Window shopping: the brands we would love to work with, and the campaigns we would pitch

Every agency has a list of brands it wishes were clients. Ours is public. Here is how it works, what we have drawn so far, and how you can help a good idea find its owner.

Written by the Colleviate Strategy desk

This is part of #ColleviateTimeMachine. The artwork in this series is original and shows fictional brands. We have not redrawn any real campaign, mascot or slogan, and no national symbol appears.

The premise

Most agency work starts when a client calls. Window shopping starts earlier. We look at a brand we would like to work with, find the idea in its own history that still has something to say, and draw how it might look today. It is a way to show our thinking in public, and to find out whether the thinking holds up when strangers read it.

How each concept is built

1. A heritage idea. One thing the brand did in the past that people still remember, read from sources we link to.
2. A reading. What that idea was really doing, in plain terms. We separate what the sources report from what we think.
3. Today's version. One campaign idea and one picture, drawn from scratch.
4. A number. Where the brand stands in search, from our own Share of Search Index, because an idea for a close race is different from an idea for a settled one.

The five concepts so far

Brand	Heritage idea	Our concept	Read more
Ather	The family scooter and its famous slogan	“Now with no phatphat”: silence as the thing a household shares	From Hamara Bajaj to the electric scooter
Parle	The glucose biscuit and the tea cup	“One more dunk”: the ritual, not the biscuit	Parle-G and the chai ritual
Groww	The passbook and the coin jar	“Start small, stay long”: beginning made ordinary	Savings as a story
Birla Opus	A paint mascot who stayed a boy for decades	“A new coat for an old wall”: the transformation shot	Gattu and the transformation ad
Taj Hotels	The view as the product	“Book the view”: the window as the pitch	The wider Retro, rebooted set

Two more essays sit under the series because they explain the method: how a soap borrowed the film star, and why nostalgia is not a strategy. The vintage history behind the format is in iconic Indian ads for the ages, and the five fictional-brand concepts for new categories are in Retro, rebooted.

How you can take part

1. Nominate. Tell us a brand whose heritage deserves this treatment.
2. Tag. If you know someone at one of these brands, tag them on the post. A tag is the whole mechanism.
3. Connect. If you are that person, say so. We would like to hear what is right and what is wrong.
4. Debate. If the idea is weak, say why. A better argument beats a polite like.
5. Vote. On each post we ask which of two directions you prefer, and we publish the result.

What this is not

It is not a claim about any brand's strategy, and the numbers measure attention, not sales. A real version would be developed with the brand, not for it. Colleviate is window shopping. The right brief could make it real.

To start a conversation, write to colleviate.com/contact.