{"id":4423,"date":"2025-08-25T10:08:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/?post_type=team&#038;p=4423"},"modified":"2025-08-25T10:08:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T10:08:12","slug":"rahul-dacunha","status":"publish","type":"team","link":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/team\/rahul-dacunha\/","title":{"rendered":"Rahul DaCunha"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Rahul&nbsp;daCunha&nbsp;has balanced&nbsp;the parallel careers of advertising and theatre, and now film&nbsp;for&nbsp;over&nbsp;40 years.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He began&nbsp;is&nbsp;career at Fulcrum Advertising&nbsp;in 1986&nbsp;working with his mentor Kersey&nbsp;Katrak.&nbsp;<br>He has had extended&nbsp;advertising&nbsp;stints at Lintas India and Contract Advertising, where he created the \u2018Hamara Bajaj\u2019 campaign for Bajaj Scooters and the Shoppers Stop black and white&nbsp;campaign&nbsp;respectively.&nbsp;The \u2018Hamara Bajaj- \u2018Buland Bharat ki Buland Tasweer\u2019 ad won Best TV commercial at the Ad Club Awards in 1989.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Shoppers Stop&nbsp;black and white print&nbsp;campaign won a gold at New Yorks Art Directors Awards in 1991.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He has also worked on campaigns for Park Avenue,&nbsp;Finolex, Hindustan Levers and Hong Kong Bank&nbsp;<br>Since 1993, he has been Managing Director at&nbsp;daCunha&nbsp;Communications helming the Amul Butter outdoor campaign.&nbsp;His team creates one Amul butter&nbsp;topical&nbsp;every two days. The campaign has run over 60&nbsp;years,&nbsp;he has overseen&nbsp;the campaign for 33 years.&nbsp;And&nbsp;it&nbsp;has entered the Guiness Book of Records for the longest running outdoor campaign.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the last six years his agency partners with Rain Brand and Entertainment Solutions, working on&nbsp;Amul, Taj Hotels,&nbsp;Tata Motors, Ava Mineral Water and Kavisha Builders among others&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He runs and co-owns RAGE, a theatre company&nbsp;with partners&nbsp;Rajit Kapur and Shernaz Patel \u2013&nbsp;his&nbsp;&nbsp;plays&nbsp;include \u2018\u2019I\u2019M NOT BAJIRAO\u2019,&nbsp;written in 1996&nbsp;which&nbsp;remains&nbsp;the longest running&nbsp;Indian English play, starring Boman Irani and Sudhir Joshi. In 1991 he directed \u2018LARINS SAHIB\u2019&nbsp;with Tom Alter,&nbsp;which was India\u2019s first play at the prestigious Edinburgh Theatre Fringe Festival.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2003 he began writing his own plays with the successful \u2018CLASS OF 84\u2019 and \u2018PUNE HIGHWAY\u2019-&nbsp;forming his friendship trilogy along with \u2018ME CASH AND CRUISE\u2019 &#8211;&nbsp;\u2018PUNE HIGHWAY\u2019, starring Bugs Bhargava Krishna has travelled the world, with shows in&nbsp;Germany,&nbsp;Holland, Belgium, Malaysia, the United States of America,&nbsp;the United Kingdom,&nbsp;Britain, South Korea, Dubai,&nbsp;and&nbsp;Singapore.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In 2011,&nbsp;PUNE HIGHWAY&nbsp;travelled to London, completing&nbsp;a&nbsp;two week&nbsp;run at the Waterman\u2019s Theatre in Brentford&nbsp;&#8211;&nbsp; Columnist&nbsp;Yasmin Alibhai Brown, writing in the Independent, London, said of&nbsp;DaCunha\u2019s&nbsp;writing,&nbsp;\u2018The crude pared down English lacks compassion or grace and becomes a metaphor for India\u2019s fast and furious globalization. It is as powerful and challenging as John Osbourne\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Look Back&nbsp;In&nbsp;Anger<\/em>&nbsp;must have been in 1956&nbsp;or Pinter\u2019s early work. It is English again,&nbsp;breaking out and starting out a new trajectory in its unending history\u2019&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;2017, Bugs and Rahul decided to collaborate on,&nbsp;a wholly indigenous&nbsp;Indian musical&nbsp;which they wrote&nbsp;and produced,&nbsp;called&nbsp;SING INDIA SING,&nbsp;directed by Nadir Khan&nbsp;set in the world of reality TV.&nbsp;The musical starred singers as diverse as&nbsp;Uday Benegal,&nbsp;Brian Tellis, Siddharth Basrur and&nbsp;Suchitra Pillai.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In&nbsp;2025,&nbsp;Bugs Bhargava Krishna and Rahul wrote and directed&nbsp;PUNE HIGHWAY&nbsp;under Rahul\u2019s new film production company,&nbsp;DROP D Films &#8211;&nbsp;the film opened in cinemas in May 2025, and had its subsequent OTT release on Amazon Prime Video&nbsp;in&nbsp;July&nbsp;2025, where it moved to the&nbsp;no 4 position as&nbsp;Most Watched Film \u2013 It star&nbsp;Amit Sadh, Jim&nbsp;Sarbh,&nbsp;Anuvab&nbsp;Pal and Manjari&nbsp;Faddnis&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also writes a column for Sunday Midday, called Zara Hatke.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4415,"menu_order":0,"template":"","team_designation":[],"team_department":[37],"class_list":["post-4423","team","type-team","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","team_department-speakers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team\/4423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/team"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"team_designation","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team_designation?post=4423"},{"taxonomy":"team_department","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/et-edge.com\/conferences\/iconicbrands\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/team_department?post=4423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}