Recently independent agencies Jack in the Box Worldwide and Tidal7 merged to form J7. This unification looks to bring the best of creativity, insights, data, and innovation under one integrated agency.
Medianews4u.com caught up with Venkat Mallik founder, CEO, J7 and Roopak Saluja Founder, J7
Q. The creative industry landscape is seeing a lot of consolidation. Is tech in marketing going to accelerate this trend?
Yes absolutely. Tech is definitely leading to consolidation at an overall level. However, tech is also allowing smaller players to compete with larger players – because tech makes the playing field more equal and less resource-intensive.
AI Tech can also lead to the creation of a lot of smaller entities and solopreneurs and clients who do it themselves, too, because now ‘anybody with some prompt engineering skill and patience can create fairly finished-looking work’.
What clients are definitely seeking is consolidation of thinking away from siloed solutions. Therefore, the world of Brand, Advertising and Digital marketing will move towards winners who can combine creativity with data-driven precision, not just scale for the sake of scale.
Q. Are big tech players like Meta driving consolidation in the creative agency space?
Meta, Google and others are definitely shaping the ecosystem by providing platforms that consolidate audiences and data intelligence.
They are also trying to make their platforms smarter and more AI-enabled, but they are not replacing agencies or enabling consolidation. On the other hand, they are probably making it easier for more people to use their platforms. They have definitely been raising the bar on speed, targetting, and measurement. Agencies now need to be more agile and tech-enabled to stay relevant.
Q. Did better economies of scale lead to Jack in the Box Worldwide and Tidal7 merging? What will the new entity be called?
The new entity will be called J7, as you probably would have already read. However, currently Tidal7 and Jack in the Box will continue to operate as individual brands as well although under the J7 umbrella.
The merger is about synergy, not just scale. While both agencies have been in Brand and Digital advertising business, the strengths that they have acquired have been slightly different and complementary. This makes the merger synergistic and helps the consolidated entity offer a wider range of services and skills.
With Jack in the Box Worldwide’s strengths in creative storytelling, social media, consumer research, and design, and Tidal7’s expertise in branding, multi-channel creative services, digital analytics and data intelligence, J7 is uniquely positioned to deliver integrated, insight-driven, and creatively compelling solutions built for the future.
Q. The aim is to have smarter, faster, and more scalable brand building. What does this entail?
This means that a lot of different moving parts need to fall in place largely through creating a more unified work place and processes that aid quicker decision making. Tech would obviously play a significant role in enabling the process of creating a smarter and more responsive approach to the needs of brand building in today’s attention short environment.
It also means moving beyond just campaigns. It’s about using platforms, always-on engagement, predictive analytics, and AI-assisted creativity.
Q. Plans are afoot to widen the agency’s service offerings… Kindly elaborate on the goals and gameplan?
We’re focussing on three pillars in the immediate future :
1. Tailored industry solutions – we already have capabilities in multiple industry categories and we would like to take that expertise deeper (e.g. Consumer Goods, BFSI, B2B, retail, healthcare).
2. AI-enabled creativity at scale, where we expand the skills of our team across different aspects of AI supported solutions and use that to scale further.
3. Global growth, with India as the hub but building a stronger footprint in International English speaking markets to begin with and then going wider.
Q. Will the workforce be restructured?
We are consolidating and not restructuring. All the ‘restructuring kind of decisions’ have been taken prior to the actual merger.
The idea is integration — combining strengths, giving people bigger platforms to grow, and building multi-disciplinary teams. This is expansion, not downsizing. All the people onboard J7 have clearly defined roles and responsibilities and there is absolutely no room for uncertainty or doubt.
Q. What is the gameplan to ensure no disruption to existing teams or client relationships?
There will be no disruption to existing teams or client relationships. Both Jack in the Box Worldwide and Tidal7 will continue to serve their current partners as before, but now united under the shared vision and roadmap of J7.
Continuity is priority #1. Client-facing teams remain intact, and relationships are protected. What changes is the back-end power they now have — more tools, more ideas, and more capabilities to serve clients better.
Q. Will it be a priority to ensure all employees are fluent in AI? How will AI help the agency scale rapidly?
Yes. AI fluency is non-negotiable. Every role in advertising — from creative to strategy to media — is being redefined by AI. For us, AI is not a replacement; it’s an amplifier.
It allows us to create 10x more variations, insights, and efficiencies, which directly translates to faster growth for both brands and the agency.
Q. Is the topline expected to be improved significantly with the merger?
The topline will grow. However, topline is only one part of the story.
The merger is designed to create long-term value — more synergistic solutions and a wider array of skills and capabilities. We will be able to offer clients a stronger team with more skills and brand, creative and digital experiences. This will also lead to a wider array of opportunities in India and globally. Topline growth will follow naturally from that.
Q. How is the festive season looking like for the new agency?
The merger has created a sense of vibrancy for us. We have already won a couple of new businesses since the merger. So we are beginning to see momentum and some exciting new pitches as well.
The energy of the moment is helping, and we are also keen on ensuring that we make the most of that and set a new benchmark of performance for ourselves during this festive season and further ahead.
Q. Will there be a deeper focus on resonant storytelling to ensure brands stand out?
Without doubt. Tech can get you reach and speed, but only storytelling creates memories. In an increasingly cluttered world, the emphasis on storytelling and building human bonds becomes even more important.
Embedding brands with emotional resonance will continue to be the way to create brands that stand out.
We will continue to combine the power of human insight with digital & data intelligence to build winning brands.
Q. The best talent is no longer going into advertising due to poor remuneration. How big a challenge is this?
It’s real, but it’s also an opportunity. If money was the only thing, then the world would be full of investment bankers and people in professions like that. In fact, the world has only exploded in terms of the opportunities and interests that people have.
We believe branding, advertising and digital marketing will continue to interest and attract people because it offers a heady combination of variety in work, opportunity to build successful brands and the joy of shaping human behaviour. If you do this well, you would make money too.
We are working towards making advertising exciting again by being at the intersection of creativity, AI, and digital marketing transformation. The business will also become a lot more global as we go ahead and therefore people in the business will also get more globally scalable jobs unlike earlier.
