Advertising honcho and ex-COO, DDB Mudra, Pratap Bose, along with outdoor media expert Mandeep Malhotra, entrepreneur Arjun Reddy and former Senior Director at Accenture, Pradeep Uppalapati, have teamed up to launch The Social Street. Bose speaks about the plan of action for the new enterprise
By SALONI DUTTA
It was on-board an early morning flight from Singapore, shuttling between interviews at various media and creative agencies for the CEO job that Pratap Bose thought to himself, “This is probably going to be my last innings... do I really want to work for someone else again and crunch the same numbers, quarters, budgets, targets…?” The former COO of DDB Mudra didn’t take long to decide, that “It’s not happening.”
A few months later, after the Cannes Lions Festival 2014, Bose and Outdoor professional Mandeep Malhotra visited the Pont des Arts Bridge in Paris to attach a lock to it. A partnership was sealed, The Social Street had set up shop.
Brand stories begin on the street. They are inspired by the lives of consumers and the interesting mind spaces where they intersect with brands. The Social Street, another addition to the list of new agencies on the block, has forayed into the competitive ad world with a bang and a clear vision to find, narrate and amplify stories, no matter what form they take. Set up by Bose in partnership with Malhotra, entrepreneur Arjun Reddy and Pradeep Uppalapati, ex-Senior Director and India Lead for Global Corporate Development Team at Accenture, The Social Street wants ensures that stories are powerfully rooted in an authentic brand truth.
Rules of the Road
Speaking about the differentiating factor of The Social Street, Bose says, “95 per cent of start-up agencies today are in the advertising or digital space. We decided that we couldn’t just be in those same spaces. So, we got into what we call, ‘through the line services’ for now. All these specialised functions coming together as one integrated offering for the client, is what is unique.” Social Street is a euphemism for people on the streets and on the Internet highway.
Talking integration and collaboration, the agency has already seen a lot of synergy, with Josy Paul helping in coining the name and Bobby Pawar helping with the branding. Explaining how collaborations are the way ahead, Bose adds, “As an independent agency, we like to partner. A big agency would never do that. For instance, we got a digital brief last week, for which we called in five agencies and asked them if they would like to work on it together and all five agreed!” TSS already has 15-20 clients on-board across various operations.
“We have enough relationship capital and between us and have a great track record that’s boosting our client roster,” says Bose, clarifying that they are looking for clients who have the long-term potential to grow with the agency. These will of course be across the board - telecom, BFSI, FMCG, media publications, e-commerce et al.
Street Fighters
The Social Street has around 50 people on-board already and is looking at expanding that number to 140-150 by the end of the year and to about 450-500 in the next four years. Bose says, “It’s not all in place, to be honest. We will be hiring quite a few in the next three or four months. As far as acquisitions are concerned, we are in talks with a lot of companies as we speak.”
That said, acquisition is an integral part of their growth strategy. “We are not looking to grow bottom-up; we want to aggregate quickly with the best resources available in the country in whatever we do, whether it’s trade, digital, advertising or field marketing. Therefore acquisitions, mergers are just the right way to do it, obviously with the perfect partners,” Bose explains, adding that they are looking for acquisitions in the digital, social, retail and sports marketing domains.
As a digitally-driven agency, The Social Street claims to embrace the best in technology across its service offerings, which include branded content and entertainment, shopper marketing, media, out-of-home, retail, sports marketing, events and promotions, rural, trade and youth marketing, with operations in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore. Bose explains, “There may be big conglomerates that have all of those functions or some of those functions but very rarely are they able to co-create and combine the offering on the basis of a brief or a marketing problem. They work in silos. That’s where we are looking to differentiate ourselves.”
Shaping up the pudding
The agency’s solutions stem from the understanding that they want to weave stories and find meaningful solutions that make a difference. Bose talks about the youth today, citing an instance of his daughter who is not on Facebook or Twitter and doesn’t watch television but is a very active user of Snapchat. “Helping a youth brand use Snapchat as a medium to achieve their marketing objective is right up The Social Street’s mandate,” he says.
TSS has managed to seek significant investments but it was also one of the big challenges that Bose faced initially. “If you want funding not just for the launch but for expansion - acquiring talent, buying takes in advertising agencies, retail companies or digital and social media companies - then a huge amount of funding is essential and that’s not easy to come by. Fortunately we have had plenty of investors happy to come on-board,” he reveals.
The proof of the pudding is in its eating, and Bose thinks it is critical for Team TSS to build a solid brand which has top-of-the mind recall with clients within the industry and more importantly, makes everyone feel good to come to work each day.
Perhaps TSS’s employee-friendly mandates are already taking care of the latter - Bose has made it mandatory ‘for employees take a day off every week or work from home, apart from the weekend.’ “As long as the work gets done, flexibility is also important,” he says.
Feedback: saloni.dutta@exchange4media.com
