Rising Star: Nikita Rathod, Creative Brand Management, Curry Nation

While Nikita Rathod had an inclination towards art and even did her Bachelors in Mass Media with a specialisation in advertising, she never imagined that she would find herself in the world of advertising.

“I had never planned to get into advertising but I have always had this inclination for art and I knew for sure that I would end up getting into something related to art.”

After her Bachelors, Rathod started out as an Assistant Production Designer.

“During my time as an Assistant Production Designer, I worked on the sets of a lot of TVCs. So, I worked on the floor, creating sets for a lot of ads.”

While Rathod enjoyed what she was doing, she wanted to explore more and widen her horizons.

“When I was on the sets, I would see these people from advertising agencies and they would be sitting behind monitors and giving their approvals or disapprovals and I realised that I wanted to be on that side of the table.”

After having worked in production design for around two years, that was the moment when Rathod decided that advertising was where she wanted to be and she reached out to Priti Nair, Director, Curry Nation. Rathod joined Curry Nation as a trainee and has been with the agency for two years now.

“My time here at Curry Nation has been great. It is an amazing place to work at. Even though I was a new person to this field, everyone was very humble and very helpful. I never once felt out of place. Both Priti ma’am and Nagessh sir made me feel like a part of the team right from day one.”

Speaking about the shift from production design to advertising, Rathod said, “It has been a huge shift because it is obviously not just about siting behind a monitor and saying this is right or this is wrong. There are a lot more layers to it and there are a lot of exciting and intriguing stuff that you have to do. Here you get the chance to completely explore your creativity. It also gives you a lot of freedom to do things that you never imagined you would be doing. I am happy I made that jump.”

Learning something new is what excites Rathod the most and therefore, according to her, all the projects that she has worked on so far have been extremely fun to work for.

“I won’t be able to pinpoint a particular project because there have been so many projects where I have got onto doing something and I have ended up doing something completely new and different, projects where I have learned something new and pushed my boundaries a little more. Whether it was the project we did for ACC where we had to do a lot of festival ads for them and co-relate something like cement to colours and festivals or whether it was the various projects we did for Colors Marathi where we had to do for their serials, all of them have been enjoyable.”

According to Rathod, the most challenging project that she has ever worked on is the work she did for PNG.

“Since I was a newbie here, Priti ma’am gave me the opportunity to work for all our different clients and the one project that really comes to my mind is the one that we did for PNG. We were doing a campaign for light-weight jeweller for them. That was the time when I was really taken aback and I just couldn’t get it right. That was really challenging but everyone gave me their inputs and I was given the time and space to get it right. Eventually, I did rise from that too. So, more than challenging I feel that all of these moments have been opportunities to learn from for me.”

Rathod believes that her biggest weakness is the fact that she is a little shy.

“I have a tendency to think a hundred times before I voice what I feel. It is something I am working on even now because I realise that every single time I have come over this and voiced my opinion, it has worked in my favour. So, I think I need to be a little more confident.”

As far as her strength is concerned, Rathod is of the view that dealing with different kinds of people and trying to understand different perspectives is a very important asset in advertising and she is pretty good at doing that.

“Also, learning new things fast and grasping things quickly is something that has helped me grow faster in this industry.”

A trained dancer and a self-proclaimed foodie, Rathod likes to dance and try new cuisines during her leisure time. It is no surprise then that when asked what she would have been doing if not advertising, her answer was, “I would have been a choreographer.”

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