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MUMBAI:
For founder-promoters Raghu Bhat, Manish Bhatt and Arunava
Joy Sengupta, this week has been a turning point with their
two-year-four-month-old agency recording four wins in the week.
Scarecrow
Communications' prize catch has been the consolidation of Religare's
account. The agency will now handle the creative duties of Religare
Broking, Religare Health Insurance, Religare Macquarie and Religare
Arts Initiative for its first client. The next line of attack
will be to bag Religare's mutual fund that is under the care
of Ogilvy.
Bhatt
recollects those early days when the agency's name was not
even firmed up. “When we first started with Religare
Macquarie (a joint venture), Scarecrow did not exist. Our
cards read Raghu, Manish and Joy and the address was of a
coffee shop where we used to meet. We had pitched along with
the likes of Ogilvy, Law and Kenneth, Lowe and TBWA and managed
to win the account as a bunch of individuals. Scarecrow exists
today because of that. Religare has been very lucky for us,”
he says.
The
week's other two wins are significant in another sense as
Scarecrow prepares to expand its operations geographically
while widening its client portfolio. Emami is Kolkata-based
while Justbooks, a community library firm, hails from Bengaluru.
The fourth win will be announced soon and Bhatt is not ready
to talk about it.
Having
offices in Mumbai and Delhi, Scarecrow is now planning to
have a presence in both Kolkata and Bengaluru. Though the
creative idea shop has around 35 clients across Mumbai, Delhi,
Chennai, Bengaluru and Kolkata, the servicing so far is done
from the Mumbai and Delhi offices.
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The
Scarecrow Trio - Arunava, Manish & Raghu |
Scarecrow’s
next target is setting a base is the eastern metro of Kolkata.
Apart from the recently won Emami Healthy & Tasty edible
oil account, Scarecrow already services five of innerwear
manufacturer Rupa’s brands - Frontline, Kidline, Euro,
Thermocot and Bumchums, also based out of the City of Joy.
Scarecrow
believes in first building a client list in a region before
setting up shop there. “We prefer having clients and
slowly building our reputation before setting up an office
in these centres. This makes working easier. That is the way
we set up the Delhi office,” says Bhatt.
The
six-month-old Delhi office has helped Scarecrow expand its
client portfolio, winning most of the agency's new businesses.
Housing 10 people, it services five major brands – Eristoff,
Bacardi, MVI Mobiles, DLF and PentAir.
"We
plan to bring on board new clients and double our team in
Delhi. Incidentally, the Delhi office gets us maximum new
businesses, surpassing even the Mumbai headquarters,"
informs Bhatt.
Scarecrow's
future strategy is to work with more companies that have a
cluster of brands, products and services under them. It is
already associated with brands like Future Capital, DNA, Viacom
18, Nestle, Quikr, MVL & Pentair.
"Working
with such companies not only gives an agency exposure and
experience but also makes expansion of brand portfolio easier.
There is a tuning of sorts and both the parties are acquainted
with each other’s style of working and expectations,"
explains Bhatt.
The agency is eager to work with more brands across various
categories. “We are pretty strong in the financial services
category as we have already done work for Religare, Axis bank
etc. FMCG is the most sustainable category for any agency
as recession and slowdown do not really have a big bearing
on it. They give you a good strength. We were already in the
FMCG category but we have never planned communication for
an edible oil brand. So it will be a learning experience for
us too,” avers Bhatt.
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