At Rediffusion YR since November 2008, Karl is creating an environment and mentoring teams to listen, understand and engage brands and their fans in relevant, original and profitable digital conversations. Previously at Arc Worldwide / Leo Burnett he was Executive Creative Director – Digital with a mandate to leverage Web 2.0 and new media across big campaignable ideas. Prior to this Karl was the National Creative Director at Tribal DDB India, where he worked on creating brand demand using the online space.

Karl has won numerous awards at Cannes, Webby, One Show, New York Festivals, Asia Pacific Adfest, Abby and AAAI, including the 1st Indian Cyber Shortlist at Cannes 2006 for Timesjobs, the 1st Indian Webby award for a simple and intuitive multilingual portal for Life Insurance Corporation of India, the 1st Bronze Cyber Lion at Cannes 2008 and India’s first Silver Pencil at the One Show Interactive 2009 for an Online campaign “highlighting what's important” for Luxor Highlighters. Karl was on the Cannes Cyber Lions, ADFEST Cyber Lotus, Asia Interactive Awards, Abby Awards and Yahoo Uncannies Jury. A frequent speaker at industry conferences and advertising seminars Karl has also held lectures and workshops with young management and advertising professionals.

Since 1st November 2008, Karl's mandate is to create an environment and mentor a team that will offer comprehensive Digital solutions to all clients across the board - be it in terms of a specific digital requirement for a particular group company or collaborating with various teams to offer a holistic approach to communication strategies.

On 16th August 2007 Karl moved to Arc Worldwide / Leo Burnett seeing great scope to leverage Web 2.0 using big campaignable ideas. While others were still dwelling in the shadows of banners, emailers and websites, Karl and his team created social communities around brands such as Delhi Daredevils, Tata Tea and Godrej using popular cultures and emerging trends in society.

In 1998, at the age of 20, Karl boldly stepped into the interactive space. A time when the digital medium was still at a teething stage in India, his hobby turned into a full time profession. Right from setting up New media divisions (Deadline Advertising and Wavelength communications) at various small Advertising agencies to being a single person New media consultant (direct clients) he worked on brands such as ICICI InfoTech, ICICI Prudential, UTI, Interlabels, Systime Computers, Datamatics Group, Paco Rabanne, Hugo Boss, Carolina Herrera, MphasiS Group, Castrol, Wipro Infotech, Godrej Furniture & Interiors group, Synthetic & Rayon promotion council of India.

Karl’s tryst with computers began in his early school days, when he got hold of a Sinclair (one of the first home computers and game consoles) and started gaming and basic programming. Programming took a back seat when he realized that design was a lot more exciting and did a course in Computer Arts. During his summer vacations, at the age of 16, he landed a part time job as a lab instructor that not just gave him some pocket money but loads of experience on the various tools and techniques in computer art. While in college he freelanced for a couple of years as a design consultant in BTL. It was a smooth transition to move from print to multimedia when he worked with Virtual Wizards as a consultant churning out graphic and animation content for clients such as LIC (Life Insurance Corporation), GJPC (Gems and Jewelry Promotion Council of India) and BPL Mobile. During this time he self learned all the various tools required to for this dynamic medium researching on a slow dial up connection.

karl[dot]gomes[at]rediffusionyr[dot]com | karl[dot]gomes[at]gmail[dot]com