When no one wanted ice cream
In 2020 I led a team of more than twenty designers, copywriters and marketing executives across five client accounts at Pink Creative, part of EDiSON Group. Then COVID-19 rewrote every brief, including for an ice-cream brand whose customers were suddenly afraid of ice cream. This is about keeping quality, budgets and morale intact while the plan kept changing, and staying close enough to the work to make some of it myself.
- Agency
- Pink Creative Ltd (EDiSON Group), Dhaka
- My role
- Assistant Manager, Digital Marketing
- When
- Jan – Sep 2020
- Clients included
- Symphony Mobile Bangladesh, Igloo Ice Cream
Context
Pink Creative is the 360-degree marketing agency within EDiSON Group, working with some of Bangladesh’s best-known consumer brands. I joined in January 2020 to lead digital marketing and creative campaign delivery across a portfolio of client accounts, including Symphony Mobile Bangladesh and Igloo Ice Cream.
Within three months of my joining, the pandemic arrived. Consumer behaviour, production logistics and client priorities all shifted at once.
Challenge
- Five briefs, one team. Concurrent accounts with different brand objectives, audiences and budgets, all competing for the same creative people.
- Tight production budgets. Clients wanted more digital output, often without more money.
- A brand problem nobody had planned for. How does an ice-cream brand talk to people during a public health crisis without sounding tone-deaf?
My role
What was mine, and what was shared
- I led
- A team of 20+ designers, copywriters and marketing executives across five accounts. Day to day, I ran task flow and priorities, owned creative direction, and oversaw execution against client briefs and budgets.
- Hands-on
- As a designer myself, I worked directly with the designers on their work. I also presented, filmed and published Symphony’s 11 product demonstrations.
- Campaigns
- I developed Igloo’s COVID-19 cause-marketing campaign with my team, and conceptualised and produced Symphony’s 12th-anniversary advert.
Insight
In a crisis, brands that sell get ignored and brands that help get remembered. Both of the campaigns here started from the same question: what are people actually going through right now, and how can this brand be genuinely useful?
Leading the team worked on a similar principle. With five accounts in play, the most useful thing I could do was keep every piece of work tied to its brief and budget, and sit with the designers when work needed fixing, rather than send notes from a distance.
Strategy
Igloo Ice Cream: when people are afraid of your product
During COVID-19, people in Bangladesh became wary of eating ice cream, and Igloo’s sales were falling. Pushing product harder would have looked tone-deaf. With my team, I proposed a cause-marketing campaign instead: use Igloo’s reach to help people who couldn’t afford to eat during lockdown.
We ran Facebook Live charity sessions with celebrities, and asked the public to help us identify people in need. After researching the nominations, we selected people and supported them. The brand became part of the community’s response to the crisis, not just a product on a shelf.
Symphony Mobile: show, don’t claim
For a smartphone brand competing on features, a clear demonstration persuades more than an advert. The Demo Time series walked through products such as the Z30 and Z33 on camera, giving buyers the hands-on look they’d otherwise get in a shop.
Symphony’s 12th anniversary: a teacher who missed his students
Symphony is a Bangladeshi phone brand with particular appeal in rural areas, where new international models arrive constantly but local loyalty runs deep. With schools closed by COVID-19, I built the anniversary advert around that audience: a rural teacher on a modest income, who has only ever owned an old basic phone, misses his students. His son and daughter buy him a Symphony smartphone and set everything up, so he can teach his class online.
Not a feature list. A reason a phone matters.
Execution
Day to day, the work meant running five accounts’ worth of digital campaigns, paid social, content production and influencer marketing through one team: checking task flow daily, setting creative direction, and stepping in on execution when needed. For Symphony, I worked in front of and behind the camera myself, presenting, filming and publishing all eleven product demonstrations.
Work samples
Link to add
Link to add
Results
- 20+Creative team led across five concurrent client accountsPink Creative, Jan–Sep 2020
- +55%Website traffic for Igloo Ice CreamDuring the COVID-19 cause-marketing campaign (Facebook Live charity sessions); developed and led with my team
- 11Product demonstration videos for Symphony MobilePresented, filmed and published personally
- 50kOrganic views on Symphony’s 12th-anniversary advertThe rural teacher story; concept and production by me
Self-reported. Campaign results reflect agency teamwork with each client.
Reflection
What this shows
I can run a multi-client, multi-discipline team under pressure, set creative direction, and still pick up a camera or sit with a designer when that’s the fastest route to good work. I understand what I’m asking a creative team to do, because I’ve done it.
What I’d do differently
I’d measure the Igloo campaign beyond website traffic. A 55% rise in visits shows attention. What I’d want now is evidence of the full gap closing: sales in the weeks after, sentiment, and how many people stayed engaged after the live sessions. Today I’d agree those measures with the client before launch. I’d also turn the Symphony demo format into a documented, repeatable template, so the team could produce it without me in every shot.
At a glance
At a glance
Sector: Consumer electronics, FMCG
Location: Dhaka, Bangladesh (on-site)
Gap closed: brand attention → considered purchase
About the numbers
Self-reported. Agency results reflect team and client collaboration.
Skills shown
Team leadership · creative direction · crisis and cause marketing · video production · presenting