash drew Eiffel Tower. He was in love with the land of romance since then. For the past 20 years, David Subhash is heading his own corporate advertising and consulting agency ‘Increa’ in France. It would be interesting to know that he is the brain behind creating a brand identity for various multinational companies like Lafarge -a cement company, Sopra - an IT service company, SNFC - French railway, Safran - airbus spare parts company and many more. His corporate films, company CSR activities, posters, brochures and product promotion initiatives has won him seven Topcom awards in France.
Ask him how it all began, David says, “I was a fine arts student studying at Fine Arts College in Thiruvananthapuram. After college I went to Bangalore and worked as an art director with Clarion. While working there, I got an opportunity to work in Paris. It was like my dream coming true.”
David who was a complete alien to Paris faced many difficulties at the start. “Language was the biggest challenge for me. French is a tough language. More than English, people spoke French. So initially getting the advertising ideas across to peers was difficult but to learn the language, I keenly watched French news. From few words to few lines, I learned the language and now I write the copies for the ads and also do proofing of others too,” says David who can speak five languages along with French, Italian and Spanish.
David who began his French journey in 1983, says, “During the start of my career, the people there didn’t accept me. They were not very happy with the idea of a coloured man taking a name in advertising which is one of their strong areas. But now they have accepted me.” David has won three gold, two silver and two bronze Topcom awards in corporate advertising.
In Paris, he worked with Saatchi & Saatchi, Press Management International and did some freelancing before starting Increa in 1994. Ask David more about Increa, he says, “We are more into corporate marketing which includes creating brand identity for companies, positioning a product in the market, making annual reports, making corporate films, posters, online promotions etc.” David also takes pride to have been among the first to use computer graphics Macintosh in 1986.
David who was in Kerala recently has plans to extend the work of Increa in Kochi too. “We are planning to set foot here. We might be doing all the filmmaking and production activities from here,” says David who heads an all French team in Increa.
“Way of working is different there. If we have a project in hand, even if it’s a weekend, our team works for the sincere development of the product. Every project we handle is a challenge,” says David who has a rich clientele like Michelin tyres, Capgemini, Weber Saint Gobain, M6 Groupe, Valeo, SMA insurance company and the like.