Jayantha Sittampalam:
Thirty years in communications
Renowned communication Guru and veteran advertising personality
Cameron, Pale and Medina, Managing Director Jayantha Sittampalam
recently completed 30 years in communications.
He can be regarded as a personality who stood ahead of his time with
many innovations that foresaw the future trends in communication to his
credit. For i
Jayantha Sittampalam |
nstance, his Media Market concept where a platform was created for
clients and suppliers to negotiate and deliver services online is more
relevant for today’s scenario than it was for the year 2000.
At present it’s rare to find an advertising client who expects a
total communication solution from an advertising agency. Instead, they
rely on different parties to get the various stages of a communication
concept done. So the Media Market concept would have been an ideal
meeting point for clients and advertising services suppliers of today.
He also receives credit for in-store moving ads in supermarkets, a
breakthrough concept during 2002, which has now been taken over by video
display ads.
Currently known for his branding strategies, he is also a logo design
specialist, with many innovative logo concepts for prestigious corporate
clients, namely Institute of Engineers of Sri Lanka, Tudawe Brothers, M
Entertainment, International Finance Corporation - SME banking roadshow,
Kelsey homes and many other successful corporate branding initiatives.
His successes include campaigns for insurance, banking and finance,
real estate and consumer goods. Since his involvement with the Galadari
Brothers share issue in 1982, his interest in campaigns for the share
market and IPO’s has positioned him as authoritative advisor on
communications in this field.
An area where he left an indelible mark was crisis management. In one
such situation, the local company Orange got embroiled in a legal battle
with an Australian company, over a lighting and fitting brand, his
strategic guidance saw not only the local company come out triumphant in
litigation and became market leaders within a relatively short period of
three months. He never stopped challenging norms. At a time when real
estate advertisements showed houses, he took the bold and innovative
step to show luxury of living instead for Kelsey Homes. It started a
trend that still continues.
He is the world pioneer of Inclusive Communications which got the
attention of international communication experts and consultants to
multi-national corporates such as the crisis management PR campaign for
Japan Bank for International Cooperation and event marketing campaign
for International Finance Corporation and Unilever.
“In an increasingly competitive environment, business cannot succeed
by advertising alone. This is where an Inclusive PR strategy comes handy
in which all the stake holders are properly taken care of in contrast to
advertising. Advertising focuses only on customers while Inclusive PR
gets all the stake holders involved so that all of them have the same
image about the company or brand. As a result, all the stake holders
attach the same values to the company thus avoiding dissonance.
Inclusive PR can give a resounding boost to a company’s public image at
a fraction of the cost of conventional advertising,” Jayantha said. |