Bhatnagar had worked on the smash-hit campaign for Star's version of Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, starring Amitabh Bachchan during his earlier stint as creative director at Bates. The tagline of that campaign, 'Nau baj gaye kya?', roughly translated as 'Is it 9pm yet?' - became a popular catchphrase, and was followed with campaigns for Star Gold. The channel took him on board about a year ago, but Bhatnagar resigned to finish scripting his first feature film.
At Bates, Bhatnagar's role will largely be to create communication in Hindi, the language spoken across most of North India. Bates as an agency has a strong focus on thinking in Indian languages, as well as writing or translating ads.