Virtue Worldwide, the agency powered by Vice Media Group, builds brands from inside culture. A full-service strategic and creative agency with industry-leading expertise, Virtue helps brands find an authentic voice at the epicentre of culture.
With a presence in 17 cities across 13 countries, Virtue is a ‘borderless’ agency, putting together bespoke teams of people with diverse skills, backgrounds, and perspectives. Virtue works with brands like Coca-Cola, HBO, Logitech, P&G, General Mills, JW, Black Dog, Fastrack perfumes, Black &White, Puma, H&M, Volkswagen, McDonald’s, eToro, Red Bull, and Beats.
Medianews4u.com caught up with Sumbul Khan – Business Lead, India market Virtue Worldwide.
Q. The agency says that it is all about playing inside of culture. What does this entail?
We live in an era where the consumer is 100% in control. They can skip, scroll or choose to ignore you. Culture, on the other hand, is something that consumers actively seek out. In fact, often, they will willingly pay for it. This includes that cool show you can’t wait to binge on, that album from that artist that drops in 48 hours, fashion drips, art, film, experiences. This is our playground and this is the kind of work we want to make. Stuff that is born from the cultural zeitgeist, stuff that will enrich people’s lives and stuff that will outlive us. Our background as an agency born within VICE allows us to do this very easily and far more credibly than anyone else.
Q. For 2024 what are the goals?
To enrich our partner’s culture cred through work that entertains. To work with more courageous, like-minded people. To hire more talent that is decidedly un-advertising in their thinking.
Q. The focus is to ensure that consumers find the brands you work with relevant in their daily lives. What are the things you do to achieve this?
We look for synergies between what our clients want to achieve and what culture is saying. A brand is only relevant if it adds back something to a consumer’s life. Today consumers see culture as the thing that entertains, informs and enriches. Our focus is to find more ways in which a brand can matter in the ever-evolving cultural fabric of our time.
Q. What role does AI play for Virtue Worldwide in delivering work more effectively and quickly?
On a daily basis we use AI most often on the art and design side of things to make mocks and comps that would otherwise take us days. That said, we believe that as Gen AI stands currently, considerable human intervention is needed to produce anything close to quality. That intersection between human emotion and AI precision is what we try very hard to achieve.
Q. Your campaign for Black and White Ginger Ale focussed on diversity and inclusion. Is it important that the brand also lives these values to make the campaign more meaningful?
That is brand building 101! Advertising can talk, but unless a brand walks the talk so to speak, nothing will make sense. Moreover, in a hyper-social, cancel-culture world to not live your brand values is nothing short of hara-kiri. Thankfully, none of our partners are the kind to leave their values to mere words on a slide.
Q. For Bacardi you targeted the youth. According to recent research what does GenZ expect from marketing and campaigns?
If we had to sum in up in two words it would be Authenticity and Accountability. We love this trend because it ensures we move advertising out of its airbrushed un-reality and start having conversations that are real. Gen Z is big on sustainability too. As they should be! You may have the most interesting product but if it’s bad for the planet or toxic in its message, prepare for a reckoning!
Q. Are short form videos for brands growing in importance or is there market saturation of this format?
We don’t think there is market saturation for this format simply because marketers are still asking for it. In fact, every year video durations get shorter and media plans get tighter. The reason? Consumers and their goldfish attention spans. But at the same time these very same consumers don’t mind watching 8 hours of a show like Heeramandi! So the answer is quality. How enriching or entertaining is the content you are creating? If it’s interesting, consumers will be interested – be it 8 hours or 8 seconds.
Q. A couple of years ago Virtue Worldwide did work in the Metaverse. But was the Metaverse just hype and a bubble like crypto, NFTs?
The world may have moved on from Crypto and NFTs (for now) but blockchain as a technology is very much here to stay and is still incredibly potent. So it would be short-sighted to write it off. With technology it’s important to understand the ecosystem as a whole. Gen AI is on the rise and the metaverse offers a plethora of applications and use cases. We don’t think the metaverse is a bubble, it is the real estate of the future we still haven’t completely figured out how to leverage.
