What makes us stand ahead of the curve is our beautifully crafted work: SoCheers’ Siddharth Devnani & Rajni Daswani

What makes us stand ahead of the curve is our beautifully crafted work: SoCheers’ Siddharth Devnani & Rajni Daswani

More focus on the privacy of online users will be an overarching trend in the near future.

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Mumbai: Short for "Social Cheers," SoCheers was born with the desire to celebrate brand stories, achievements, and people. It started back in 2013 as an end-to-end digital marketing agency, infusing creativity into ever-evolving advertising technology to enable end consumers to interact with brands better. From setting up the business to the office administration to hiring, the directors have nurtured the spirit of SoCheers since its inception at every step of our journey.

Today, SoCheers provides digital marketing services to brands that don't just include digital presence but immersive experiences too. From heart-touching DVCs to catchy jingles, interactive microsites to engaging content, whatever the brand goals, the agency aims to breathe life into them and make it happen!

Its family comprises moody artists, creative souls, intellectual wizards, bossy bosses, and happy-go-luckies, all of whom are dedicated towards the common goals of creativity, efficiency, and fun.

Indiantelevision.com caught up with SoCheers co-founder & director Siddharth Devnani and director of digital marketing Rajni Daswani to find out more about the company.

In his role at Naaptol in 2012, Devnani learned the nitty-gritties of e-commerce, which led him to seriously consider the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur. He finally took the plunge in 2013 when he partnered to establish his own social media marketing agency, which has since evolved into a digital-first, full-service advertising and marketing agency.

In his own words, co-founding SoCheers was one of the boldest steps he took, and over the years, he has helped build the company into what it is today. From two interns to a highly skilled team of over 140 people now, he has been there for it all, from managing smaller accounts to running campaigns for global brands, setting up the team, evolving the processes, and scaling up the agency's offerings.

He also heads the finance team and is responsible for the revenue generation of the agency, ensuring its continued profitability. Gradually, his role has grown to include establishing and spearheading the media planning and buying division. More recently, he was at the centre of setting up the Digital Intelligence and Analytics (DIA) division, introducing social listening and other data-driven services to the list of the company's offerings.

It would be fair to say that he lives and breathes digital. Not only is he heading the technology branch of SoCheers, but he is often the person who can be seen foreseeing some interesting digital trends, which one might find in reports months later. This marks his in-depth knowledge and analytical mindset, not only for SoCheers but also for the entire digital ecosystem. As digital has grown in importance and acceptance among brands over the last few years, he is optimistic about the medium's future and how it will be at the heart of every marketing strategy.

Meanwhile, Daswani plays a crucial role at SoCheers as the director of digital marketing, where she guides teams to craft impactful campaigns for the agency's wide array of cross-industry brands while building the company's market share in a cluttered industry. She is also responsible for shaping a creative, positive work culture through hiring, training, and employee engagement while augmenting the SoCheers' brand through effective communication strategies. Daswani has created a niche for herself in a competitive industry through her intrapreneurial spirit and firm vision of establishing SoCheers as a leading agency on the global stage.

Her entrepreneurial journey of starting her own clothing line, Azraa, and her inclination towards using digital platforms to market her business, all together led her to SoCheers.

With a tremendous amount of varied experience under her belt and the skills to put it to practical and effective use, she was able to bring a lot on board to SoCheers.

Her strength lies in harnessing the several nuances of digital to deliver a unique storytelling experience to the audiences, while generating visibly positive business results for the clients. Last year alone saw her achieve this several times over in a diverse range of projects, like The Family Man Job Hunt for Amazon Prime Video India, Venom: #ChocolatesMissing for Sony Pictures Entertainment India, The Big Move for Tata Consultancy Services, and many others.

Excerpts:

On the market that SoCheers saw when it launched

Siddharth: It was the time when digital marketing was just starting to blossom. Brands (especially the progressive ones or the big ones) were also seen spending only 5 to 15 per cent of their budgets on digital versus the smaller/ traditional brands, which were seen allotting merely zero to one per cent. It was the time when brand custodians saw mainline advertising mediums dominating their marketing plans for business growth and visibility, while digital was considered merely for some presence. On the other hand, while we had a handful of legacy agencies optimising digital, there were also social media agencies making their foray.

Looking at it all, my co-founder Mehul Gupta and I saw an opportunity and wanted to not just ride the wave, but be a driver of the digital shift. It was definitely an uphill task convincing brands about how seriously digital can impact their growth, but almost 10 years into it and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of it!

On the target growth of 75% this year and what is expected in 2023

Siddharth: We charted 65 per cent growth in FY'21–22 (March-April), which makes us confident for steep growth in 2023 as well. The revenue has been strongly progressing over the years, which further predicts growth in the coming months.

On its USP vis-a-vis competition

Siddharth: The USP of the agency primarily lies in providing integrated digital-first solutions to the brands, enabling them to build engaging narratives. As an agency, we provide a wide spectrum of digital marketing services, which are not confined to social media marketing, content creation, design, social listening, video strategy & marketing, and media strategy & planning. But, in a space like ours, it is about standing ahead of the curve. And truly impactful narratives lead you to achieve this proposition. We see ‘ourselves’ as our biggest competitor, and hence, we try to grow from where we were last year.

What makes us stand ahead of the curve is our beautifully crafted work, which has left a mark in the industry, namely "The Family Man Job Hunt," "Mirzapur Purvanchal Ke Samachar," and "#WhereIsME?" for Prime Video India; "The Big Move" for Tata Consultancy Services; "Innoventia" for Cipla (which stemmed from the idea of Shark Tank before it even came to India), and many more.

None of this, however, would have been possible without the stellar team that we have! And our people truly are our biggest USP.

On the strategy to grow even during covid

Rajni: Our strategy for covid was two-pronged: work and people.

From the get-go, it was understood that flexibility and adaptability in everything we did were going to be critical. We were quick to pivot to goals that could be best achieved within a global pandemic: ideas that could be executed remotely, messaging that prioritised empathy over all else, and content that capitalised on the increased time spent online by the masses. We also focused our energies on recognising the market sectors that were thriving during this time and worked towards bringing them into the fold.

All of this, however, largely depended on our people. Apart from making the transition to working from home smooth, we strongly focused on maintaining the SoCheers culture while working virtually. From fun activities like Cheerland and Cheer Camp, which helped the people bond, to multiple virtual workshops and sessions that helped everybody’s personal growth. We aimed to address all the issues that rose with every phase of the pandemic and not have a one-size-fits-all approach.

On the growing importance of research and data analysis

Siddharth: For a long time, research and data analytics have been associated with technical industries and executions rather than creative output. But cases of it playing an important role in delivering targeted creative campaigns have increased manifold in the recent past. It helps an agency’s work be the right kind of creative for the right audience. It is about assessing the audience's emotions through social conversations and creating an innovative storytelling experience that is relatable to the audience. It not only adds to the quality of the final product but is also a feasible option for the brands, as it allows them to adjust the scale of the execution based on the target audience.

On the challenge that clients are facing in a rapidly changing digital landscape

Rajni: I think the biggest challenge that the clients are facing today is to break through that content clutter and stand ahead of the competition with engaging content.

Post-pandemic, there has been an increase in the marketing efforts by the brands, which has led to a huge rise in the number of campaigns that went live in a year. From just two or three campaigns in one year to now at least six per brand, including both small and big. With today's consumers' short attention spans, brands and agencies are being more cautious about the content and communication in their campaigns.

On the work done recently that stands out

Siddharth: We recently conceptualised and executed a campaign that stood out for us, in which we attempted to provide audiences with a seamless combination of digital and physical experiences. When Prime Video India released "Modern Love: Mumbai," bringing the popular international series to India, we took the opportunity to spread love across the city. We asked the audience to tweet their versions of the "modern love story," and we then shared their responses on digital screens across key locations around the city!

Rajni: To add to Siddharth’s answer, my personal favourite campaign recently has been the one we did for Croma around the iPhone 14’s pre-launch. In a twist on the usual gifts that influencers get, we confused the content creators by sending them 14 apples one random morning. They later figured out that it was our way of announcing the prelaunch, but not before they took to social media to complain about this bizarre gift in their unique ways. The fans and the audience absolutely adored it!

Another creative social media execution that stood out was the one for Amazon MiniTV. We got amazingly quirky responses when we asked the youth of social media what they wanted: "Young Janta Ko Kya Mangta Hai?" And then we fulfilled them in equally quirky ways! It was fun all around. Apart from the afore-mentioned ones, Ed-a-Mamma’s "Out is In" is yet another that seamlessly builds resonance towards conscious clothing. The quirky and playful pictures highlighted why and how "out" is fun and that this trend is "in" for the holiday seasons.

On the role of short video as a marketing tool

Rajni: It’s no secret that the average attention span of a user online has been continuously decreasing. And with the ever-increasing popularity of Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and the array of home-grown short-form video platforms, people are gravitating toward the format like never before. In such a landscape, the power of short videos as a marketing tool is unparalleled. It gives any campaign a highly engaged audience base, which is less likely to skip a short video ad compared to a longer one. Moreover, influencers also prefer to interact with their followers via the shorter format, allowing advertisers another strong avenue of marketing.

On whether the lack of a standard measurement system is an issue in digital

Siddharth: Business impact can be measured by many yardsticks, including revenue growth, brand visibility, stronger positioning, campaign reach, and so on and so forth. It is a combination of objective and subjective parameters that, given the tools and techniques available, are far more measurable in digital. I believe chasing one standard measurement should not be the goal because business problems and brand briefs will always be unique, and embracing them is the first step of a successful campaign.

On the role that AI and ML are playing in digital marketing

Siddharth: Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) are not new in our field. For a long time, companies like Facebook and Google have used these technologies in the backend to precisely target audiences in digital campaigns. However, it is now that I see AI at the forefront. From using digital art tools like dall.e for making graphics on the fly to dynamically generating hyperpersonal videos, there has been a lot happening in this space, and a year from now we'll be glaring at the progress.

On the challenge of finding and retaining talent

Siddharth: We have always believed that people make the organisation, so we’ve also always taken great care to create and nurture a team that consistently goes above and beyond to be just a little bit better every time. Having set this high benchmark for ourselves, it sometimes becomes a challenge to find and retain talent that can keep up with it. Both the existing team members and the potential ones need to be driven to thrive in a dynamic environment.

Rajni: Adding to what Siddharth said, we believe in nurturing the leaders of tomorrow. However, the younger generation today is very exploratory in nature and wants to try their hand at anything that they see as a lucrative option. For instance, if we are interviewing for a position in client servicing, there have been many times that we have understood that the candidate is not really interested in CS per se but, say, in an influencer marketing role, considering that the latter is one of the most talked about things currently.

But to sustain and grow in an agency like ours, it is very important to be focused, passionate, and striving. Therefore, it becomes a bit difficult for us to figure out the right talent as well as retain it.

On the role that the metaverse will play in expanding the scope of digital marketing

Siddharth: There is no doubt that the metaverse has a lot of potential; it can very well bring out many more aspects of digital marketing. It started off as a buzzword, but we haven’t seen as much adoption as expected. I am still curious and bullish about its adoption and evolution in the coming years. Marketing on the metaverse will be profitable for brands only when millions of people -- not just niche, tech-savvy groups -- actively interact within the space. And that is only possible when feasible infrastructure to access the metaverse is available across the spectrum. Moreover, with the pandemic boosting confidence in brands for all things digital, metaverse is positioned as the organic next step to expand the scope of digital marketing.

On key trends expected in digital marketing in 2023

Siddharth: The essence of digital marketing is constantly changing and evolving, moving above and beyond branding and advertising. Holistically, the coming year will see more inclusive, diverse, and connected communication towards consumers, strengthening their experiences.

More focus on the privacy of online users will be an overarching trend in the near future. Google being set to end the use of third-party cookies by 2024 is one of the most prominent steps towards that goal. This will disallow advertisers from using precision targeting, but it’s altogether a highly positive step in the grand scheme of things. Moreover, other methods are already being developed to achieve targeted marketing without any privacy breach. Google has run through a few options, like FLoC (federated learning of cohorts), without anything sticking yet, so it’d be interesting to see what finally comes out as the viable alternative.

Rajni: Influencer marketing has long since transcended the status of a passing fad, to the point where there are elements within it that are gaining traction among audiences and will be expected to trend in 2023. One of them is the rise of gen-z influencers and content creators marketing to a specifically gen-z audience. Another microtrend within this sphere would be brands employing micro influencers to reach out to a target market segment in tier II and III cities and towns.

On whether inflation and an expected hard land recession in 2023 will see marketing spends shift from traditional media to digital

Siddharth: Digital is definitely more cost-effective from a performance marketing perspective. Such flexibility automatically makes it the more viable choice during any financially strained time. We might see brands and marketers increase their digital budgets in the coming year as compared to before, especially since its significance has been brought to the forefront during the pandemic. While the overall percentage split between traditional and digital is likely to grow for the latter, it won’t reverse altogether.