A brand strategy studio that aims to solve business problems with communications, creativity, curiosity, and common sense.
We ask a lot of questions.
We understand the nuts and bolts.
We jump in feet first.
Both of us look at every brand we work on from many lenses:
The founder
tackling business realities
The consumer
who has a pain point or three
The creative team
working hard to keep the brand alive and thriving
The competitor
who has something to be inspired by
A few more
we think up along the way
We work with companies across industries, sizes and growth stages, and are open to learning everything we can along the way. The only thing we’re particular about is working with people we can have meaningful and open conversations with.
Our many interests
shape our worldview, conversations, and strategy recommendations.
Many podcasts
Scuba diving
Craft beer
Trekking
Cooking
Science fiction
Overanalysing TV shows
Music festivals
Cats
Who we are
Deepak Gopalakrishnan aka Chuck
A strategist at heart, perpetually trying to framework the world.
Cut his teeth (and made many slides) at ad agencies (Ogilvy, Leo Burnett) and events (OML, PaytmInsider) before going
freelance - a pivot that would eventually become Rough Paper.
Was occasionally called on to teach digital marketing at various UG & MBA colleges.
Has dabbled in several creative projects such as podcasts, newsletters and cartooning. Today, he co-runs The 6% Club, a creative projects coaching program. His sweet spot is how technology and culture influence each other.
Find him on:
How we work
01
Through
conversation & curiosity
We get involved and invested in what you’re building. We conduct workshops, ideate together, visit your premises, ask questions larger than just branding and content.
02
With a bias for action
We don’t want our output to reside in presentations and documents.We try to make it practical and easy to implement by your team, other partners or someone we call on from our network.
03
High focus
We take on limited projects at a time.
This enables us to be hands-on for each one of them. This also means we work fast - that’s in our own best interest. We work on everything ourselves, without outsourcing.
04
With flexibility
Each client, project, and situation is different. Sometimes it may call for a full 3-month engagement, sometimes a few hours’ consultation will do. Sometimes a deck is needed, sometimes an email with ideas will do. Whatever the case, we’ll adapt to it - the job to be done and brand take priority.
How we think
Our core ethos — and way of living— is to find eclectic references.
– – – – – – – – –
-
A marketing example from decades past
-
A cool thing our favourite musicians did
-
A weird sentence in a book
-
The vibe of a scuba diving centre we visited last
We believe interesting ways of communication can be extrapolatable across eras and industries.
(We even have a blog on this!)
Our core ethos — and way of living— is to find eclectic references.
– – – – – – – – –
-
A marketing example from decades past
-
A cool thing our favourite musicians did
-
A weird sentence in a book
-
The vibe of a scuba diving centre we visited last
We believe interesting ways of communication can be extrapolatable across eras and industries.
(We even have a blog on this!)
Everything we put on a slide or document has to hold up when asked the most difficult questions of all.
– – – – – – – – –
Why?
So what?
We insist on simplicity common sense and defensibility even if the final words we craft end up being fancy-fancy.
Other stuff from Team Rough Paper
