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Turrino Advertising: Building Indigenous Brands

CIO Vendor The story of Turrino is one of need meeting intention. The year was 2002, and UAE had already caught the world’s attention. Be it tourism, shopping, oils or landmark buildings – the world’s best brands were making the country its hub. This was also the time when lots of home grown brands were beginning to make their presence felt. While the network agencies catered to the MNCs crowd – there was a need being felt for¬¬ the local grown brands. And that’s where Turrino intended to find its space. The local brands while growing fast needed a hand holding when it came to managing of their brands and transitioning from a smaller set up to a larger canvass. Turrino used this opportunity to bring in best practices of brand development and communications to these brands in a way that suited their needs and understood their challenges.

The CEO of Turrino, Anil Nair says, “We had a humble beginning and our foremost challenge was to first understand the mindset and relevant apprehensions of our clients who were not too amused with brand jargons and high sounding narratives. So we had to listen to them and create solutions which would work for them”. The agency believed in the brands it worked with and worked as an extended team of the clients – not just coming up with communication solutions, but working on brand strategy and complementing the client’s marketing efforts.

This led to growth and the agency could grow with its clients subsequently attracting attention of even MNC clients. From 2002 in Sharjah, the agency has expanded to another office In Dubai. In 2006, Turrino started its India operations in Cochin. Again the agency was clear about the brands it wanted to work with and it found opportunity amongst lot of home grown brands seeking to break out and become prominent players. “Cochin was a huge risk for us as it’s not a traditional advertising hotbed unlike Mumbai or Delhi. But we knew what we were offering and didn’t want dilute our efforts. People warned us against opening up in Cochin – but in quick time we knew we had made the right move,” Anil adds.

Turrino’s office in Cochin proved to be yet another turning point for the agency. From the very first year – the agency got recognized for its creative prowess. Turrino was very careful in choosing its clients as they wanted to work with like minded brands that had certain pedigree and values.
The agency did not go all out to get more number of clients but chose to go for quality as they wanted the work to be their calling card. The agency was amongst the first to advertise itself by talking to prospective clients and associated through innovative printed mailers. It caught the attention of clients and media while it also helped the agency to spell out its vision and values. This helped the agency to consolidate its equity and convey what it stood for. It was one of the mailers that caught attention of a leading brand. From then to now, the agency has created a distinct mark for itself in the region.

Turrino has the unique approach of catering to “One Client in One Category” which ensures exclusive and consummate branding solutions to the clients


Turrino has the unique approach of catering to “One Client in One Category” which ensures exclusive and consummate branding solutions to the clients. “We work on the transition for brands, making the trajectory for the brands, scaling up their operations, keeping up the brands presence and so on. We are more of a holistic solution for brands,” affirms Anil. The expertise shown by the team Turrino has ensured a high level of customer satisfaction and client retention over the past decade and more.

Turrino started its Bangalore office in 2015, but it was already a known name in advertising circles having won consistently in the creative award fest held at Bengaluru. In fact the agency is a regular at award fests and has bagged over 80 awards for creative excellence and was recently the healthcare agency of the year in 2015. “The awards we have got are all for bonafide work and the agency believes that great work speaks for itself. The industry has recognized our creative strength – but what gives me immense pride is the ROI we have achieved for most of our clients on the campaigns we did for them. For the indigenous brands – every campaign is important when it comes to cash flow and bottom-line. So the challenge is to make it work in the short term while respecting the long term brand equity”, he expounds.

Turrino has been working with brands which include Bhima Jewellers, MMTV, Panasonic, Canon, Ramada Resort, Marriott group, Zulekha Hospitals, Pothys, Good Earth, Aditya Milk ice cream, Sincere Foods amongst others. The odyssey spanning over 13 years has been a witness to Turrino’s triumph over all odds. Having faced competition in an international brand driven market, the firm has not shifted an inch from its founding motto of serving indigenous brands and alleviate them in a world driven by international brands. “We are looking to expand into new categories, new markets and exciting brands. Most importantly we want to take our values primarily Freedom and Responsibility to partner value based brands in startup India”, concludes Anil Nair.