BEI Confluence is amongst the top five fully Indian-owned 360 advertising agencies in India for over the last five years. In North India it is one of the biggest agencies providing Brand Strategy and Creative, Mainline Media & Deep-Tech Digital services to its clients through a ‘single-window’. With HQ in Delhi NCR, the agency handles leading brands across different cities in India. It employs about 100 professionals across the country with Delhi as the Centre of Excellence providing Strategic, Creative, Mainline Media and Digital Planning, Buying and Operations services. BEI Confluence has a roster of clients and brands of which quite a few are leaders in their categories.
The agency specialises in the FMCG category and most of the brands it handles are amongst the top FMCG brands in the country. BEI Confluence’s key clients include Radico Khaitan (8PM PB Whisky and a number of large IMFL brands from the company), Cremica Biscuits and English Oven Breads from the House of Mrs. Bector’s, Rajhans Group (makers of Schmitten & Hoppits Chocolates & Bars), Insecticides India Ltd, Biryani By Kilo, India’s number one Biryani brand, Total Energies, Wai Wai Instant Noodles, Jindal Group, Dalmia Bharat Group, ECE from Birla Group, Apollo Diagnostics, Mederma Range of Skin Care brands from Win Medicare of the Modi Group, JK Paper, JK Dairy Products and Funflips.
Medianews4u.com caught up with Abhishek Gupta – joint MD, BEI Confluence.
Q. What is the reason for BEI Confluence choosing to focus on the FMCG sector?
At BEI Confluence we have an envious list of FMCG brands. But honestly, there was no strategic intent to focus on FMCG solely. The portfolio grew bigger primarily for a couple of reasons. Firstly, some of our senior leadership team including me come from a heavy FMCG background on brands like Coca Cola, Nestle, Reckitt etc. Secondly, we as a team feel that the challenges of a FMCG category are truly unique. It involves strong understanding of consumer behaviour, decoding product USPs, understanding seasonality and multiple other category dynamics which are quite intriguing to us as professionals.
Lastly, when you do good work on one brand in the category, others want to be associated with you and they expect you to create a winning strategy for them. Hence you will notice more number of FMCG brands in our portfolio.
Q. What are some of the recent accounts bagged by the agency?
We are in exciting times. Over the last year many new brands were acquired. I can list down the bigger ones. We won the Mrs. Bectors business comprising of English Oven Breads & Cremica biscuits after we ended a long relationship with Harvest Gold. We were appointed as the AOR for Hero Motor Company’s (HMC) Corporate Communication recently. Kerovit, the sanitaryware brand from Kajaria joined hands with us recently. Total Energies, the leading global lubricant brand, appointed us the AOR last year to name a few.
Q. The agency is targeting 20 per cent growth for the year. What factors will drive growth and what is going to be the challenge?
Growth for us is always achieved by helping our brands grow. We strongly believe in providing brands with integrated solutions across today’s omnichannel ecosystem which help them scale their business. Therefore, the key mandate for all department heads is to make this possible which in turn helps the agency target aggressive growth plans. Also no big task is achieved without its set of challenges. At our end, we do try and pre-empt certain hurdles and plan for it but of course there will be some level of uncertainties and that’s where the experience of the team counts.
Q. Will the agency broaden its focus to other sectors or is FMCG large enough? FMCG accounts for almost 1/3rd of the adex.
We have a large roster of brands who are into multiple categories like Pharma, Agro Chemical, Consumer Durables, QSRs, etc. FMCG contributes to approx 40% of the business. Rest are a wide variety. We do not want to be restricted to FMCG only as for us as professionals, every industry provides its own set of positives and opportunities.
Q. What role is AI playing when it helps the agency strengthen its expertise in data and research?
AI has opened multiple dimensions. Data analytics is one part. But creatively it opens many doors which we are constantly exploring. For Biryani By Kilo, we did an interesting campaign developed exclusively through AI which was extremely well appreciated by the industry at large. AI for us is WIP. Every day, something new can be discovered.
Q. Could you offer a couple of examples of work done recently that stands out?
There are many. I can mention a few. When we had started working on the brand Cremica & English Oven, while both were well established brands, a campaign last year with Kareena Kapoor across platforms turned the tide for both the brands, but more for English Oven. Post campaign, the brand grew faster than the market leader when it came to their results. Cremica as a brand gained immensely from the communication strategy and gained more eyeballs and mindshare. Another brand I would like to mention is Mederma, India’s leading scar gel brand. After a particular campaign was run establishing Mederma as the most efficient solution when it comes to strong scars, the brand gained rapid market share and topped its best. A very satisfying feeling for all of us including the brand team.
A lot of exciting work happens on brands like Biryani By Kilo & Goila Butter Chicken on an everyday basis on social media. We know the campaigns work when you see a strong increase in followers, consistent increase in engagement levels and eventually positive impact on business. There is no magical recipe, it takes time to build brands. At BEI Confluence we believe in this sincerely.
Q. Is the focus of advertising by the agency’s FMCG clients mainly TV and digital? Or do you think that the media mix might change in 2024?
Yes, primarily TV and Digital. But retail branding (including packaging) does play a strong role in closing the last mile. Retail branding also is one of the toughest to crack – given the limitations of space, logistics and heavy competition brand presence. I seriously believe that if the retail branding is not in place – we are not doing justice to the brand, despite what we do on TV or Digital. I don’t think the basics will change drastically in the recent future too.
Q. Is Connected TV an area that the FMCG category is increasingly looking at? Is the goal of CTV targeting NCCS A?
Connected TV is rapidly gaining traction. We are continuously looking at opportunities to collaborate and provide solutions. Some of our brands consider connected TVs when their markets are geo-restricted or we want to reach a certain persona of consumers. What gets everyone excited are the targeting parameters, geo based targeting or the pre & post analytics which is of immense use to more modern day brands.
Is it a more NCCS A phenomenon as of now? Cannot say this with certainty but it is slightly skewed towards it. No wonder why some of our more younger, premium brands prefer it over the traditional, massy brands.
Q. Some traditional FMCG brands are looking at a digital transformation. What factors need to be bourne in mind for them to succeed?
Great question. Digital transformation starts at home. Digitising the entire backend is the first step. Setting up the right automation processes, choice of technology, tools, trackers and most importantly the right team to lead it to me is the most crucial part. We have a lot of brands who are well established, legacy brands – but during the last few years we have seen and helped them to really transform the business through technology and digital outreach.
Q. Are clients investing a lot more into online video creation and also in terms of upskilling their executives for the digital era?
Yes definitely. More and more content, product videos, process videos, recipes, DIYs, how to use, Influencer videos are being produced. For marketplaces like Amazon, brands understand the importance of creating A+ video led content to review videos and they do invest in these. They are upskilling themselves and it also is challenging for us to constantly keep pushing ourselves to stay ahead of the curve.
Q. Will the mandatory online self declaration certificate stop misleading advertising?
Certainly hope so. And I am sure it will. Just hope there is 100% clarity on this soon across all stakeholders so that there’s no ambiguity of the process anywhere.
Q. What work does the agency do in helping FMCG clients penetrate rural markets better?
Rural markets have seen the maximum number of internet and mobile phone penetration lately. Rural consumers are mostly well versed with entertaining and experimenting themselves with digital content today. We help the brand reach out to the rural audience in a more sharply targeted way through digital marketing – narrowing down to even micro aspects like pin codes or customised content created in rural dialects and flavour.
