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Not sticking to the script

How Glue Brandworks and Gauge Advertising want to reinvigorate the staid ad industry with their ideas

Vishal Koul

It’s hard to forget Ashok Goel, especially once he hands you his business card. The ‘card’ is a yellow sticky note, with a caricature of him doffing a hat and details of his company in what appear to be scribbles and doodles in pencil. Actually, it is a carefully crafted way of standing out in the crowd of branding and advertising agencies in India. “The tagline of our company is ‘Ideas that stick’ and we thought this would be a great way of conveying that,” says the 50-year-old co-founder of Delhi-based creative agency Glue Brandworks. It’s not the first time Goel has tried an offbeat idea that’s worked out well. Indeed, for the past 14 years, he has made a business out of quirky, unconventional thinking with his companies, Gauge Advertising and Glue Brandworks.