In his new role, Devendra Deshpande will create and monetise sustainable and scalable IPs for the ever growing digital/OTT space for domestic and international markets. He will also create new monetisation models around content, including franchising and l&M for Friday Filmworks.
Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia's collaborative venture Friday Filmworks has completed a glorious decade in Indian Cinema. Having being set up in the year 2008, Friday Filmworks has believed in both content and cinematic experience. The journey began with A Wednesday, a film which became a sleeper hit back then and has set trend of content driven films in showbiz. Over the years Friday Filmworks have garnered immense love and appreciation from audience and critics alike. Neeraj Pandey and Shital Bhatia's Friday Filmworks have been a trendsetter in Bollywood. Over the decade they have delivered films like A Wednesday (2008), Special 26 (2013), Total Siyapaa (2014), Rustom (2016), Toilet: Ek Prem Katha (2017).
Mr Devendra Deshpande has been a part of GroupM for over eight and a half years, and has served as the Head of Mindshare Content Plus for the last three and a half years.
Devendra has more than 16 years of experience in developing long term strategic partnerships through a deep understanding of advertising, social, integrated marketing, consumer insights, and media.
Over the course of his tenure at GroupM, he has worked closely with several top tier brands such as Unilever, Diageo, Pepsi, GSK, Kellogg's amongst others.
During his time at Mindshare, he has led several initiatives to develop long-term strategic partnerships with key players that strengthened the data, technology, creative and influencer propositions for Mindshare Content Plus. Under his leadership, Mindshare Content Plus has transformed from a 'good to have' to 'must have' vertical, as well as achieved quantam growth, thus bringing in a significant share of revenue to the company.
Among the highlights of his tenure at Mindshare are bagging awards at multiple forums including the Emvies, Effie Awards and more. He also has been a key player in conceptualising and producing sustainable IPs for several brands, which include the likes of McDowell's No. 1 Yaari, Nicotex's I Can You Can, Bagpiper Soda and Eros International's Marathi film Guru, among others. He has also been a part of several new initiatives which defined and shaped the industry, such as content AOR and modelling.