 Welcome to exchangeformedia.com. With me today is a leader who's practically breaking all traditional codes of a media agency. His agency is sometimes called as a digital agency. He has a content team which is giving tough competition to creative agencies. So please welcome Mr. Ajay Gupta, CEO of WaveMaker India. Ajay, congratulations on completing five years. Thank you, Nazia. Thank you so much. Thank you for the kind words and thank you for the wishes. A very proud moment. Five years is a wonderful landmark and I'm very happy to have reached it in this form. WaveMaker has been doing well ever since its inception and the most remarkable thing was that during pandemic also you did not slow down. You could keep the momentum going. And as I mentioned that the most popular thing about you and your agency is that you're actually breaking a lot of traditional codes. Would you want to talk about it? How did this idea of doing the kind of work that you've been doing, the canberra that you did, the first meta wedding that you did, even a lot of content that you've been creating. So where has that, where all the idea came from? I think there is firstly method to the madness and it's all part of a plan that we are all meticulously working towards. So firstly, I think we are all very driven by our global CEO's vision to be the world's most wanted media agency. And we all are passionately wanting to make sure that we hold the mantle of India's most wanted media agency. I think that is something that is really driving us. Now going into how we've been able to really transform and move with the times. I think there are two key elements to this. The first is our basic DNA which has always been innovative, trying to do something different. And this goes right from the Maxis days. And in India, wave maker, large part of wave maker has been Maxis and also MEC. So the DNA there was always to try and do things differently to innovate. And if you remember, Maxis has been the most awarded agency for many years. I think that is the start of DNA. And right from those days, we have invested in areas ahead of its time. So I remember I used to be part of Maxis, I used to head with early operations in 2005. And then we had a content team, right then. Not too many media agencies then thought beyond in radio television. And a little bit of digital, I think digital was at 1% spend in those days. So we had a strong digital team, we had a content team, I think. So there is a DNA and there is a history to the way that we have worked to the business. I think that's one part of it. The second part of it is the wonderful leadership team that I'm fortunate to have with people. Whether it is ahead of digital, ahead of content, ahead of strategy, or off his heads, ahead of training, they're all possibly the best in their field and all passionately trying to grow and transform the business to stay ahead of the curve. So I think these two elements have really kept us ahead. The pandemic, like you said, for WaveMaker was kind of an opportunity for us to bring all of this together. And we were able to stitch together the capabilities we have for our clients. And the other advantage we really had is this vast basket of clients that you work with. It's so wide and broad that it allowed us to deliver different kinds of expertise, learn from it and then take it to the other clients. And hence, we were able to really add that much value to our clients. And I think that is what has really worked extremely well for us. So it's our passion to be most wanted. It's our DNA, it's the kind of leadership we have, our client base that is allowed to us to do different things and then learn and implement it for our clients. I think that has worked very well for us. Aji, behind every successful organization is a very good team that you're already talking about. But what we hear in the industry is that retaining talent has become a very difficult task for most leaders. So how at WaveMaker you've been able to do that and if you have been able to do that because we have been hearing a lot of movements in the last few years across agencies. So what kind of future-ready practices have you brought in within the organization? You're absolutely right. It's a very real challenge that this industry faces in terms of retaining talent and keeping the best talent with you because your talent is not only restricted to other media agencies who are very competitive, but other areas like clients are looking for it, startups are looking for this kind of talent, media is looking for this kind of talent. So there are massive opportunities for talent and therefore it is important for us to make it exciting for people to stay. People don't only work the moment. People want to work to be able to do something different, to be able to add to their careers. They want to add to their experiences and want to build successful careers. So I think that is extremely important. People also want to be on the winning side. They want to work where there is exciting work happening. They want to work where there is differentiated work happening where there is recognition. And I think the kind of work that you've been doing, I'm really proud to say that our retention levels are the highest amongst our peer group and also amongst the industry that I'm aware of. We've been able to retain our talent. What could be your retention level if you had to give me a percentage? I think our attrition is around the 20 to 24 percent mark, which is fairly low in this industry. It is much lower than everybody else. And I think a few things that go behind it. So like I said, from the talent perspective, it's about wanting to work at a place that gives me opportunities to grow, gives me opportunities to learn and also in a place which is doing well. You don't want to be in a boat which is not really doing well. You want to be part of the system which is winning. So I think that is doing very well. On the other side, from our side, I think we've built capabilities in areas unheard of possibly a few years ago and not too many agencies have invested in. So we've got audience scientists like I spoke about to you earlier. We've got content creators. We've got copywriters. We've got social media specialists. We've got social media analysts. We've got hardcore data analytics people. So there's such a vast platform for people to work in. And we really believe in allowing people to do things that they want to do. So there are quite a few examples now within the company where senior resources working in a particular field have come up and said, we'd like to build this practice for you. And you said, okay, go ahead and build the practice. And let's see where it goes. We had the ability to invest. One of the examples is Web 3.0 and Metaverse. One of our senior client leadership members came up and said, I want to do something different. He said, why don't you take this up? He's taken it up. We've got show me first. We're building expertise. We are expanding our lead against everybody else. And I think we're building capability there. There's another guy who came up and said, I want to lead D2C for you. Direct to consumer. So we said, go ahead and lead it. Now, he's built expertise. He's built capability. He's built the ecosystem now for us to take to our clients. So I think opportunity to do something different to learn a lot from our side. A lot of experience thanks to our clients. A lot of opportunity thanks to our clients to do differentiated work is what is creating the attraction from our side. And I think that has worked really well because it shows in our action. There is another thing I have heard which I'm really proud of is a lot of people coming into HR and saying, we want to work with WaveMaker. I think that is an exceptional testament. And that's the thing I'm most proud about because that really is the truth of what we're doing. So you were talking about clients and pandemic was a difficult time. You helped clients sail through that. So this year, festive season again did not turn out to be as good as you all would have wanted it to be because of global recessions or the rise of investments for various reasons. So how was it this year? What all did you do for your clients differently this year? Again, to help them overcome the fear that they really look up to. And you have a lot of FMCG clients. You have clients for whom this festive season is very important. Yeah. So actually, if you ask me, I think the consumer is a lot more optimistic than the brands have been. Wherever I speak with clients, I think the offtake has been fairly good. And however, there are challenges with margins with the bottom line. And also, there is the global pessimism that is affecting us in a way. But from a customer perspective, I think the customer is right there. Now, when budgets are tight, what clients are looking for basically is maximum return on every rupee invested. So I think that is the key. So how do I ensure that my client is getting the best return or is being able to utilize his money in the best possible fashion. And I think we've been able to deliver that in many ways, starting right from the whole attribution journey, the first party data journey of being able to help our clients create the first party data collection ecosystem, collecting the data, enhancing the data, and then being able to activate the data is something that we started with a couple of clients. And now I'm happy to say they're working with 25 clients on that. Now, this is an area which is completely addressable. We are making communication addressable. It is accountable. And there is an instant, I mean, there is guaranteed return on investment and therefore helps our clients maximize revenue from their investments is one part of it. The second part of it is engaging with the consumers becoming a lot more important because of the amount of options he has and his short attention span. And therefore being able to create content, which is digital friendly, which is OTP friendly, and our ability to really put that together for our clients is definitely supported by clients. If you go ahead in terms of e-commerce, in terms of creating commerce opportunities for our clients, I think that's the other piece which we have invested in and we've been able to support our clients. So whether it is starting with better attribution, better addressability, and better engagement with the consumer or creating opportunities for commerce, I think across the spectrum, we have been able to actually work with a very large span of our clients and being able to deliver this value to them, all of which eventually help them maximize return on their investments, which is a great support in this kind of period. You mentioned that budgets were tight. How tight were they this time? If you can give me a broader idea, not whatever you tell me for your clients would also be for everyone else. So I'm asking for a generic thing for the entire industry. Typically, you see a massive upside getting into the festive period. You see a definite upsurge happening maybe a couple of months or 45 years before festive and then lasting for about a month after. I think that massive upsurge has not happened in that way. Was a marginal upsurge? Yes, there has been a marginal upsurge. It hasn't been the way you expected to just jump up. It hasn't been that way. There has been an upsurge compared to the normal, the flat. So compared to pandemic years or compared to 2019 also? No, compared to a normal year. Compared to a normal year, you would expect the festive season to give you a lot better impact. But I think that has been a little subdued. It is better than a normal month, certainly, but not to the levels that you usually expect to see. What according to you were the reasons? I mean, we know of broader reasons like recession and other things, but what would you? I think it's a combination of pressure on margins. Like I said earlier, raw material costs, there's an impact of China or Russia. That's one impact. The second is drying up of investments which are coming from a lot of global markets investing in our startups. And our investors also becoming a lot more tight with their funds, tightening their first strings. I think combination of these two along with the pessimism in global markets who have operations in India and therefore want to have a little more austerity in the way they function and therefore being a little more cautious. I think a combination of these three have ensured that it's not as big as we thought it would be. How long do you see this to continue? I think we have a challenge at hand at least for the first quarter and I hope things will get better after that because like I said, the consumer is still optimistic and I think we are in a market which is growing and there is a lot of opportunity. So I think people will eventually see the benefit of investing in marketing communication. And also there are enough examples to prove that whenever the growing gets tough it is those clients who have invested who have no benefits going forward. So I think that will come into play. It might take the first quarter, the end of the first quarter for it to be realized. You also spoke about creating shorter consumable content for younger people. So if you can give us some examples of what kind of work. I saw one very beautiful thing you did with that stand-up comedian Zakir Hassan on Mother Dairy. So what more have you done and what more are you planning to do in coming days? That was one of our very flagship pieces of work that we did but there have been so many other pieces of work and beautiful pieces of work. So there is one piece of work we did for Perfecting which is with Dharma Productions for one of their bands. We created this short, I think it was a 30 second or a one minute film which came in two parts which is a girl mid-boy in a mid-life time. It was beautifully done and you know typical Dharma production kind of work beautifully done. So I think that was a wonderful piece of work. There's loads of content that we've been creating for our client Perna and in fact there is a very nice show which is running on one of the OTTs which is about the Scottish trails about the history of Great Scotch and where it is manufactured and you've got Kunal Kapoor going across and visiting the distributors and that's great content. Apart from that I think across the board there have been a lot of tech-enabled work. So there's some games being created along with AR for some of our clients and it's on packs with the QR code and there are other small pieces of content similarly which, sorry about this. I don't know how to disconnect the phone from it. So there are other pieces of work which for MTR for example where we worked with the captain of the Indian Women's team and did some interesting, you know created some small short form content for them. And which is the next that Kanpuri Shah Rukh Khan thing which is going to make us proud at Cannes next year again. So yeah, when do we see it next? Yes, so there is already a wonderful piece that has come out and in association with our partner's ability that we've done on Mondays. There's another piece of work which is just, I don't know if you've seen it, but it's another excellent piece of work which is helping small detailers, small hawkers to get online and sell their produce of all their wares. And I think that's another big story for us but apart from that I think there's some great work. There's a piece of data connected work that we've done for Luminous which basically Luminous is UPS and what we did was we tied up the data source which tells us when power goes off in a particular locality. And we use that input to communicate to users in that particular area saying why don't you get Luminous and I think it has worked extremely well. So this is a wonderful example of data and creativity working together which we are really, really proud of. So Ajay, before we close it, end of the day, we are all chasing targets and it's even tougher for you. A lot of pitches that did not happen during 2020 finally happened in 21 or early 2022. How has it been in terms of business events? So I think we've won a lot of business and what I'm really happy about is that I think I'm really happy about the projects. The first is that we've won a lot of business in areas, in new areas of work. So even organically from our existing clients as well as some new clients. So whether it is performance, whether it is e-commerce, whether it is social analytics, whether it is advocacy, we are willing a lot of business in new areas. So clients are definitely seeing us bringing this benefit onto the table. I think that's been a marvelous run. And the other thing that I'm really proud about is that I've had quite a few clients call me up and say, I would like to work with you. And we've been winning business, not necessarily with a pitch but going in and getting the business. And also even when it's a pitch, you're going in with a lot of priming stage bias as you say. You're going in with a lot of positive feeding from the client's perspective. So I think to me that has been wonderful. The business has been coming in regularly. Lots of wins. In terms of number, would you want to say number? So I think this year we have, in terms of a percentage number possibly, we have added about 10% of our buildings through new business, which I think is phenomenal. And like I said, a lot of it in new areas and areas that we're building expertise in. This will be the last question. So I just wanted to understand from you that you know when there's recession in big global markets. So does that, and India so far has been doing decent. It's just that our festive season did not do as well as we wanted it to be. But we're still not officially going through a recession. So does that add to your pressure? Do you have to perform extra to cover up for the global numbers that they're losing in other markets? See, India is a very important market in the global system. We are a top five market today for most industries and for ourselves. So definitely the world is looking towards us. And our numbers, fortunately, with all the pessimism and all the negativity, I think we are still growing and at a fairly fast pace. And therefore, there's a lot of hope and a lot of expectation from India. So definitely there is a lot of pressure. But I think it's good pressure. It's for a good reason. It's for a reason that we are growing. And therefore, it's great pressure. And I think that keeps us going. It tells us that we are leading the pack and doing really well. So it's a wonderful time to be in India and it's a wonderful time to be doing well in India. Ajit, thank you so much. And while I congratulate you, or for you know, we make a completing five years, I should also congratulate you for winning all the awards this year across platforms for not your agency also won and you, as a leader, have also won many awards. So you know, thank you again for speaking to us and we wish you all the best. Thank you very much, Nadia. Thank you so much.