Brand strategist and creative leader with over 15 years across DDB Mudra, mcgarrybowen, Embibe, and People. Turning business problems into brand movements, and briefs into work people remember.
Chirag Shah leads brand thinking and creative direction at Unruly, and runs People Design & Communications as Director and CEO. Across both, the obsession is the same: turning business problems into brand movements, and briefs into work people actually remember.
His career spans DDB Mudra Group, mcgarrybowen India, and Embibe (Reliance), where he led brand engagement, client services, and brand and innovation. Equal parts strategist and creative agitator, he builds brands from the human truth up.
The belief underneath the work is simple. There are barriers in people's minds that keep them from a brand. Find the human insight that unlocks them, and the rest of the work follows.
Strategy and creative under one roof, so the thinking and the making never drift apart.
Every engagement starts with the truth underneath behaviour, not the brief on the surface.
Fifteen-plus years inside India's leading agencies, now brought to founders and brands directly.
A strategist who can direct the creative, and a creative who starts with the strategy.
Finding the invisible rules a category runs on, then building a position that redefines the space.
Turning strategy into work people remember. Campaign platforms, brand films, and ideas with teeth.
Senior counsel on brand architecture, naming, identity, and the decisions that shape perception.
Translating the idea into launch: channel roles, sequencing, and the moments that build traction.
Building new brand systems and propositions, from first principle to in-market product.
Every brand problem is a people problem first. The work starts with the truth underneath behaviour.
The proprietary model I run every engagement through, from category decoding to go-to-market.
Audit the category's codes and name what's become predictable.
Surface the real consumer tensions others have missed.
Build a sharper story that shifts the category conversation.
Turn strategy into the big idea, across every format.
Codify the brand's language so it looks and sounds its own.
Take it to market and make year one count.
A few of the brands and campaigns built along the way.
A two-year build for Rana Daggubati's global tequila brand: the name, identity, label, and voice, through to its India launch.
'Stop Using Steel', a human-insight-led campaign that reframed a decades-old kitchen habit around a smarter product.
Chosen over 40 agencies to shape the 30-year milestone campaign for one of India's most-watched networks, plus fiction-launch campaigns with Keerthy Suresh.
Brand identity and design work for the South Indian foods brand.
Led design and communication, and brand and innovation, for the Reliance learning platform.
Brand experience also spans mandates across FMCG, retail, media, and consumer brands through DDB Mudra and mcgarrybowen.
Leading one of Bengaluru's most pragmatic, media-agnostic creative agencies, building emotional connections between brands and people through design and communication.
Brand, design, and communication leadership for the Reliance ed-tech platform, after leading Brand & Innovation.
Senior client and brand leadership across mainline advertising mandates.
Six-plus years building brand engagement and campaigns at one of India's leading agency networks.
Every engagement is bespoke. These are the usual shapes it takes.
Ongoing brand and strategic counsel. A senior thinking partner on call for the decisions that move the brand.
A defined scope with a clear outcome: positioning, identity, a campaign platform, or a go-to-market plan.
Embedded senior brand and creative direction for a sprint, when a team needs a steady hand at the helm.
"Every brand problem is a people problem in disguise. Find the human truth, and the work writes itself."
Brand strategy, creative direction, or a problem that needs breaking open. Start with a conversation.