Leaders

Vivify means to give life. And it defines the very essence of Vivi5 Studios. You can sense in their ideas as they come to life with animation, quite literally; and in their design thinking ethos, the very basic ingredient to everything they create! Underthe aegis of Rita Dhankani, the company has partnered with advertising agencies, corporations, and organizations nationwide and internationally across a range of verticals. Some of its esteemed partners are Unicef, Amazon, Dentsu, TataSky, Tata Elxsi, McCann, Wunderman, Team Y&R, DDB Mudra, Mullen Lowe Lintas, Leo Burnett, DentsuWebChutney, Saatchi & Saatchi, DataShrubs, FES, to name a few.

Women Entrepreneur India engages an exclusive conversation with Rita Dhankani to know more about her journey with the company as a founder and interesting facts about Vivi5 Studios.

What Inspired You To Establish Vivi5 Studios?

STUDIOS? As a child, I remember taking off-road and finding new ways to do the same old things. Making things out of nothing, as my favorite game. ‘To always follow your heart’, ‘to never compromise or settle for less’, ‘to look at fear in the eye’; were learnings that shaped me as an independent thinker from a very early age.

It was back in 2006 while I sat doing mundane animations on my desktop, I realized the job was not going to help me unleash my true potential, which was to solve problems with my communication design skills. For me, it’s like solving a puzzle, only a lot more exhilarating. I wanted to play the game myself, to see how my thinking can really make a difference to the end users/ buyers and in return help the brands communicate better. The only way to find was to take the plunge and on the way find my niche. I started working with brands directly and the ball started rolling, I found the whole process fruitful from marketing to developing to delivering and seeing satisfied clients. Vivi5 was thus born out of love of helping brands grow. Later, in 2009 I found my copartner in my friend Mehul Mahicha who joined us in this venture.

Society Today Is Witnessing The Evolution Of Women's Entrepreneurship. What Is Your Perspective Towards It? Share Your Experience Of Being A Women Business Person.

Yes, indeed! It's great to see many women entrepreneurs coming up and paving their way to make their distinguishing mark in the industry. Women are excellent at multitasking, handling multi roles, adapting to change and most of all in taking-in the downfalls with ever-open-minds only to spring back up with double the energy and determination to bring the change, inwards and outwards. This very special quality makes each one of us unique in our way and it's truly encouraging to see us play the game, breaking the rules and challenging the status quo in every field we lay our hearts on!

“With every product or service promotion, vivi5 explores new ways to tell stories for brands, specific to their target audiences, users or buyers”

How much you love what you do, is what drives you! Being a businesswoman, it takes this very drive to be present every day dealing with day-to-day challenges of almost all kinds. Starting from home to managing the company, it takes setting priorities and balancing it all. It's pure management! As far as you have set a system to prioritise to bring the balance, you have it sorted. But yes, it's a practice - every day. Being a woman business person, I have experienced both worlds. One that encourages and respects you for following your aspirations, while the other makes you feel you don't belong here by simply not acknowledging your presence or efforts. Although the latter kind does perplex me every time, but I would say I have managed to change their mindset by simply doing my job right and focusing on my game.

What Differentiates Vivi5 From Other Brands?

We Tell Stories for Brands. Our forte is developing compelling IPs and creating quality Films and various Marketing Collaterals that create desired impact on the target audiences/users. We do so with our indepth research, anthropology, design, direction, and distinctive brand-centric storytelling narratives. We also do Brand Identity and Consultancy, exclusively!

What makes us unique is our well-orchestrated communication planning that is custom-made for each requirement, our design processes that allow improvisations for our partners at every step; and the consistent support of our highly experienced and talented multidisciplinary team. This apart, our vast experience and knowledge from working with a varied clientele from a range of sectors; and our flexibility to transit from one medium to another comes as a big plus for our partners. We try our best to know their brand better to see things from their perspective. This helps us develop more focused and effective communication design solutions for their branding and marketing needs; and be their one-stop content design studio!

Enumerate On The Latest Innovations And Roadmap Ahead For Vivi5?

The latest addition to our digital content design services is brand identity design and consultation - completing our target to provide 360 communication design solutions for our client-partners. We have also commenced ‘Co-Creations’, our initiative under Mehul’s leadership that allows creative fraternity from in and around India, to come, connect and collaborate with us on various projects depending on their skills and interests. It’s a symbiotic network of active creative people - designers, directions, producers, and various other talents who are looking for opportunities to do great work and make good revenue.

As a future roadmap, we would be creating more defined narrative and consultancy based digital-marketing content that attends to360- degreecommunication needs of our clients. We also aim to venture into the OTT market to helpour client partners make their space on the platform. Vivi5 also aims to bring awareness in bringing more animation content to the platform through original edutainment content.

• Foxglove Awards 2020 - Best use of Social Media for CSR

Happy World Day I Vivi5 Studios, India

• FICCI Awards 2017 - Best Animation Ad

Y K Organics I Myntra, India

• FICCI Awards 2017 - Best Animation Ad

Y K Organics I Myntra, India

• FICCI Awards 2016 - Best Animation Film

‘Wahga Time’ I Khalifa University, UAE (Nomination)

• TASI Awards 2015 - Best Animation Film

Right to Education I UNICEF, India (Nomination)

• DUBAI LYNX Awards 2010 - Best Integrated Campaign with Wunderman

Ahlan MSN Emoticons I Wunderman, DUBAI

• Dubai LYNX Awards 2009 - Part of Stressball Campaign with JWT

Photography for ‘Friends For Cancer’ I JWT, Dubai (gold)