What made WATConsult ‘Boutique Agency of the Year’ at Media Ace Awards?

The exchange4media Group’s Media Ace Awards were recently held in Mumbai.

From the ten categories, WATConsult took home the Radio City Boutique Agency of the Year Award. Commenting on the win, Rajiv Dingra, CEO, WATConsult said, “I’m deeply humbled to be in the same category as all the large agency networks. Initially when the award ceremony was announced we were not even sure we should enter because I was not sure that we’d win. So we entered very few categories but it’s heartening and motivating for the team at WATConsult to win in the Boutique Agency of the Year category.”

The Boutique Agency of the Year Award is based on the work by agencies with billings below Rs 250 crore and the winner was decided by a panel of industry veterans.

WATConsult is a 170 people full service social and digital media agency that has both media buying and creative capabilities. Rajiv Dingra founded the agency in 2007 when he was just 22 years old. Today it is part of the Dentsu Aegis Network and continues its work in the digital field.

Business pours in…

In the last year WATConsult has focused its growth across markets beyond Mumbai. Hence Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata have been growing fast with several business wins coming from these markets. They have also expanded from winning purely social media pitches to complete digital media pitches over the last one year.

Beyond wins across newer markets business within the agency has also seen expansion. Clients like Tata group, Godrej Group have shown growth in both spends and newer brands have gotten added to the agency’s portfolio. Key brands added across Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata include IIM C, Emami, Peter England, Asahi Glass, JK Lakshmi, Tally Solutions, Himalaya Personal Care and Swarovski.

The key brands that have been added from current portfolio include Tata Swach, Godrej Prima, Swarovski Crystals.

Keeping and nurturing talent…

WATConsult takes great efforts to address employee morale with parties for employees as well as monthly incentives for good work done. They also have detailed employee feedback sessions conducted every two months. Group activities like the annual WAT Cricket tournament and WAT Football tournament are held for the staff. Also on Children’s Day, Women’s Day and Men’s Day activities are conducted to engage teams and bring them closer.

To improve the quality of work done by the agency, they hold regular trainings. 60 employees were trained on Google Adwords and became Adwords certified. Beyond this there are regular intra team training sessions that take place each week. On a companywide level the agency has a one hour knowledge and experience sharing session called WAT Wednesday where in employees discuss their latest piece of work and open up to suggestions or give insights.

Over the year the attrition rate was managed below 20 per cent and six employees completed five years in the company.

Client-focused approach…

The current client roster of WATConsult boasts of 80 plus clients which is a net addition of 20 new clients from last year. Their focus has been to win clients looking for brand solutions from Digital. Hence wins end up being clients across food and clothing retail like Keya Foods and Peter England or in FMCG like Himalaya Personal Care or in traditional brick and mortar businesses like Asahi Glass or JK Laxmi. One of the agency’s key values to ensure client retention is prompt client servicing. The team at WATConsult is young and quick to respond and address client queries and concerns. They also have a ‘get it done’ attitude which ensures things are turned around faster than what might be the industry standard.

In order to deliver across each aspect of digital brand advertising be it video content, social engagement or mobile reach WATConsult aims to focus on clients that are interested in brand solutions. This allows the agency to ensure clients get a well rounded value through their services and in turn are able to trust the advice given on brand related ideas and execution.

Variety of work…

Over the year the breadth of digital reach for clients has increased substantially with WATConsult growing across various media units. Earlier the focus used to be primarily social ads which included LIKE ads and promoted posts but over the last year or so their spread has increased to video ads especially YouTube, as they have been producing video content for their clients. There has also been a huge uptake in mobile ads due to mobile apps that clients are making via the agency or on their own but have been promoted via mobile units.

WATConsult’s key channels of advertising are Facebook, Google, YouTube, Yahoo, Indiatimes, ScoopWhoop and NDTV among others. They have also worked on first-in-category ads like the Click to Calendar ad done for Sony Six NBA promotions.

The work done by the media agency garnered over 100 million impressions served across social and digital banners. Significant campaigns included the HE Deodorant digital launch and the DHFL Shahrukh Khan Campaign.

Growth story…

WATConsult has seen a 100 per cent increase in media billings in the current year from previous years due to many factors. A primary factor has been the growth of digital media spends across the spectrum in the industry.

Another reason for the increase in volume of spends is the digital media agency’s keen focus on social, video and mobile. These three are the fastest growing verticals within digital media and the agency has invested in analytics and media planning and buying across these media.

Initiatives for innovation…

Several innovative campaigns for clients using technology, smart targeting and other creative innovations have been done by the media house.

One example of their use of technology is the use of RFID for a social sale campaign for Super Saturday which is a 60 per cent sale by Best Seller Group. They also installed offline Twitter kiosks which aided Mirchi Music Awards to take realtime selfies of the red carpet and share it with Twitter users. They have done smart targeting for Mother Dairy’s ‘Doodh Morning is Good Morning’ campaign to ensure it reaches the right audience. Overall, on the media front WATConsult has moved to a programmatic buying model with partners like Httpool which has helped improve their performance across media campaigns.

Awards in 2014…

WATConsult has won more than 50 awards won over the last year including the Won Young Social Media Entrepreneur of the year at CMO Asia and Most Progressive Digital Agency at CMO Asia. They were also awarded top Social Media Agency at Socialathon.

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