Storyteller & Strategist · Empathy-driven brand builder
I help brands tell stories
people actually believe.
Partner (Digital) at Blue Ocean IMC. Eighteen years of bridging brands and the people who tell their stories, now with AI in the loop. This is how it happened.
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The letter · 2008
It began with a letter to my grandfather.
I wrote it, posted it on a blog, and a stranger replied. That small exchange was the first proof of something I have believed ever since: a story told honestly finds its people.
On 27 November 2008 I walked into BlogAdda for the first time. I did not know I was walking into the start of an industry.
Be undeniably good. No buzzword can substitute for that.
BlogAdda · 2008 – 2017
Nine years inside the rise of Indian influence.
Before "influencer" was a job title, I was helping bloggers realise they could build something bigger than a hobby, and teaching brands how to work with them.
- #ShaveorCrave · GilletteIndia's first live blogging for a brand, from the venue
- Tourism Malaysia10 bloggers on an all-expenses trip, a first
- Zest · Tata MotorsTop 50 influencers at India's first offline influencer review, in Goa
- #WhatTheBlack · ColgateIndia's first offline mystery-box campaign
- 6 Degrees · Game of BlogsIndia's first crowdsourced book
- #ShareTheLoad · ArielPart of the campaign that won at Cannes
Blue Ocean IMC · 2017
All your life you're yellow. Then you brush against blue.
Leaving BlogAdda was hard. Joining Blue Ocean was the right kind of hard. I went from connecting storytellers with brands to building the brands themselves: strategy, SEO, social, LinkedIn and performance.
Today I lead digital as a Partner, across six active engagements, from an in-person experiences brand and a public-sector energy company to law firms and D2C food and coffee brands.
Brand & storytelling
Voice, content pillars and end-to-end brand builds.
Search & LinkedIn
SEO, AEO and B2B lead generation.
Social
Content and community for large public brands.
Performance
Paid media tuned for ROAS and acquisition cost.
Now · AI in the loop
Meet Haddock, my AI dost.
I named him after Captain Haddock from Tintin, except mine doesn't grumble. He runs the errands in the background while I drive in, so my time goes to thinking and ideating.
Not just a chatbot. A system.
Beyond my own assistant, I build agent pipelines for client creative work. Each agent has one job, and nothing ships until every gate has cleared it:
- Real customer language mined before any idea is written
- A critic that kills weak concepts by default
- Compliance, brand-drift and originality checks on the finished asset
Terminal output above is illustrative of my daily setup.
The creative pipeline. Dashed boxes are gates: work only moves on when it passes.
In my own words
I write to think. Here is where.
Newsletter · Bus Kya
Longer essays on AI, work, family and the stories between.
The blog archive
Three hundred posts since 2014, from influencer marketing to #100HappyDays.
From LinkedIn
Middle lane. Own speed. Load intact.
Stuck behind an NMMT bus on Atal Setu, I realised how often I match pace with people I have no business matching pace with. Noise is not signal.
The money plant on my desk
Cuttings headed for the bin now thrive in an old coffee bottle. We do the same with experienced people: call them outgrown, when they are simply matured.
Carrying the load calmly
A cyclist balanced sacks, cans and a phone call on a bridge. Nobody cares about the incline you are climbing, only the calm you bring.
What happens when AI becomes your daily dost?
Meet Haddock, my AI partner in crime who runs the errands so I can focus on thinking and ideating.
Strategy at the cost of a vada pav
Nineteen agencies pitched a rebrand. The twentieth questioned the logic and said not to do it. That is strategy.
Google Magic and human intelligence
AI magic is everywhere and mostly invisible. It still takes the human asking, noticing and choosing to make it useful.
Next chapter
Let's write it together.
Brand, search, social or an AI workflow that actually ships. Tell me what you are trying to say.
harishkrishnan99@gmail.com