As co-founder at BLITZWORKS I bring over 20 years’ experience in galvanising clients, colleagues and prospects across discipline and territory. The most important and enjoyable part of my job is the human side of things – driving clients’ success through the delivery of outstanding creative platforms. Over the years I’ve been fortunate to work with global clients like Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, Adobe and Nestlé. I’ve also led and won some of the largest pitches of recent years including Jaguar Land Rover and Microsoft as well as recalibrating the Publicis Media relationships with P&G and L’Oréal. For nine years, I led an innovative multi-discipline, multi-lingual hub agency to award winning success for WPP.
I’m the kind of creative who always spent as much time in the planning department as the creative department. Strategy is at the heart of everything we do at BLITZWORKS and as the global chief creative officer I like to look at ideas through that lens ensuring we always put the brand at the centre of creative drama.
I was fortunate to start my advertising career working under Paul Arden at Saatchi & Saatchi London when the agency was at its zenith, and this intense training led to regional and global creative director roles in both Europe and Asia on P&G, Sony, British Airways, Coca-Cola, and Vodafone among others.
More recently, I was Chief Creative Officer at O&M group in Japan where I pioneered the 2:2:1 Creative Model. This radical working approach took us from a struggling WPP outpost employing 300 people to be one of the group’s top performers, financially and creatively. Coming back to my home market, I realised that this process of high volume ideation delivered at extraordinary speed could work just as well for a small nimble team as for a network agency employing hundreds. I’m proud that our radical virtual approach means that we can deliver world-class creative solutions anywhere in the world in days.
Awards: One Show Golds, Clio Golds, Spikes Grand Prix, D&AD Yellow Pencils, Adfest Grand Prix, Adstars Grand Prix, Campaign Golds, Cannes Lions, LIA Golds, British TV Golds, ‘Campaign’s Japan Creative Agency of the Year’, ‘Campaign’s Japan Creative of the Year’ Most awarded international agency Japan, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018
Contact me at ajab.samrai@blitzworks.net
I started as a copywriter at BMP, CDP, GGT and BMP again. In the 1990’s, I was an Executive Creative Director at the Saatchi & Saatchi London office, eventually moving to a Regional Creative Director role, working across Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with occasional work in China, and a seat on the Worldwide Creative Board. Back then, the notion of working in larger groups of creatives was unusual and creative development moved forwards slowly. Keith Johnstone’s book Impro was a catalyst for a radical, exciting, super-fast workshop approach, refined over many years, which I used at Saatchi for clients across multiple categories, such as Toyota, Lexus, Visa, Guinness, Novartis, Merck, Bosch and Procter & Gamble, with some impressive results. One idea developed in this way was valued by Diageo at £1bn.
This now underpins the BLITZWORKS approach, whereby we create a bespoke, elite squad for each project. We lock arms with our clients, transforming the way we work together, to deliver in days.
Awards:
Black and Yellow D&AD Pencils, Cannes Gold and Silver Lions, NY One Show Best of Show, Gold and Hall of Fame, Campaign Poster and Press Awards Golds, British TV Awards Gold
