"We've won 52 new businesses in the first nine months itself," is what Amit Wadhwa, CEO – South Asia, dentsu Creative says right at the start of our conversation on how 2024 has panned out for the Indian arm of the Japanese behemoth creative agency.
"It's been a great year in terms of growth, business - existing or new. In terms of people, existing people have grown within the system while new people have come in with a great energy. Also in terms of work, we've had great work happening. The first nine months have been fantastic. We earmarked our top 20 growth accounts and they've grown over 25%, in the first nine months."
The new client wins include Sony, Popeye’s, Gemini Oil, amongst others.
A key shift that was made after Harsha Razdan took over as CEO of dentsu South Asia was the creation of client units, wherein dentsu's top 20 clients were put in client units with each unit being led by a leader. The strategy behind this, to position dentsu creative as an integrated agency.
Says Wadhwa, "With a leader for each unit, we have seen a more integrated growth. We don't want to be just a creative agency; we want to be an integrated agency. We need to make sure that as we go ahead, how do we make a creative plus media plus CX account, because that's how relationships become deeper and you are truly a growth partner to a client. That’s what we have done on the existing brands."
In 2022, in a surprising move, dentsu merged all its creative agency brands – such as dentsu Webchutney, Taproot dentsu, dentsuMB, WATConsult, Isobar, dentsu Impact, and Perfect Relations – under one umbrella, dentsu Creative. The stated objective then was integration and bringing together the agencies who were operating in silos.
While dentsu Creative continues talking ‘integrated agency’ what surprised many was the agency’s decision to revive Webchutney and Isobar as dentsu Creative Webchutney and dentsu Creative Isobar, earlier this year. Explaining the rationale for the reversal Wadhwa reiterates that decision to be bring all agencies under one vertical was justified as the group agencies were not connected to each other and not leveraging each other’s strengths.
Wadhwa explains, “What we've done is we've created Dentsu Creative as a strong group. Within that we have three separate brands – dentsu Creative Webchutney, dentsu Creative Isobar and dentsu Creative PR; these brands are there to make sure that that there is an alignment in the way we work. For example, dentsu Creative Webchutney is focused on creative output while dentsu Creative Isobar in addition to creative is more bent on the digital side - digital creative, creative tech, UI, UX, ORM, influencer marketing and all the things happening on the digital side of things. These brands have a certain unique identity but at the same time the mother brand still remains dentsu Creative.”
With the constant changes happening in the intersection of marketing, technology and digital, staying abreast of the clients’ need and implementing new strategies, innovations and products is a challenge. It’s here that the group looks to leverage its strengths.
Wadhwa says, “Now we operate as a group and we use each other and I'm there at the helm of it. The leaders who lead these brands talk to each other a lot more, are learning from each other and using each other's expertise. We have strategy lead at an overall level, creative tech, experiences, on the influencer marketing, on UI, UX and ORM, which is common to everyone.” He continues, “You on your toes as you are constantly evolving and the set of products that we have are not the only set of products that we will have in the next three months. We need to keep having newer and newer things. You need to keep creating partnerships because that that's how you will grow and learn new things. That's what a new age agency should do.”
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