Digital marketing firm GenY Medium helping brands improve image, revenues

Tell us about your background. What do you do during free time?

I am an Engineering graduate from IIT Kanpur and hold a MBA from IIM Bangalore, followed by over 30 years of corporate experience. I have been on the other side of the table so to speak from an advertising agency perspective. Have been on the client side in diverse sectors like automobiles, telecom, print advertising, oil and gas and government defense production, both in B2B and B2C (Suzuki, Airtel and DoCoMo, Times of India, Caltex and UPSC -Indian Ordnance Factories). This really helps in understanding the point of view and the key drivers from a client perspective. During my leisure time, I love to travel in India and abroad besides reading too. Currently I am reading ‘The Platform Delusion – who wins and who loses in the age of tech titans,’ written by Jonathan Knee.

When was GenY Medium founded and the reason behind it?

GenY Medium was founded in 2012 by two very enterprising IITians - Yashwant and Ravi. Yashwant was with P&G Japan and Ravi was working with VenturEast, a well-known venture capital fund. In their respective roles they saw the rise of digital as a channel that brands could leverage for their business growth, but the challenge was that nobody knew how. Hence, they built GenY on this opportunity to help brands build digital as a significant revenue channel.

What are the services provided and to whom does it cater?

GenY Medium provides end to end digital marketing solutions right from marketing transformation consulting to online reputation management. The list of services includes Performance & Programmatic marketing, Branding & Creative, SEO, Technology & Automation. We cater to three primary categories of clients -- Startups looking to scale exponentially, SMBs and Enterprises looking to leverage digital as a significant revenue channel, and Legacy companies looking to enter the digital orbit.

Why is digital marketing and branding important in today’s scenario?

The penetration and affordability of the internet has given rise to large amounts of content creation, content consumption and online transactions. This creates an opportunity for brands to build awareness, conversations and commerce on digital platforms. With digital media spends now going neck to neck with conventional media spends, it is evident that digital as a medium is driving experience and results that supplement a brands’ conventional offline efforts. Any brand which has not activated the digital as a channel will miss the bus to leverage a revenue stream.

How can GenY help companies improve their image and revenues?

Our performance marketing service helps brands leverage online channels to generate leads (for lead generating-driven businesses) and online sales (for e-commerce driven businesses). We base our campaign planning and execution on large amounts of data to drive great RoIs for our customers. Technology is used by us as a differentiator to bring in the desired efficiencies and bring down acquisition costs to improve revenues for the same marketing budgets. Our branding, creative and online reputation management service focuses on critical building blocks such as the brand’s positioning, imagery, tone of voice etc. Our team closely works with CMOs and brand managers to accurately translate the brand’s vision and desired perception.

What are the new wins of GenY and how do they help GenY grow?

As an agency, over the years we have built significant capability, success stories and a right to win in the real estate, education, healthcare and consumer goods sectors. Our new partners help us deepen our expertise in these segments and help us build sufficient success stories to give comfort and confidence to our potential clients in these segments. The new wins being - Real Estate - Ramky Constructions, Om Sree Builders, Vasavi Group Education - Eurokids, Indigo Learn, Sri Chaitanya ECF.

Who are GenY’s clients to whom you are the one-stop solution for all digital marketing-related services?

We work with a number of clients across sectors. Some of our clients include Welspun Flooring, Good Health Company, AAFT Group, Ramky Group, Vasavi Group, Hexaware, Fuijifilm Xair, Bajaj Auto, Total Environment, Twin Health, Wipro Bio Essence and Rania to name a few.

Why should one choose GenY services?

GenY Medium, unlike other agencies, is not an arm’s length operator. We deeply integrate with the client’s marketing, product and sales teams to build solutions to complex marketing problems. Our use of technology and analytics for marketing decision making sets us apart from most other players in our space.

What are your expansion and hiring plans?

We plan to expand our footprint in Delhi NCR and Bangalore markets. We currently have sales and client servicing offices there while all our deliveries happen out of Hyderabad. We would like to build on our current Delhi and Bangalore offices to increase our clientele from those cities.

How is the competition in the segment?

Digital marketing services as a space has become highly competitive with the rise of the number of agencies of all sizes. This in turn has led to pricing and margin pressure across all agencies. Differentiation in solutioning and servicing plays a key role in customer retention. Since the services are always available at a cheaper cost elsewhere, agencies must integrate deeply into the client’s marketing framework to retain the client and remain relevant.

What is the current size of the digital marketing sector? What are the current trends shaping it?

Group M estimates that the digital advertising spend is currently upwards at Rs 10,000 crore annually. While that only estimates the spend on media, there are many estimates doing rounds on associated services such as media management, production, creative services etc. While it is difficult today to estimate the size of this services market, it is getting highly commoditized as all companies have access to digital marketing. The trends that are shaping the industry today are primarily on three fronts. First, brands are always grappling with the issue of building their own team vs hiring an agency. While both have their set of pros and cons, this has a large impact on an agency’s ability to acquire clients. Second, shaping talent for the industry. There is limited formal education on digital marketing. It is not as evolved as IT or other service industries. Third is the evolution of technology. Artificial intelligence is turning out to be a game changer in terms of building delivery efficiencies and reducing turnaround times.

How will the digital marketing sector evolve in the next 10 years?

So far, on multiple fronts we see digital marketing following the trends of the early days of the IT sector. Going forward, I believe it will branch out on a different path compared to IT since digital marketing is a direct revenue function unlike IT which is an operational function. In terms of implementation, digital services will be commoditized where AI will do the heavy lifting and marketing minds do the strategizing. In terms of engagement models, most clients will build digital think tanks internally while outsourcing tactical and executional battles to agencies who must evolve to specialise in delivering efficiency and accuracy as a primary KPI.