Gujaratis don’t indulge in conflicts and we know how to build and maintain relationships – Rohan Mehta, Social Kinnect
Rohan and Chandni believe that they are getting better and better every day and other agencies should watch out for them as in less than a decade, they have already made their mark in the world of Digital Media with almost 70 clients in their bucket.
In 2011, Rohan Mehta and Chandni Shah founded Social Kinnect with just 12 interns and 1 employee and that number has now crossed 250. Here’s a candid interview with the founders of this young and aggressive agency where they talk about the idea behind starting Social Kinnect, their pitches, their campaigns and their take on the flavor of the season, Influencer Marketing.
In a tête-à-tête with Agency Reporter, Rohan & Chandni shared their ten-year journey, their perspective on things that matter to the industry & their future plans.
We all know how you both started Social Kinnect with 12 interns and kick-started Media Kinnect and Kinnect Productions. Since Social Kinnect is a full-service DM agency and you plan to do most of the things in a house. What is your current team spread and do you see any more avenues where you can spread your wings?
“Back in 2011, we started off with 1 employee, besides two free employees, Chandni and me, Priyanka who is Chandni’s close friend joined us as a Design Head and then after that what we could only afford were interns. In the first year, we largely focused on finding interns and also learning the business. When we started out, we were completely focused on social media, but within first six months I realized the kind of impact I want to have on my clients and it wasn’t just possible through social media, so for first 4 years, every six months, I used to take up a new vertical and try to build that out. Starting with Social Media, Web & App Development, Media Buying on Facebook & Google, media buying everywhere else online, ORM, SEO and then Influencer Marketing happened around the same time. We started doing media even before we had Media Kinnect brand. We chose this name because as Social Kinnect, you get labeled as a social agency. In media it’s performance where we compete with a lot of agencies out there like iProspect, Resultix etc. and therefore we needed to have a different brand name, hence Media Kinnect. Also, I believe that media and creative work better separately in offline space but in Digital space we need to run them more together. Most agencies just copied from offline space and pasted onto digital.
I don’t come from this world at all, I had no background in marketing and the first time I got to know about an agency was when I built one. While Chandni and I were in a courtship period, I asked her about her work and she said, “I work at JWT” and I was like “What’s that?” (laughs). So that’s why I said, whatever we build was on basis of our clients need at that point in time. We are logically putting things together rather than copying existing models from other agencies. It is more organic in nature and we believe we are trying to solve a contemporary business problem. For instance, Influencer marketing is something that has come up in the last two years and so depending on that need we built the capability. Our service portfolio will always keep evolving.
Every few days we read Social Kinnect winning some or the other account/mandate. How many accounts does your agency currently handle? Is it all cut-throat business or Kinnectors are cool relationship builders?
Internally, we created a strong base in the first four to five years. The kind of business heads we have and their capabilities are such that individually they operate and manage their verticals quite well. Beyond a point, if an agency has to scale up then it’s not only about getting business but how well you absorb it. Since our base is really strong, scaling up became very easy. From a business growth standpoint, we create an excellent relationship with our clients. Most clients have given us 1 or 2 brands from within their groups and we have scaled it up to 7 or 8 or 10 brands. This part comes from a relationship point of view than a pure business development point of view. Outside of that, we have a very strong business development team because our work does give us inbound leads but not necessarily the ones we want. The BD team has a very clear focus on targeting and sharp shooting the kind of clients we really want.
Earlier it was more about creating new relationships and then getting business but today we are getting 60%-70% business by nurturing existing relationships.
How much has business grown after Nishant & Punkaj came on board in Mumbai & Delhi respectively? Did the horizontal growth in Delhi reflect any vertical lines in your books?
It worked out really well, as Delhi was eating up a lot of my time. We needed someone who is continuous for people, who could head and open up our name in the market. The business in Delhi has grown up quite significantly (after Punkaj joined). We are now a team of 25 in Delhi. It has helped me a lot because a large part of our business is happening up here and the amount of time I can spend between both offices is limited. Here in Mumbai, I was still acting business head for the media vertical all this while and that was the only vertical which did not have any business head of its own. With Nishant coming in, it’s made a significant impact on how much business we can take in now. Last year was more about building financial practices so this time we are more focused on business development and scaling up our business.
We know SK is an award-winning agency, but awards look good on shelves, you can’t really carry the trophies at a pitch. Can you list few notable campaigns done from scratch that you are really proud of & carry it in your pitch deck? Is there any video content you created for your client which has gone very popular on Social Media?
Honestly, the thing is awards are a by the way, good to have, they are good for motivation and we are always excited about them, but they don’t make you win any pitches at all. Only things that make us win is excellent knowledge about that domain depending on what kind of vertical we are going after and the amount of efforts we put into building up that pitch. We think of ourselves as the agency which puts in maximum possible efforts in a pitch. From doing primary and secondary research to making video scratches, to having a full-fledged annual strategy – the effort that goes into building these pitches is very significant and we don’t take them lightly at all.
We created a video piece for Tide which was released on Independence Day and has got a great response on Social Media.
A few years back, we did a campaign for Vistaprint which went viral organically & we are very proud to be part of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCy-e2_8MHI
I am very proud of these 2 videos but there are tons and tons of other work we have done in between which are equally good. Vistaprint video was our first video project and the script largely written by me, though I don’t consider myself creative at all but whenever I start a vertical, I spend a lot of time in being a business head of that vertical and then go on to understand nuts and bolts of that project so that even if you are a far but being a CEO you can manage the team and get the project executed nicely.
Since Influencer Marketing is the flavor of a season & gets a major share in every client’s digital budget, at the same time it is not everyone’s cup of tea but still, digital agencies give it an attempt and burn their hand in some of the other way. What’s your take on it? Do you have an in-house influencer outreach team? Are there any gaps you would like to address or concerns you would like to point out?
The most important part of Influencer Marketing is a strategy, so there is a lot of effort we put into research phase itself to understand who will be the right fit for a certain campaign. There are three kinds of a campaign that you put influencers into, one is amplification – where you already have creative idea and influencers help spread that idea. Second is co-creation where you work with influencers, as you have the strategy and idea but the influencers is also creating content alongside and the third one is more performance driven this is something we are dabbling with for last 6 months, which is where the end goal is either walk-ins or footfalls or online sales or trials etc, where a part of influencers pay is fixed and a part of it is incentive based and depends on how they perform which I feel is where Influencer Marketing will go in the next couple of years. So in each one of these, the amount of time we spend sitting with the strategy and creative team and figure out what the creative thought is & then who would be the right person to talk about it (brand message), is most of the effort out there. It is important to find the right voice for the campaign along with the having a great presence, as numbers don’t count as much as the quality of work.
On a lighter note, did the Gujarati bloodline help flourish your business? Your competitors – FoxyMoron, WebChutney are all now part of a big group and are management driven, they operate very differently. Are they really a threat to your business because I don’t see them in news as much? How do you make sure you keep the competitors at bay?
Gujarati values and upbringing have helped me a lot in business as we don’t indulge in conflicts and we know how to build and maintain relationships. The thing that has helped me most is my financial knowledge.
In terms of competition, other agencies have already become group agencies so there is certain kind of dependencies that get formulated within the group, and I think there are pros and cons to that. There is a level of agility and nimbleness that independent agencies still have. Most of the guys who are smaller than us have either sold off or stopped growing at that 150-200 number but we are still picking up the pace at this stage so we don’t feel the need to exit. The market is growing so fast that demand is growing faster than the supply In the case of the agencies, we see many opening up every day but, it is all about quality of work and there are few which stays on top or are heard more often.
It (being Gujarati) helps a lot, like cash flow, financial and thinking like a business person. It is more about effective communication and at the end of it, if you don’t see business coming in then there is no point. We have learned so much in last 6 – 7 years and we have worked with so many clients. We are dying with business. With a team like ours, great pitch, and great ideas get us the work and the result.