Mumbai: Shweta Iyer and Heetal Dattani, senior advertising professionals with over two decades of experience each, join hands together to launch Nine Yards Communication Consultancy. Nine Yards is a full service communication consultancy that’s here to connect brands in a more meaningful way to the 480 million Indian women who either directly make or influence 80-85% of buying decision across categories. They believe that important for most brands today, to weave in a ‘She’ perspective into their conversations to stay relevant.
Heetal Dattani has worked across India, the Middle East, and Singapore with advertising agencies like Lowe, Publicis, Bates Enterprise, The Classic Partnership, Sideways Design Consultancy.
Shweta Iyer has worked with Rediffusion Y&R, Leo Burnett, Mudra, and JWT, Radio Mirchi and Edelman. Having worked in multiple leadership roles across functions, the duo would like to offer a new perspective to a brands storytelling journey across various dimensions.
Speaking about the lockdown launch Shweta Iyer, Founder Nine Yards says, “What the lockdown has primarily led to, is the further blurring of lines between tasks traditionally seen as ‘His Job’ or ‘Her job’. This further nudged us into building the ‘She’ story into brand conversations across categories, allowing us to add a different texture to it.”
On why the “she” story is even more relevant today, Heetal Dattani, Co-Founder, Nine Yards says “Around 80-85% of all buying decisions in India are either made or influenced by women. Brands that fail to see the women’s perspective might be missing a huge opportunity. We believe that while addressing women, the current story is pretty unidimensional. Nine Yards aims to enrich the narrative around women by creating conversations that break stereotypes – both traditional as well as progressive, leading to a closer, more meaningful connect with the Indian woman consumer.
Speaking about the unique positioning, Shweta Iyer, says, “a lot of people say that they will do things differently, but what we are saying is we are different in our offering itself .
Heetal adds: Our name ‘Nine Yards’ stems from the traditional saree that stands for the grace and power of the female, something that more brands should weave into their brand story today. We want to build the ‘She’ story into the way brands think, speak and act across mediums that are right for them.
According to Shweta “As dual income homes are increasing, we are seeing the shift in purchasing power even within categories like finance, real estate, and auto that have traditionally spoken to a male audience. Traditional gender roles are seen blurring and woman’s influence in decision making is equal or growing and that brings about a complete change in the buying landscape. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense for brands to include women in their thinking, communication and actions.
While Nine Yards chooses to start with a lean structure locally, the consultancy has formed a network of collaborators – multidisciplinary experts spread across geographies from innovation strategy experts in Singapore to retail and merchandising experts in Dubai. Since today, everyone is working from their respective geographic locations and we have seen it come together seamlessly, we choose to pick talent over geography. This allows us to put together optimum teams according to client requirements to make sure we get the right talent pool for every communication idea.”
