MUMBAI: Advertising agency Eleven Brandworks is beefing up its creative team and has appointed Kapil Batra, Abhishek Dey and Subrato Mehta as senior creative directors.

Sambit Mishra, who is currently senior creative director (copy) at the agency’s Delhi office, will be moving to Mumbai and partner Dey. Batra will be working closely with senior creative director (art) Aneesh Jaisinghani at the Delhi office.

Batra comes in from McCann Delhi where he worked for five years and held the post of creative director when he left. He has worked with Contract and Publicis during his decade long career and has experience of working with brands like Perfetti portfolio (Chlor-mint, Big Babol, Happydent & Alpenliebe), General Motors, Greenlam Laminates, yatra.com and Usha Fans.

Mehta’s previous stint was with Dentsu where he worked for four years. He has experience in the field spanning 22 years during which he has been associated with brands like Canon, Honda, J&J, ICICI, Reid and Taylor, SAB TV, Kinetic, HDFC and Manchester United Café and agencies like Ogilvy & Mather, Lintas, JWT and Triton.

Dey has been in the business for 11 years now and his latest assignment was with Lowe Lintas Mumbai. A commercial arts graduate, he has worked with agencies like Rediffusion DY&R, McCann Eriksson and Publicis. During this time, Dey has worked on brands across categories like Tata Tea, ICICI Prudential, Bajaj Motors and Lifebuoy.

Eleven Brandworks founder director Prateek Bhardwaj said, “Adding depth to the talent pool has been a priority for us. These additions are another step towards building a robust creative organization.”

Independent agencies are looking at expanding their talent pool. “Increasingly clients‘ businesses are moving faster and getting more demanding. There is a shift in preference to independent agencies, as they are fleet footed and create fresh work. Our new creative talent will help create a dynamic creative pool to manage and acquire exciting businesses," Eleven Brandworks COO Sampada Chaudhari said.

Providing a flexible structure is a source of attraction. Eleven Brandworks partner Vivek Suchanti said, “The independents have been able to attract some very good talent, with open structures, great work environment and partnership/ownership models (more like the consulting firms). They have become true brand custodians taking on the onus of performance of their work.”

So what brings the new recruits to a smaller agency? “The move to Eleven is an exciting challenge. With the freedom the small set-up offers comes the responsibility of winning and managing substantially sized businesses while producing outstanding creative products,” Batra said.

Mehta added, “Smaller set-ups are bringing like-minded people together and offering greater freedom of thought as well as a relief from mundane systems.”