They are world-class at their craft. The understanding of brand and the sharpness of recognising how to communicate that brand, and what it stands for, to a complex set of stakeholders… Ashutosh brings that in immeasurable degrees and Ruhi brings a complementary set of skills on the design front. And that combination of brand strategy and design is actually unique in the marketplace today.

What Cracker & Rush did really well was combining branding, strategic consulting and design all together and helped distil and articulate our purpose, our brand identity and weave it together beautifully. It was a co-creative experience because it’s so rare for someone to get where you are coming from but also help take you where you want to go.

Right from our naming, to the look – everything was a question mark and needed to be redone. That is when Cracker & Rush came in and nailed it exactly. Right from the look and feel of the brand, to how we communicate, what our key words are – they are a class apart. A lot of value was added by Cracker & Rush.

The thing that has always struck me is, besides being extremely creative, I think, what Cracker & Rush bring to the table is the amount of patience… but also, the willingness to iterate results, recognising all along that it is not a ‘once and done’ kind of approach, but it is ‘let’s look at it, let’s improve on it, and yet again, improve on it.’ It’s a wonderful relationship, it’s a relationship based a lot on trust.

In the very first few discussions, we hit right at it. Sharper focus, the ability to actually crystallise and see what you really want to say to your relevant audience is the biggest value that Cracker & Rush brought to the table. At Cracker & Rush, you get what you signed up for.

I always thought branding was about selling a concept or product, but here, Cracker & Rush was selling a commitment to an institution. We are happy to say that Cracker & Rush have put us on a new level of thinking.

I really wanted to drive the idea that “I belong to this organisation, this organisation belongs to me” and with the branding system we brought in, this idea gets to everybody.

The perspective Cracker & Rush added was very useful and it was special because it was very relatable to the founding team, the larger team. What they also did very well was bring focus to our work. From the on-the-ground perspective, it has helped us a lot. Suddenly our work is more intact, our presentation seems to be more cohesive and sticky. All this came through the findings they got.

Many a times, I say that Ashutosh knows more about Unnati than we probably do. We have had a great journey with them. Whether we give them business or not, they will always be a part of our business. They have done this project largely pro bono and it doesn’t come that easy. We are really grateful to their team for this.

One of the things Cracker & Rush does really well is take a very complex idea and simplify it and also bring in a very elegant and clean design language which the user doesn’t realise how complicated it could have been.

Ashutosh and his team started working with us at a critical time – we had acquired a very good brand and we were re-orienting the brand to stand for specialised care and that too in an evolving category. The team spent a lot of time conversing with stakeholders to get insights around value and helped us visualise a persona for our brand and then the identity and logo as well. The foundation has helped us develop various brand assets over the last couple of years. I’ve found it a delight to work with them because they take the time to do the groundwork, work with all internal stakeholders and help develop a point of view.

The process of arriving at what a brand represents, what it says about itself, and how it chooses to do this, is a journey.

And, like any journey, who you travel with often defines whether you’re going to have fun on the ride or be silently praying that your companion slides down a very steep gorge.

Ashutosh is a great guy for these explorations (and from the little that I have interacted with Ruhi, she seems decidedly equal to the task as well).

Ashutosh’s enthusiasm is infectious. His sense of direction, impressive. And best of all, he understands creative people (who tend to speak in short grunts), faster than you can say “monolithic brand architecture.”

We’ve been out there, in the middle of nowhere, on at least two exciting projects:

On Nightingales, it was on his professional recommendation that the brand was able to straddle ‘excellence of hospital care’ with ‘convenience of home,’ and claim, in the process, the leader stance of a home-health specialist.

On Dr. Reddy’s, we needed to create a powerful undercurrent that would carry the organisation’s aspirations of changing the way in which healthcare was being delivered. Here again, it was Ashutosh who linked this purpose to the essential selflesslessness of the Caregiver, resulting in a lovely little film, ‘Inspired by all those who care.’

Ruhi has been doing a tremendous job with the design and creative work around Microsoft Research India’s branding for the last few years. They have helped us establish a strong visual identity around the brand, keeping a constant look and feel while giving individual events their own identity. We are very happy with the work she has done for us.

Ruhi, Ashutosh and their colleagues are a dedicated and creative team. Ashutosh with his brand strategy and Ruhi with her creativity together have crafted for i-Cue a brand new identity that has helped position i-Cue for its future growth. They have been able to expertly transform the thoughts, vision and passion of i-Cue’s founders into form. i-Cue could not be more pleased with its new identity. Ruhi and Ashutosh’s involvement, understanding and intuitiveness has brought out i-Cue’s singularity and distinctiveness.

As is often the case with them, they went beyond what was asked of them and came up with a new insight, a new corollary which was the identification of a third space of play.
Cracker & Rush played an important role as an educator and as an interpreter of the brand; they really helped us find our own unique point of view with a lot of genuineness.

I found the team really brave and straightforward; they stuck to their position once they helped us find our core strength. Any organisation that wants to serve society well or wants to stand apart from the competition, Cracker & Rush can help them do that, and can help them focus on growth.

The Cracker and Rush team, lead by Ashutosh & Ruhi, spent a lot of time in getting to know our work and getting to know us as people, in order to understand our ideology. Their method of speaking to our partners and collaborators was unique, and it was also the first time for us to know what our partners thought about our work. What we value most is the intensity of their work and method in getting to know us – something that very few firms do well. It was a wonderful surprise for us that the way in which they created our identity and our story was so true and accurate. It was something that we could not articulate ourselves, but when we saw how they articulated our values and vision, it was an ‘a-ha!’ moment as to why we had not managed to think of this before! We would highly recommend C&R – they are a great firm and a great team to work with. As a team, they are not only highly talented and creative but really interested in getting to know their clients and their work. The rigor of their work process is unique and clearly makes them stand apart.

We hired C&R at an early stage of the business launch where everything, including the name, was up for grabs. Both Ashutosh and Ruhi, helped align the ethos of the promoters, the vision, and the mission of company with strategic brand positioning.They provided us with an inspiring narrative for the brand and brought our vision alive through the magnetic essence, all the foundational elements and the name. The following aspects make working with C&R special:
a. Market research-backed process and the depth with which the team understood the business before getting into brand development work
b. Matching the positioning with the ethos of the company and aligning it with business strategy
c. Bringing the brand alive through an excellent visual identity that will ensure long-term brand recall.

The Cracker and Rush team, led by Ashutosh and Ruhi, helped us develop the name and brand identity for our venture. They spent a lot of time in understanding our vision, our service offering and our desired positioning in the market. They asked relevant questions and really understood and appreciated what we stand for and what we do. We are extremely happy with the choices and the associated narrative that they presented, which helped us in finalizing the brand identity. Cracker and Rush brings a very talented, creative and engaging team to the discussions. We had to get the exercise completed in some aggressive timelines and the team was very cooperative with that approach and delivered on time.
We got very positive feedback on our brand identity and this credit goes to C&R! We would highly recommend Cracker and Rush to any prospective customers, who are looking for differentiated branding and marketing efforts for their organization.