 "Sidharth Rao CEO & co-founder, Webchutney")
Six months ago, the Dentsu-Aegis Network, did something unusual in India. It set up a digital-only council comprising chief executives of its digital agencies. The move came as a surprise to many, since the common practice among ad and media agencies is of setting up a creative or client council.
Digital constitutes about 8-9 per cent of India's total advertising pie worth around Rs 35,000 crore. It also remains one the fastest-growing marketing channels in India, growing at 30-35 per cent. By 2020, digital advertising is estimated to cross 20 per cent of the total ad pie.
Given digital's prospects then, the digital council is not misplaced or too soon, say executives in the group. It is pre-empting what will be dominant in the future. "Between agencies such as Webchutney, iProspectCommunicate2 and Isobar, which are our digital specialists, we have nearly 500 digital professionals," says Ashish Bhasin, chairman & CEO, South Asia, of the group. "Say a client approaches one of the (digital) agencies for a particular service, we should be in a position to provide a basket of options with our combined forces," he adds.
While Bhasin is wont to admit how much digital contributes to the group's revenues, it is, according to industry sources, estimated to be a third of its topline.
Webchutney, one of its agencies, was acquired in May, 2013 for an estimated Rs 50-60 crore (Dentsu had picked up Network 18's 70 per cent stake and acquired an additional 10 per cent in the company). Web Chutney, according to Bhasin, is the leading player in the web design and digital creative space for Dentsu-Aegis. This space is among the larger segments within digital marketing. For Web Chutney, much like its parent now, its efforts are focused on staying ahead of the curve.
But how easy would it be in the highly competitive digital landscape? Sidharth Rao, CEO and co-founder, Webchutney, says, "We were one of the earliest agencies in the space (set up in 1999), when there were hardly any spends apportioned to digital. From then to now, the needle has moved. But yes, there will be a point when everything will come together. All digital agencies will become mainline and vice-versa and the accent will be on collaboration."
Bhasin says, "Digital marketing communication has become specialised today. So, while Webchutney has one niche, agencies such as iProspectCommunicate2 has another (search engine marketing and operations), Isobar is into digital media buying and planning."
Webchutney's zest for pioneering digital creative solutions have yielded quirky results. For a music festival last year in Pune, sponsored by Bacardi, one of its clients, the agency came up with the idea of an interactive dust-bin that was programmed to speak in a drunken manner as festival-goers dropped empty cans into it. The idea was to urge revellers not to litter and draw them to the dust-bin, even as they enjoyed the music festival. Webchutney attached sensors to the bin to detect the amount of alcohol in the cups that were thrown into it. Some 500 "drunk" messages were fed into the bin by way of response to engage revellers as they came near it. It brought down the litter-level compared to the festival the year before.
Rao says that the agency will expand its services to provide solutions such as data analytics and media management, alongwith its core creative product since technology is core to its modus operandi. "Consumers have become savvy and quickly switch off if a message is not communicated quickly. The challenge, therefore, is to be interesting and sharp with your communication," Rao says.
Clients such as Hindustan Unilever, Airtel, MasterCard, Coca-Cola, ITC, Marico, Bacardi Martini and Budweiser have also rallied for it, their agency, to come up with interactive banners, videos and campaigns that stand out against the clutter. Says an executive from a rival digital agency, "FMCG clients are one of the savviest marketers and if Webchutney has been ahead of the pack, credit should also go to the clients they have, who do not settle for the second-best work."
With the network also consolidating its digital forces, Web Chutney's category-best-taskmaster count just doubled.
