MUMBAI: An Isobar company and the globally awarded hybrid digital agency from Dentsu India, WATConsult has bagged the creative and social media mandate for CarDekho, India’s biggest digital automotive solutions provider. The account was won following a competitive pitch process and will be managed by the agency’s Delhi office.
As per the mandate, WATConsult will be responsible for social media management, digital creative designing, content marketing, and ORM for the brand.
CarDekho SVP marketing & content Charu Kishnani said, “We’re thrilled to partner with WATConsult as our creative and social partners. This engagement will help us elevate our brand presence with the right strategy, ideation and creative thinking. We are looking forward to creating some good and memorable work. Welcome aboard, WATConsult.”
Speaking on the collaboration, Isobar India group CEO Heeru Dingra said, “CarDekho is a one-stop destination for new as well as second-hand cars. The brand’s auto and non-auto business is expanding, and we are so excited to embark on this journey with them.”
WATConsult managing partner Sahil Shah commented, “We are happy to have the opportunity to partner with CarDekho and we can’t wait to build a dynamic brand presence for them. Our strategy is to enhance the top of the mind recall that the brand has created by applying creative, new age thinking and a strong storytelling narrative.”
Mumbai: Tech-based upskilling startup Scaler in collaboration with creative experience agency Isobar has partnered with Marathi content platform Bharatiya Digital Party (Bhadipa) to launch a web series “BE Rojgaar.”
The upcoming web series is an aspirational story of three friends that captures the struggles faced by engineers in India, today. Directed by Sarang Sathaye, the show stars Saie Tamhankar, along with Sambhaji Sasane and Jagdish Kannam.
“The objective of this association is to convey the brand’s value proposition to its niche audience through engaging storytelling, the core focus is to leverage the power of digital media on the back of regional content,” said the statement.
“We have done other small experiments in vernacular language content, and the business & brand outcomes were fantastic. The one-line story of the show is ‘skills over degrees’ built around friendship and employability of engineers, with the quintessential Marathi sass – is right up our alley,” commented Scaler and InterviewBit head of brand and content Ranjeet Kumar. “With ‘BE Rojgaar,’ we want to develop a strong affinity with our Marathi audience and break the degree/certificate hoarding bias when it comes to skilling. We are very confident it will be one of the biggest shows in that market, and our learners will resonate with the theme.”
“Content is always more relatable when it comes packed with cultural nuances and regional flavours. When a brand is seamlessly integrated within that, it is sure to hit the sweet spot and move the needle on business,” remarked Isobar India AVP and head of branded content and partnerships Madhura Ranade. “A great brand experience is elevated when it is encountered in the most comfortable setting, which is being a regional language in this case. This has proven true, time and again and with every new partnership, this belief gets stronger. This time, addressing a key market in Maharashtra and with none other than the team at Bhadipa and a stellar star cast, we are sure to make this a blockbuster in the Marathi-speaking market and beyond.”
Isobar India group CEO Heeru Dingra said “this will be the largest regional content collaboration India has ever seen.” She further added, “Given India’s size and diversity, we have always been hearing that vernacular and regional content is the way to go. However, with most brands, there is a hesitation when it comes to committing to this narrative. We are glad to team up with pan India, addressing a brand like Scaler.”
Mumbai: Isobar, the creative agency from the house of dentsu India has announced the appointment of Gurjot Shah Singh as executive vice president (EVP) – media.
In his new role, Gurjot will be responsible for strengthening the media services of the agency. He will also be driving the growth of media services for Isobar India group jointly with WATConsult AVP media and strategy Shanu Jain, said the statement.
“Creative use of media is the key to success in advertising and Gurjot echoes the same in his work,” said Isobar India group CEO Heeru Dingra. “He comes with extensive experience in the industry and has invaluable knowledge in his domain. Moreover, he brings with him the talented team from Webchutney, those who have been instrumental in bagging multiple awards internationally. I am looking forward to having him build on the exciting and vast roster of brands that we manage at Isobar.”
“The next leg of Isobar’s journey is all about providing differentiated experiences to the consumers. Media and creative will have to work hand in hand to provide such experience. Gurjot, with his experience, will be able to take Isobar to new heights in this regard. I look forward to working with Gurjot to not just provide a great solution to our clients, but also to grow the Isobar business in the coming days,” added Isobar India managing partner Rahul Vengalil.
Over the last decade, Gurjot has worked on several award-winning campaigns and consulted over 250 brands including Ather Energy, Honda bikes, Uber, Max life insurance, IndusInd Bank, Whirlpool, Canon, Flipkart, Under Armour, British council, Air India, Sony Pictures, to name a few.
“With the enhanced mandate, my team and I will further build on Isobar’s existing strengths and capabilities,” said Gurjot on his new role. “In this new avatar, we’re going to be very pragmatic about what the alchemy of creative, media and technology is going to bring. I am excited to partner with some of the best talents in dentsu to drive a wider change in the way brands connect with audiences.”
It is pertinent to note here that dentsu Creative group India has centralised its digital media services across all its agencies and capabilities under the Isobar India group. The agencies under dentsu Creative group India include dentsu Webchutney, Taproot dentsu, WATConsult, Perfect Relations, Isobar, dentsu One, dentsuMB (earlier Dentsu India) and dentsu Impact.
Mumbai: WATConsult, the hybrid digital agency from the Isobar India Group has elevated erstwhile chief business officer Sahil Shah to the role of managing partner. Shah will spearhead the agency operations and continue to report into Isobar India Group CEO Heeru Dingra.
The change is part of the network’s global plan to transform into the world’s most integrated group by 2024 and it also accelerates the market’s growth journey into dentsu India 2.0. The group will further support the delivery of Isobar’s services from India and the structure will promote collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the India team, said the agency in a statement.
One of the key founding members of the organisation, Shah has played a significant role in shaping and building the agency since 2009. He has moved from strength to strength, successfully cultivating a culture of creativity and innovation within the agency. As managing partner, he will be responsible for bringing in new business for the agency.
“Sahil is one of our strongest assets. His expertise in managing clients and the team is commendable. A great team leader, Sahil, along with the talented workforce at WATConsult, will continue to bring in new creativity to ensure the persistent growth of clients,” said Heeru Dingra.
“After spending a decade and more in building this agency, my heart fills with pride as I watch it grow stronger each day,” said Shah on his new role. “The digital landscape has certainly evolved and the teams at WATConsult have kept pace with this change by delivering some path-breaking campaigns. As we move towards our next phase of growth as a network, my team and I look forward to taking on this new journey with power and gusto.”
For the record, dentsu India has bolstered its digital, experiential and PR capabilities under the Isobar India Group, comprising the creative agencies Isobar India and WATConsult as well as PR agency, Perfect Relations.
Mumbai: Dentsu India has bolstered its Digital, Experiential and PR capabilities under the Isobar India group, comprising the creative agencies Isobar India and WATConsult, and the PR agency, Perfect Relations. Heeru Dingra, previously chief executive officer (CEO), WATConsult, will lead the group as its CEO, reporting into dentsu Creative India CEO Amit Wadhwa.
“The group structure will see the three agencies align with Isobar’s global proposition: crafting distinctive brands and innovative experiences for a connected future,” it announced on Tuesday.
According to the agency, the decision is part of the network’s global plan to transform into the “world’s most integrated group by 2024”. it also accelerates the market’s growth journey into dentsu India 2.0. The group will further support the delivery of Isobar’s capabilities and services from India, and the structure will promote collaboration and knowledge-sharing across the India team, embodying the Isobar spirit of “Invent, Make, Change”, it added.
dentsu Group Inc, global CEO, creative and executive officer, Jean Lin said, “Strategically, India is one of our largest and most important markets for Isobar. Heeru joined us through the acquisition of WATConsult and has gone from strength to strength, cultivating a culture of creativity and innovation. Heeru will strengthen Isobar’s growth story, bringing together the best specialists from different creative disciplines to create the next wave of transformative experiences for our clients and in turn, accelerate our brands into the dentsu India 2.0 vision. I am certain that with Heeru at its helm, the Isobar India group will continue to grow and deliver excellence for our clients.”
Wadhwa said, the decision is also in alignment with our global ambition of transforming into the most integrated network by 2024. “We aim to deliver the best of our offerings to clients with pathbreaking ideas and solution-led strategies, making our headway into excellence,” he added.
On her new role, Dingra said “The Isobar India group houses some of the best agency teams in the country and I feel humbled to lead this brilliant bunch. As I take this new leap, my aim is to offer world-class integrated services and top-notch expertise that bring value to our current and future clients. People and creativity are at the core of our business, and I assure our clients will only be served with the industry’s best.”
MUMBAI/NEW DELHI: It is needless to say that digital was somewhat less impacted than any other medium in 2020. The pandemic, in fact, propelled the adoption of digital across industries because of its sheer acceptance and obvious advantages. Though we expected digital to grow at the rate of 27 per cent in 2020, as highlighted by a dentsu International report that was launched before the Covid outbreak, it is now speculated that the industry growth will be around 13-16 per cent over 2019. Having said that, digital is by far the only medium to see positive double-digit growth in this period.
This can be contributed to all the facets within the digital industry experiencing a significant boost – be that social, content, search or streaming. However, OTT platforms were by far the most popular source of entertainment during the lockdown, with 70 per cent of respondents saying so, according to the OTT report by Dentsu Marketing Cloud – Dentsu International. With new users joining social media platforms every day and even more so during the pandemic, its popularity is ever on the rise.
WATConsult’s report ‘Digital, Diverse & Multilingual India’ states that just three social media apps – Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram – are responsible for a whopping 76 per cent usage by the people. With increasing internet adoption and penetration, we saw brands altering their content too, to maximise their reach. Also, in terms of brands' expenditure, spends on social media, online videos and paid search are among the highest in the digital sphere.
Another big trend that got into the limelight this year was Whatsapp marketing. As small-scale stores, kirana shops, local businesses, etc took a huge hit during the nationwide lockdown, they utilised the platform quite skilfully in order to stay digitally connected to their consumers and promote their products and services.
Social commerce too gained more traction because of similar reasons. Home deliveries increased significantly, and not just by the big brands and e-commerce platforms, but rather by local businesses and new entrants in the fashion and apparel industry, who were seen offering delivery options for a convenient and safe environment for consumers.
Programmatic advertising was also on a disruptive ride with new technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, voice search and digital OOH attracting most advertisers. The rapid increase in mobile usage and internet penetration has led to more than 70 per cent of digital media spends being directed towards mobile devices. Voice assistants have increasingly gained much traction on smartphones, in fact, 60 per cent of people use them to give voice commands, as per WATConsult’s report, ‘Voice technology in India: Now and Future’. So, if one has to see the spends on these platforms, online video and social media on mobile devices are speculated to register an encouraging growth, amongst others, in 2020. In the past few years, India has witnessed a rapid technological boom which has indeed, led to reformations and emergence of voice technology in the country.
Also, according to the aforementioned report, speech and voice recognition technology market stood at Rs 149.95 crore by the end of 2019. It played a crucial part in the functioning of several industries, like voice-bots answering queries and helping to build better customer relations in the BFSI sector; educational institutes and educators employing voice-enabled technology as a promising tool, for example, Google’s ‘Bolo’ application; 49 per cent consumers making purchases with the aid of a voice assistant in the consumer product and retail industry. Furthermore, we expect it to grow at 40.83 per cent CAGR to reach a market size of Rs 417.51 crore by 2022, witnessing a growth of 2.8X.
I expect 2021 will be one of the best years for the digital industry, simply because of what 2020 has been like. This year tremendously pushed the advancement of digital, as both marketers and consumers gravitated towards it as the much-needed alternative for the traditional means in light of the pandemic. This led digital to reach the masses on a newer and much deeper level and allowed people to appreciate the multitude of benefits it has to offer. The pandemic also changed people’s view of digital from being a luxury to a necessity, hence making it a much more significant fixture in the daily lives of millions of people.
(Heeru Dingra is the CEO of WATConsult. This is an excerpt from a conversation she had with Indiantelevision.com’s Mansi Sharma.)
NEW DELHI: Change is the only constant, and 2020 was a year of change. Big ones.On personal and professional fronts, both. Folkspicked up new skills, explored previously untried things, made self-discoveries. The trend reflected in the way people moved across industries, looking for fresh challenges and opportunities – looking for change. The marketing and advertising industry was also no stranger to this. There were a number of movements within agencies, some also chose alternate industries to grow, and many others were promoted to new roles. Here is part one of an intensive overview of how the year fared for the marketing and advertising world in terms of people movements, appointments, and elevations:
The year started with WatConsult founder Rajiv Dingra vacating the CEO chair and taking up an advisory role in the agency from the house of dentsu International (earlier Dentsu Aegis Network). He was replaced by Heeru Dingra. Rajeev went on to launch a new venture, RD&X Network, later in the year.
Next, Cheil India social media strategist Abhishek Mudgal exited from the agency to join Cars24 as brand manager -digital. Erstwhile CCO south-east and south Asia and VC – India at Ogilvy Sonal Dabral moved on from the creative powerhouse after a two-and-half-year stint to start his journey as an independent creative consultant.
Sonal Dabral
Another big exit from the agency world came whenHavas Media India and SEACEO Anita Nayyar ended her 13-year-long journey with the agency. She later joined Zee5 as head – customer strategy and relationships. Following her exit, Mohit Joshi was elevated to the India leadership role.
Anita Nayyar
The next big transition was made by Anita Kotwani. She left the post of SVP – new business and client lead, The Walt Disney Business at Mindshare India, ending a 16-year-long relationship with the agency, and headed to Carat India as its CEO.
Anita Kotwani
Most recently, Nabendu Bhattacharyya, an industry veteran with more than two decades of experience in the Indian out-of-home (OOH) space, stepped down as CEO and MD of Milestone Brandcom, the India-based OOH specialist agency from the house of dentsu international. He is moving on to follow his personal interests after spending six years with the network.
Another exit from dentsu International came earlier in the year with Isobar India’s chief growth officer Shekhar Mhaskar departing the company. Also, Dentsu India CCO Malvika Mehra bid adieu to the network to begin afresh as an independent creative director and brand consultant.
Malvika Mehra
Dentsu roped in Rohit Mukherjee as creative director, south for Isobar India. Prior to this, Mukherjee was associate creative director with Bates India.
A slew of exits happened at Publicis Worldwide India too. Managing director for the company’s India operations including Publicis Ambience, Publicis Capital, Publicis Beehive, Publicis Health and Publicis Business Srija Chatterjee left as the group dissolved the position. CCO and MD Ajay Gahlout also stepped down from his position to pursue personal interests. Chief strategy officer and managing partner Neeraj Bassi also called it quits in 2020. He went on to join Havas Group India as the chief strategy officer.
Neeraj Bassi
On the other hand, Publicis announced the appointment of Sanju Menon as chief operating officer of Publicis Ambience and Publicis Beehive. He joined from Leo Burnett India, where his last role was as executive vice president managing the entire Bajaj portfolio for the agency. The group also roped in Deepak Pant as head, data science practice, from Cognizant where he worked as the director AI & analytics of the digital business.
GroupM, South Asia COO and CFO Sridhar Ramasubramanian on boarded as the CFO for Publicis Groupe, South Asia. The group appointed Mimi Deb to lead its dedicated bespoke unit platformGSK.
Simultaneously, Rachana Lokhande, co-chief executive officer (CEO) of GroupM-owned outdoor agencyKinetic India, chose to resign from her position. She was replaced by Ajay Mehta who took on the additional charge as MD – Kinetic along with the post of managing director of cinema (ITV). Mehta also joined the GroupM India executive committee (ExCo).
Wavemakar also found its South Asia CEO in Ajay Gupte, who was earlier the COO for Wavemaker India, after Kartik Sharma moved on to join Omnicom Media Group as Chief Executive for India operations,
Ajay Gupte
In another internal rejig within the GroupM network, Mindshare Fulcrum SVP Premjeet Sodhi joined Wavemaker India as chief growth officer. He was soon elevated to the post of chief strategy officer. Mindshare chief innovation officer – South Asia Mac Machaiah was appointed as the lead of Wavemaker unit for ITC business. Vishal Jacob returned to Wavemaker India as chief digital officer, after close to two years with GroupM as a principal consultant – change planning and transformation. Additionally, Sandeep Pandey, who led product and strategy, was elevated as Wavemaker’s global head of analytics.
Additionally, Mirum India brought on board former 82.5 Communications SVP Mohit Ahuja as the director of brand strategy and client services.
NEW DELHI: One of the most interesting outcomes of the digital revolution in the marketing space has been an increase in the volume and popularity of content created in local languages. In turn, this has not only got more and more people interested in digital content, but also sizeably helped marketers target their communication better. Therefore, to understand the magnitude of evolving consumer trends in this space, WATConsult, a hybrid marketing agency from the house of dentsu International, conducted a unique research called ‘Digital, Diverse & Multilingual India’.
Research is the most crucial step for the marketing and advertising world, believes WATConsult CEO Heeru Dingra. Said she, “With the rise of digital marketing and phenomenal advancements in programmatic targeting, online ads can now be shown to a specific and relevant set of the audience only, saving resources and generating a much higher chance of interaction. The findings of this report can help further customise these ads as it provides language preferences and internet usage patterns for the audiences, among other things.”
The next fundamental step is: know your audience. Dingra explained: “The report delves into and tries to uncover the behaviour of the audience with respect to a specific aspect – language preferences while consuming content, shopping online or simply browsing the internet. These insights can help the agencies and brands tailor their communications in accordance with their targeted audience’s preferences. The research helps you better know your audience and that is always desirable to the brands and the agencies.”
According to her, the insights of the report have the potential to create a much more comprehensive picture if viewed in conjunction as well as in comparison.
Perhaps the most interesting and unusual finding of the study was that it estimated close to 70 per cent of all internet users will access the internet in their local language by the end of 2020. “The research also resulted in detailing out different sets of the audience consuming video content on varying video streaming applications. These apps have contributed substantially to the growth of the mobile application market, facilitated greatly by the advent of 4G and inexpensive handheld devices,” added Dingra.
As per the report, 73 per cent of the audience belonging to the age group of 45-54 years use YouTube to watch online content, so does 30 per cent of the audience belonging to small metros and the top four cosmopolises. The younger audience (under 18 years) however, use video streaming apps like Hotstar, Amazon Prime, along with YouTube to consume content in the local language. Housewives, being an essential audience group in themselves, prefer to use YouTube to watch online video content.
The report also highlighted that people prefer to consume video content on technology, dadgets, fashion and sports in English.
On being asked how this information can help content creators, Dingra elaborated, “The audience prefers to watch video content on food, entertainment and education mostly in the local language, because for most people educational content becomes easier to understand and entertaining videos become vastly more enjoyable when consumed in one’s regional language. For most, no such feelings are associated with the video content on technology, gadgets, fashion and sports. They are purely for gathering information or gaining hard knowledge, which is why English comparatively prevails as the preferred medium. It basically boils down to knowing one’s content, one’s audience and ultimately what the audience wants, wherein this report might be able to lend a helping hand.”
The research for the report was undertaken using both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. Firstly, a quantitative survey was conducted among a sample size of 1474 respondents, which was followed by in-depth interviews with the industry stakeholders in addition to qualitative interviews amongst consumers. Stratified random sampling across age groups, genders, occupations, zones and town classes was used to gather the required data. The research duration was from April 2020 to June 2020.
Including respondents from different zones of the country viz. north, south, east and west, the research was conducted in towns and cities classified as the top four metros (i.e. Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, and Chennai), next five metros (i.e. Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, and Surat) and small metros (i.e. cities with a population between one million to four million). The age group of the respondents was rather expansive, ranging from below 18 years old to above 55 years old, belonging to various occupations – housewives, students, working professionals, etc. The profile of the users was based on internet usage in the local language and accessing it mostly on mobile phones.
MUMBAI: Tata Green Batteries has come out with a new digital campaign titled #MainFarkNahiKarta to mark the revamp of its product line.
Centering around the theme of Naye India Ki Nayi Battery, the campaign designed by WATConsult aims to reach out to every Indian by portraying the importance of celebrating each other’s differences rather than discriminating because of them. Through its previously launched campaigns including #IndiaKiBattery, Tata Green Batteries has strived to highlight and commemorate a changing India. This time around too, it’s building on the same premise to promote the brand’s ethos.
The campaign comprises a digital video commercial, which, apart from Hindi, has been launched in three other languages – Tamil, Malayalam and Telugu. This will help extend the brand’s reach manifold and stay thoughtful to the diversity of the Indian audiences. Having kicked off with intriguing teasers, the campaign also includes online contests, providing a platform to the viewers to express their opinions on the brand’s new catchphrase #MainFarkNahiKarta. Additionally, to strengthen the communication objective, live interactive sessions with senior management have also been arranged.
Tata Green Batteries CEO Ravi Gupta said: “This concept revolves around the philosophy of equal rights for every Indian. It also entails that we believe in One Nation. Similarly, we don’t differentiate amongst our customers; we treat all of them as equal and serve them with the same passion, zest and energy every day, every time. Which is why we like to say #MainFarkNahiKarta.”
WATConsult CEO Heeru Dingra added, “#MainFarkNahiKarta takes a sentimental approach to effectively put across the brand’s ethos of moving towards a new India. Presenting some highly relatable nuances from our day-to-day lives, the campaign salutes all those who do not discriminate on any basis by simply showcasing some small yet big differences that usually go unnoticed by each one of us.”
The brand has a wide range of categories that it caters to. These include 2W, Tractor, PV and CV. The campaign, with its inclusive attributes, appropriately targets all these lines-of-business.
NEW DELHI: The rising trend of cord cutters and streaming surpassing cables, in many economies, has brought with it a new challenge for the advertising sector – that of reaching the audience behind the OTT paywall.
With the changing audience behavior and a dramatic increment in over-the-top (OTT) subscriptions, the segment has emerged as one of the most engaging format for digital content consumption during the lockdown. OTT is no longer a niche but a mass market.
In an effort to plan for activating OTT, audiences from premium platforms such as Netflix, dentsu Play partnered with WATConsult on Tata Motors. It has pioneered a unique solution to target premium, behind the paywall OTT audiences on platforms outside of the OTT through industry first integrations using first-party and second-party data partnerships.
Earlier this year, in January 2020, Tata Motors launched its electric vehicle, ‘Nexon EV’, pioneering the EV segment in India. As a result, dentsu Programmatic’s unique solution delivered an astounding 3X higher CTR than regular display campaigns. It also achieved an 81 per cent higher qualified lead ratio and a deramatic improvement in leads. The ability to enrich OTT audiences beyond their native platforms has resulted in a dramatic success for the brand and proposition to the Industry.
Tata Motors head – sales, marketing and customer care, electric vehicle business unit Ramesh Dorairajan said, “The great reset has highlighted several audience trends that will help us enhance our overall brand reach. The increase in OTT content consumption has transformed the way people consume content. This unique data-driven approach from dentsu Programmatic has opened up additional avenues for us to interact, particularly with the audience behind the paywall, while creating a phenomenal impact on our campaign performance as we pioneer an industry-first approach.”
“With our industry first partnerships and integrations enabling insights from platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Zee5 and large players in the sector, coupled with our proprietary technology, dentsu Programmatic is proud to have unearthed a unique way to drive business success for clients wishing to target OTT audiences. Using Machine Learning at its core, coupled with intelligence from platforms such as Facebook and Google, we aspire to deliver many such industry leading solutions to common client challenges,” added dentsu international CEO, dentsu Programmatic and chief data officer (south Asia) Gautam Mehra
WATConsult CEO Heeru Dingra said, “As OTT platforms grow and evolve at an exponential rate, they seem to emerge as one of the key focus areas for brands as well as marketers. Therefore, dentsu Programmatic’s tool to effectively tap those audiences has efficiently helped us in actioning a campaign for our brand Tata Nexon EV. From targeting the right set of audiences to creating awareness about the brand and attaining the right amount of consideration, it delivered some remarkable results for the brand.”
