Tag: Rupert Day

 

 

WPP-owned tenthavenue, home to the media network’s ‘connected consumer’ agencies, has has announced today the launch of a new full service mobile agency model led by the groups’ mobile marketing arm, Joule. With this, Joule will attempt to simplify mobile marketing throughout emerging markets.

 

Under the leadership of Sudipto Roy, CEO for Developing Markets, Joule has been structured to simplify the complex emerging markets mobile marketing landscape. To deliver this, Joule has partnered with well-known mobile innovators globally, allowing brands operating in emerging markets access to global expertise aligned with local understanding.

 

Joule has a very client roster in India: Sudipto Roy   We asked Sudipto Roy, CEO, Emerging Markets, tenthavenue, a quick set of questions via mail. Could you dwell a bit on India. What will the Bengaluru office do? What is the team strength in India? Are the teams in centres other than Bengaluru in India? Who are your clients in India? Various GroupM agencies are already doing a fair bit of work in the mobile space… will these now be zoned under Joule, or will they co-exist?   He responded, highlighting two points made in the communiqué we received from his office. The pointers are in bold, and they are followed by his response.   “The services offered span enterprise level mobile experience design, asset design and build, connected consumer data architectures, integration, analytics, personalization, social listening, content strategy, distribution strategy, mCRM, content sourcing and delivery.” Any media agency today only focusses on distribution (buying of mobile ad inventory). Digital creative agencies largely focus on creating banners/ rich media content for campaigns/ campaign micro-sites and other tactical builds. We want to address the enterprise level integration of mobile into the company’s business and marketing ecosystem. And hence we bring specialised skillsets to the market which will really help deliver the promise of mobiles to the business.   GroupM and tenthavenue/Joule are separate organisations with different focus areas. It won’t come under Joule.   “We are creating a model of the agency of the future; sitting at the crossroads between meeting brand objectives and delivering consumer needs. We are building a model which truly start to bring alive the ‘connected experience’ vision. This is our first step in Asia in that direction and there is much more to come.” We are not building a standard agency which is filled with bodies in every office. We have a very decent client roster in India (I cannot reveal that at this stage). They are serviced from various nodes (Mumbai, Singapore). The client teams are at the forefront and the rest are all focussed on the delivery of projects from the processing centres. That’s how modern business is re-organising itself to be more nimble, cost-efficient and more capable as compared to the standard agency model (which is built on headcount and man-hours and needs staff in every office and every account). For evolved services, we will see off-shoring happening in a major way across the globe.

Tenthavenue, like GroupM, is a holding company under the WPP umbrella. There are several agency brands under this umbrella and Joule is one of them. As the holding group CEO for developing markets, the Joule organisation will report into Mr Roy.

 

The services offered span enterprise level mobile experience design, asset design and build, connected consumer data architectures, integration, analytics, personalization, social listening, content strategy, distribution strategy, mCRM, content sourcing and delivery.

 

Under this new model, Joule will have integrated delivery centres all over Asia, spanning Bengaluru, Shanghai, Beijing, Singapore, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Manila, Johannesburg and Ho Chi Minh, to manage production and give access to different capabilities.

 

Said Mr Roy: “By addressing the larger enterprise challenges of integrating mobile with the marketing eco-system, we are moving far beyond the traditional agency or mobile ad-distribution play. Bringing together audience data, hyper-targeting, content personalisation and intelligent distribution that resonates with the consumer allows us to create dramatically more value for the marketer.”

 

Meanwhile, Joule also announced the launch of Electra, an “emerging market” mobile communication platform using cloud-based technology to offer mobile solutions such as Interactive Voice Response, USSD (text), mobile incentives, payment, content personalisation and video content compression / delivery technologies. Electra has already been tested across more than one billion consumer interactions.

 

Said Rupert Day, Global CEO, tenthavenue: “We are creating a model of the agency of the future; sitting at the crossroads between meeting brand objectives and delivering consumer needs. We are building a model which truly start to bring alive the ‘connected experience’ vision. This is our first step in Asia in that direction and there is much more to come.”