IN CONVERSATION WITH SHAMSUDDIN JASANI
As Isobar completes its eleventh year, we catch up with Shamsuddin Jasani to give us a glimpse of what is new in the digital advertising world and how Isobar is tapping into it. He also tells us about the leadership changes in Isobar and how this will go a long way into strengthening their core business.
Q. Isobar was one of the agencies under DAN India, which has successfully completed 11 years in the country. Tell us something about the journey so far and your association with the company.
A. So, I will talk very little about the past because we have done a lot of great things in the past, but I think the idea of this interview is more forward-looking in terms of what is it we do today. So, very quickly, 11 years of Isobar has been fantastic, multiple awards won in our past 10 years. Last year we managed to fare well in a rather bad economic scenario. The last year has been not so great for the Indian economy, but in that context, we still have done decently well as an agency. We have worked with clients like Oppo, clients whose media accounts we have won and these clients have placed their trust in us because we’ve managed to hold our position as one of the foremost agencies in the Indian digital agency space. Last year was something of a consolidation phase for us in the market which was not really growing too much. We have taken the conscious decision of taking stock of the next 10 years, in terms of where the growth of Isobar will come from. Hence, this year has been a very important year that has defined what the next 10 years would look like. We identify the next set of leaders and business units to head our various segments. For instance, content is a big part of our business and now we have started the content business, we have also identified a leader to spearhead in that section. Madhura will be heading our content division which by the end of the year we plan to make 40 people strong. Another important development is that Himanshu Arora will head Delhi branch as the Associate Vice President and will be working towards taking it forward. In the social media operations front, Aakriti Sinha would be our National Head, Social and will handle one of the most important parts of our business. And finally, Anadi Sah, who is also our Innovation Lead, Creative & Technology will be our Chief Creative Officer, Anish Varghese to further push on the creative front.
Q. A year after the company started, one of the worst financial crisis hit the market, Isobar went ahead with it and came out successful. The same has been true for the last few years too. So, in the same tone, what do you plan to do or how do you plan to evolve apart from the leadership position changes to overcome this economic crisis?
A. Talking about the future of Isobar, we have prioritized strengthening the core business. By this, I mean the media creative and social business that we are doing. The idea is that with the leadership changes, we have focused on strengthening the management work in these new areas. Also, we are venturing into the transformation consulting business and this is actually an Isobar India’s group initiative that we will be taking forward in conjunction with our sister agency Fractal Ink Design Studio. Along with that, as I spoke about content business, we are planning to expand the content team substantially and growing the business on that front quite rapidly. Apart from that, in terms of content consumption, we have taken a big stand at Isobar on voice. We feel that voice is going to be the big game-changer in India and at Isobar, we have taken an early stance on it as a very important thing. In the next two-three years, voice is going to be very central to what we were doing backed by AI of course. It is going to be very important as we go into the future of digital itself. Voice is going to change things dramatically and it is going to change how we consume content on our phones. In that context, we are exploring and developing us according to what is going to be the next relevant thing for consumers to interact with brands. Lastly, we’ll also launch our CSR initiative “Isobar Good” next few months. So, I think, these are the most immediate changes lying ahead for Isobar.
Q. The advertising industry has gone through major changes in just the past few years. How do think this affects the marketing strategies of various digital marketing companies and how has Isobar kept abreast with such changes?
A. I would like to correct that. We are no longer looked at as being only a digital media agency because we give a lot of solutions to clients across media and it has become central to everything that the market does, and it is a very important part of the overall mix. The client is looking at us to give them an overall solution which they can deploy on all media, and it really worked for us mainly because other offline agencies have not been quick enough to understand this. We are a digital-first agency, which means we understand everything on how media works differently on each platform. So, I think the landscape has changed, the trends are changing, and we respect that. I think it’s only being better for us as an agency for the digital age and that really helped us grow. The other change that we have made over the past two years has been developing a very strong planning team and I think that has reflected in our work. Earlier we had a great creative team and a great servicing team and a great account management team. What we were missing for the past couple of years was a great planning team. This investment has now really shown results, in that our clients have seen us giving much bigger and much deeper campaigns with the sort of creative ideas and clear concepts like never before.
Q. DAN has over the years acquired many digital agencies under its aegis. Having said that, does it concern you that there might be a possibility of a future merger?
A. That’s the great part about DAN that we actually work as one. For E.g.: I would clearly work with iProspect brand because there is a clear distinction between what iProspect does and what Isobar does. So, there is no concern at all in terms of the mergers happening or any thoughts on that because it’s about growing Isobar, but at the end of the day we want the Dentsu Aegis Network in India to grow and our commitment is to give the best to our clients. If a client is looking for a solution that is across the Dentsu Aegis Network, we are ready for it now. We identify as Dentsu Aegis Network first and then we are Isobar. That is the main thing we need to understand for all of us working here. So, I don’t think there is any concern for us, in fact, we are very happy to be part of the Dentsu Aegis Network family.
Q. Isobar has worked various big brands in the market. Could you share some of your best experiences and give us a glimpse of what you have in store for the future?
A. One of our best campaigns of 2019 was Visa. We are very proud of that campaign because as an agency which has a digital background, we were also asked to do the mainline campaign, the TVC. In terms of the future, there are a few campaigns lined up but, I can’t be specific. There are about five which are in the pipeline in this month itself. There is a big auto brand. There are three more brands lined up from Bangalore. Again, I can’t say who those are, but for these brands, we are going to be a full-service agency. By full service I mean, all media. We are going to do creative for all media, and it’s a very big brand across the world. We are also involved in doing something for Apple. So there are all of these clients.