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“Kuch viral bana do,” says every client ever. These clients aspire to emulate the success of brands like Zomato, Dunzo, Swiggy, and Amul – a few top brands that have been able to crack moment marketing in India. 

While Zomato, Swiggy, Dunzo, and more have become well known for their moment marketing, the dairy company Amul stands as a pioneer in churning out creative and quick OOH advertisements. Their content might be poles apart, but there’s one big similarity behind these brands’ success – quick approvals. 

Behind Amul's iconic ads lies daCunha Communications, an agency that secures quick approvals as it turns news into topical advertisements.

Rahul daCunha, Managing Director and Creative Head of the agency, has highlighted the trust shown by the brand several times. Furthermore, Zomato's risk-taking abilities and prompt decision-making often go unnoticed, which can be credited to the brand's ability to approve agency work and in-house ideas. 

If brands are hiring external agencies for social media creatives and OOH content, establishing trust is crucial. We speak to agency experts to understand what they need from clients to cultivate a successful client-agency relationship and foster creativity.

What makes Zomato’s content so viral?

Viren Sean Noronha, Co-founder, The New Thing says, “They haven’t become synonymous with meme formats, they’ve made their content look like it belongs on social media, which is predominantly memes.”

According to him, success in social media content is directly proportional to how much the content gives back to culture. Noronha shares two key learnings that brands can take into account.

-  Does your brand look like it belongs on social media?

-  What content culture is it giving back to? 

Yash Modi, Creative Director, VMLY&R believes that at the core of their social media success is agility. 

He shares, “Being able to stretch boundaries, erase guidelines helps the creative team think idea-first rather than format-first. What these brands are able to do is not have a templatised approach to social media. Some of their stories are literally shot on the copywriter’s phone and they’re not afraid to put it up.”

What do agencies need from brands?

A clear brief

While agencies want content in formats like Zomato, Swiggy and more new-age brands, there are always conversations in the ad fraternity which suggest that the shared briefs are not the clearest.

The New Thing’s Noronha highlights the first and most important thing a brief has to convey. 

“What does resolution look like for this campaign? Is it generating conversations? Is it sales? Is it awareness? Finding creative paths to that resolution then falls to the agency.”

- Viren Sean Noronha

The second best thing to include, according to him, is references. Not ‘a bad example would be’ but actual good examples of things that inspired the brief. The last is outlining a clear ask of whether the brand needs a film, social media posts or outdoor advertising. 

Quicker approvals

Tanvi Bosmia, Account Director, SoCheers remarks, “Creativity and innovation come from the creative liberty and trust from clients to believe in the expertise of the ad agency to make things happen.”

Which is why she mentions that quick approvals would help. There’s also a factor of understanding the kind of content that would suit the brand. 

Elaborating on the same, Bosmia comments that brands today are aware of the diverse platforms that are out there and the audience they want to cater to. The type of content that would appeal to different sets of audiences and what a brand like Zomato does, however, may or may not necessarily be relevant for another brand.

This is why it's important to foster creativity in advertising professionals.

According to Bosmia, “The most essential skill that’s fundamental for fostering creativity is the ability to create fresh, unique, and relatable content that the target audience can resonate with, and which can eventually be utilized in the ideas as solutions to the problem statement of the brand.”

Freedom

VMLY&R’s Yash Modi agrees with Noronha and shares that the garb under which clients give ‘open briefs’ often gets in the way of the creative process. In his case, he has seen open briefs get dissected into layers of guidelines and meetings, completely breaking down the point where the brief started from. 

Modi states, “Social is a fast-moving game; sometimes it needs instant approval. But the multiple hierarchies, strict guidelines, and absence of risk-taking ability turn out to kill some of the most exciting ideas.”

When the client is open to receiving anything and everything they think of, at least in the first round of ideas being shared, it helps them get into the depth of how a campaign could turn out to be, Modi continues. 

Risk-taking ability

Panisa Shah, Director - Creative, Social Beat divulges, “The fear of potential backlash, misinterpretation, or alienating a segment of the audience often results in prolonged decision-making. Striking a balance between creativity and brand alignment can be challenging, impeding approval."

Further expanding her statement, Shah mentions that the most innovative campaigns often emerge from the marriage of a robust brief with artistic liberty. With that said, data-driven insights are valuable, but they should not shackle the creative process.

For instance, the iconic brand Liril was able to reach a massive recall due to the client's risk-taking ability and trust in the late Alyque Padamsee’s vision to place a woman beneath a waterfall. 

Krishna Iyer, Director – Marketing at MullenLowe Lintas Group adds to this saying, “The client-agency partnership hinges on mutual faith and conviction of both parties. A brand's journey requires unwavering support from both the client and the agency.”

Iyer quotes a friend and fellow copywriter, Jonita’s tagline that reads, "Know Risks, Know Gains." 

He believes, “Remarkable campaigns are attainable through a ‘jugalbandi’ of well-defined objectives, a carefully earmarked budget, and a bold spirit of experimentation.”

Engaging with youngsters  

In today’s digital age, content often relies on the viral effect. And brands like Zomato have created a benchmark for the same, capitalising on memes in their viral content strategies. This is also backed by the fact that millennials and Gen Z, today, occupy 40% of the consumer population.

Shradha Agarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, Grapes mentions how while Zomato has created a space for itself with its content, it didn’t happen in one go. 

“It’s the consistency they have built over the years and established their marketing prowess. The brand has also taken some risky, offbeat calls along the way. To create effective content, we need to focus solely on the content, and let everything else take a backseat, even the need for a definite product mention,” Agarwal suggests. 

Sharing an example, she believes that brands like McDonald’s and Burger King have smartly executed some campaigns, using their competition to create lovable banter, throughout online and offline mediums. Several brands have tried to jump on this bandwagon over the years. 

According to SoCheers’s Tanvi Bosmia, “It's all about relatability and instant connection. Memes are like inside jokes we all get, and that's a goldmine for engaging people. Plus, memes are so easy to share, which is basically free advertising for these brands.”

In recent times, the Barbenheimer campaign made use of memes and marketing blitzes to generate a frenzy. The user-generated campaign got brands making creatives that hyped the movies while adding AI into the mix to picture how different scenarios would look. 

Bosmia shares, “These campaigns succeed because they have a very out-of-the-box approach, could connect emotionally with the audience, and embrace current trends. It's all about creativity, cultural insight, and adaptability.”

Additionally, Social Beat’s Panisa Shah, reveals that it's not just about creating memes, it's about creating memes that are 'of the moment'.

“For other brands aspiring to replicate this success, the key lies in understanding their audience, actively engaging in online culture, and being willing to take creative risks. Being authentic, humorous, and relatable are key factors, and they must be open to integrating user-generated content,” comments Shah.

Skills required

While clients have to be more open to agency opinions when it comes to crafting content, agencies also need to do their part.

Grapes’ Shradha Agarwal indicates, “Agencies need to be very clear on when will the brand consider the campaign successful, and what metrics will be used to measure the said success. Further, we are creative professionals, so we need a little room to exercise our creative muscles, within the scope of the brand of course.”

She highlights that Ownership, Hunger and Passion make up the ideal candidate, at least at Grapes.

Viren Sean Noronha of The New Thing comments that there are people who understand social because they are social. Being a social-first creator entails all the skills typically involved in advertising - ideation, conceptualization, writing craft, visualisation, execution and presentation.

He wraps the conversation by saying, “Social is the one job everyone thinks they can do but are more than happy not doing. The ones who do it understand that it is all experimentation.”

For this error to be resolved, clients need to clearly specify what they want in their briefs, and trust agencies by giving them the freedom to create content, take risks, and hand over quicker approvals. At the same time, agencies need to do their due diligence at clearly specifying the metrics to measure the success of a campaign.