Staying relevant, helping brands grow key to sustainable growth in advtg space : BEI JMD

Being in the business for over 25 years across multiple categories & brands, BEI Confluence believes in providing holistic, integrated solutions to a brand that show results be it in strategy, acreative, digital or media and brands can deal with one window through a single point agency. Abhishek Gupta, Joint Managing Director (JMD), BEI Confluence, talks about how the company has grown to be amongst the top five fully Indian owned among the 360 advertising agencies in India for over the last 5 years. In North India, it is one of the biggest agencies providing brand strategy & creative, mainline media & deep-tech digital services to its clients through a ‘single-window’. With HQ in Delhi NCR, the agency handles leading brands across different cities in India

How does your agency stand out in the marketplace?

Well, BEI Confluence has been in the business for over 25 years across multiple categories & brands. Ultimately what really matters to brands is the growth trajectory above all else and a responsible agency, who can stand shoulder to shoulder with the brand team and make things happen. Specifically, for us, what helps us stand out are two things: a) We are able to provide holistic, integrated solutions to a brand that show results be it in strategy, creative, digital or media and brands can deal with one window through a single point agency b) The people behind the brand knows that they can rely on BEI Confluence. We are in a dynamic field, which is unpredictable and today one needs a partner who takes equal responsibility and ownership especially when times are tough. We do not believe in pulling hierarchies or complex internal protocols – if there’s a requirement, at our end we stand up and get it done, no matter the odds. Clients love this, appreciate it and want more of it.

How has advertising evolved over the years?

This is a complex subject. Advertising has certainly evolved over time. New consumers, new cultural insights, new platforms, new formats have changed the way traditional marketing communication used to operate. But some things still remain the same. You still need a great product, a differentiated USP, a relevant consumer insight and a great creative idea to establish a brand. It is only a matter of adapting to today’s landscape, which is of course, easier said than done.

Which are your most challenging brands and why?

It will not be right to take names. But I can say that all advertising agencies (whether traditional or new age) have a particular set of brands which are challenging. Challenging because of the category they operate in, challenging because of budget constraints or sometimes simply due to the idiosyncrasies of people, or judgement of creative ideas. Somewhere deep down inside, a lot of ad men & women are intrinsically wired to solve problems – be it brand led, or people led. So going beyond challenges is mostly a daily routine for most of us.

How are advertising styles different in North India as compared to South India?

Once at Coca Cola – when I used to be a part of the Ogilvy network, I had the real time experience to actually analyse the difference between North & South India when it comes to marketing & communication. To me it is a substantial difference which will need deeper level conversations. But in brief, North India & South India has very different cultural fabrics. As a matter of fact, within the South – there are state-wise differences in behaviour. As advertising professionals we deal with behaviour, and behaviour is reflective of the culture and people. Therefore, fundamentally, there’s behavioural difference between North & South, which we must respect while creating communication ideas for both. Gone are the days, where you could simply dub the Hindi master TVC and run it in the South. Now, you’d want to create advertising specific to the region. Remember, Thums Up launching Mahesh Babu for Andhra and Salman for all Hindi speaking markets.

Which are your major clients and which are the most challenging clients?

At BEI confluence, we are privileged to handle a large number of exciting brands. Some of the major businesses are RadicoKhaitan, Modi Group (Mederma Scar Gels) JK Group (JK Paper, Fun Flips) Biryani By Kilo, Total Energies, Kajaria (Kerovit), Hero Motors (HMC) Birla Group, Jindal Stainless Steel, Insecticides India (Agro Chemical) Apollo Pharmacy, Mrs. Bectors (English Oven &Cremica) Ziggy (Cakes). Like I mentioned above, all brands irrespective of who handles it will always have their own set of challenges especially in today’s highly cluttered industry and fleeting consumer mind space. The idea has always been to make sure we provide new and holistic solutions to brands which help them grow in a sustained way.

What are the main revenue streams for BEI Confluence?

Our revenue model is built on a month-on-month fee structure largely, apart from media. A fixed retainer model helps us optimise operations in a more structured, systematic manner. Media of course is an important division – be it mainline or digital and it continues to add to the overall revenues of the company.

How is BEI Confluence factoring sustainable growth?

We see sustainable growth in two ways. Firstly, our growth is always dependent on the brands that we help grow. And that happens when we work together for a longer period of time. We have always been lucky to work with brands who have continued associating with us over years, sometimes decades. Secondly, as the marcom ecosystem evolves, we too have been evolving. We get more businesses that are digital first and even traditional companies prefer spending more on digital than mainline media. We strongly believe that staying relevant and helping brands grow in their business is the real key to creating a sustainable growth strategy for the company.

How has the company faired financially over the years?

The company has been growing y-o-y, thanks to a wonderful team and a great set of brands. During Covid, when the entire industry was completely shaken up, we were privileged to have closed the FY on a single digit growth. Yes, it was tough but again thanks to the internal teams and more importantly the clients, there were no losses. Our performance over the last couple of years has been particularly good. We closed FY 23/24 approx. around 14 per cent over last year. And this year the targets are much more aggressive.

What are the strategic initiatives the company has taken over the last five years?

I can talk about 2 large strategic initiatives which have happened in the last 2 years. Firstly, we got into a JV with a Kolkata based Tech Company and formed a company called GroX. This JV was done specifically for 2 things; a) To offer tech based solutions to brands from Websites to Applications to Sales Force Automation Tools to AR/VR Solutions – now through the JV we have more direct access to these b) To tap into business opportunities in East – which is now relatively easier to service with a local team based out of Kolkata via the JV.

The second strategic initiative was to rope in ShahidHussain as the National Creative Director for BEI Confluence. Shahid is a seasoned advertising professional who has worked with agencies as well as the brand’s side in his illustrious career. After having spent over a decade across agencies like Ogilvy, JWT, Leo Burnett, FCB he moved to Uber& Bewakoof.com where he used to head their internal creative teams. Shahidspecialises in digital first advertising where he has immense experience across brands like Google, Amazon, Web 3 companies and his addition enables us to do more cut through work in digital. It also helps our team to get more sharper training under Shahid’s leadership and experiment with more digital first ideas and execution.

What are your future plans?

We have a clear five year roadmap where we have set our vision on becoming one of the topmost independent advertising networks in the country. For achieving the vision, we are focusing on the following:

A) Increasing our geographical footprint. While we already have brands across North, East, West & South India – operations for which are all centralised from our HQ. But we strongly feel there’s more room for growth in other parts of the country and we want to aggressively tap into those opportunities.

B) We are investing in strengthening our internal resource structure. The process has already begun – and this is a key area of focus across all disciplines c) More initiatives across the current and future advertising platforms which GenZ / Gen Alpha is frequenting. The more we stay relevant in these areas, the better growth opportunities.

C) We want to target more categories which are beyond FMCG/FMCD – categories like gaming, tech products, web3technologies.