Subramanian Krishnan
Strategy, with the cultural ground in mind.
Subbu has spent thirty years arguing for strategy that respects the cultural ground it stands on. The argument has taken him across fifteen Asian cities and through some of the region’s largest agencies; lately, it lives at Flibbr® and at Subuism, the parallel venture he runs alongside.
Most recently he was Chief Strategy Officer at TBWA India, where between 2016 and 2021 he launched the agency’s Disruption® Consulting practice in the country — a vehicle for selling strategic thinking to clients who hadn’t bought it from an agency before. Before that, a career across regional and network shops in Singapore, Bangkok, Mumbai, and Bengaluru, working on the kind of brands that can’t afford to be wrong about the cultures they speak to.
He is a three-time WPP Atticus Award winner — the network’s recognition for original published thought — and writes regularly for The Dispatch on the long-running theme that brands, like religions and currencies and watches and stories, are cultural objects first and commercial ones second. The pieces below are the running argument.
At Flibbr® he is Module Architect for Aiming for Brand Love on the Brand Intelligence Bootcamp, and leads strategy on engagements where the problem is positioning, repositioning, or the harder question underneath both: what does this brand want to be true about the world? He is not interested in answers that don’t survive contact with the actual ground.
He is based in Bengaluru. He flirts between math and psychology, cooking and culture, stamps and politics.
Six pieces, one running argument.
The case of the watch
Author Subramanian Krishnan suggests what really matters for brands is the time consciousness of the culture they operate in.
The contentious case of brand religion
Author Subramanian Krishnan examines if brands can be marketed the way religious theologies are promoted.
The case for a Brand-Stack
Author Subramanian Krishnan proposes a model for brands in a world intoxicated with technology.
The case for invoking your inner Shiva
Author Subramanian Krishnan proposes, what he believes, is the only way prosper in the 21st century.
The case for chasing ‘interestingness’
Author Subramanian Krishnan makes a case to save humanity from the march of the algorithm.
The case for a Boddha Brand
Author Subramanian Krishnan proposes a new brand model that combines principles of socialism with the efficiency of capitalism.
The collective work, visible elsewhere.
Flibbr® case studies credit the firm, not the individual; the engagements Subramanian leads on are part of the team’s collective work. For the published record, see the Case Studies archive.
Where else Subramanian’s work lives.
Also at Subuism .
One face on a bench of fifteen. See the rest of The Flibbrati.