Incepted in 2015, Sociowash is an award-winning creative media agency in India. The company was founded by two corporate professionals – Pranav Agarwal & Raghav Bagai as a niche personal-branding boutique agency and has evolved into one of the fastest-growing full-service creative digital agencies in the country with an aim to connect brands to the world, in the most creatively fueled way. From providing a blueprint of digital strategy to pixel-perfect execution, it helps brands to matter more. Sociowash provides services like social media marketing, media planning, collateral design, website design and development, youth marketing, video production, influencer marketing, animation, and others.
Sociowash focuses on producing tangible and intangible results while striking a perfect balance between art and business. It does not adopt a ‘one size fits all approach and focuses on customizing the way forward for each brand basis its positioning and needs and help them stand out in the crowd.
The exacerbating effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have left the brands with no choice other than to go digital to survive in the market. The year 2020 has pushed the world towards rapid digitalization and transformation, making it challenging for brands to stay competitive in a complex and uncertain world. Sociowash leverages disruptive technologies to meet the rising customer experiences and help brands establish a competitive online presence. Sociowash helps brands to move at a pace of digitized culture with the right digital growth strategy that enables them to capture the opportunity of connecting with the right target audience.
In an exclusive chat with Medianews4u, Raghav Bagai – Co-Founder Sociowash talks on the Current Market Scenario, journey, latest works, and more.
Current Market Scenario
The year 2020 and the ongoing scenario have been challenging for businesses across the globe. Being digital-first, Sociowash relied on the agility to adapt to the new normal while ensuring the agency delivers the work that reflects its standards. The agency moves on a positive approach and believes that the pandemic has prepared the world for the digital world well before it actually planned to. This has given a push to many brands which were probably considering going digital but were waiting for the right time.
How has your journey been from 2015 and the challenges?
What started as a passion project based out of a one-room office is now a hub located in two major cities like Delhi and Mumbai; a hub of creative ideas and personalized solutions catered to understanding the tiniest needs of individual brands and profiles. While the strength, capabilities, and quantum of work for the agency have advanced for the better, one thing that still exists and is instilled in our hearts as a core foundation is our aim to add value.
The past six years have been a rollercoaster of challenges that have helped us sharpen our skill sets and broaden our vision. The pandemic, without a doubt, would be the biggest challenge of them all. However, being digital-first worked as a blessing in disguise for Sociowash, as we were able to rely on our ability to adapt to the new normal while delivering quality work that did not compromise on our standards. We have been able to deliver results while fully working remotely and expand our creative portfolio by bringing on new clients and are excited to set new benchmarks for them through creative digital innovations.
Earlier brands preferred to go to various agencies for a particular product and this saw the rise of boutique agencies, but later it got consolidated as one agency offering varied services under one roof, your thoughts?
As a ‘creative digital marketing agency, we focus on letting our clients enjoy tangible and intangible results i.e results that strike a perfect balance between thought-provoking creativity and value-adding business. In today’s closely-knit and fast-paced world, there is increased interdependence between different segments that make up the framework of a business. To be able to set new benchmarks, be it in the creative world or in business-focused growth figures, one needs to have a complete understanding of every wheel that keeps the business running; a thorough understanding of the nitty-gritty of it. As an agency that is not restricted to a specific service, we do just that and help brands define a unique identity that stands out in a sea of similar offerings, by customizing a strategy after a deep dive into their goals and business needs. We provide services such as Brand Campaign Management, Performance Marketing, Digital Strategy, Collateral Design, Website Design & Development, Youth Marketing, Influencer Strategy, Social listening, and more under one roof and we have seen that agencies evolve with time as per the exposure and opportunities they get. We too started as a boutique agency but we realized that we can create an impact at a larger level if we function as a consolidated agency.
‘Balances the media marketing efforts in order to boost the ROI of the brand while improving its efficacy’, can you elaborate on this?
When a brand takes Sociowash on board, they don’t just hire a digital marketing agency for their social media needs. We pride ourselves in taking ownership and work tirelessly to help our clients meet their business objectives, in addition to the services we are responsible for. Looking at the work from a holistic point of view and then taking a deep dive into each project to formulate a well-rounded strategy is how we aim to contribute to the overall growth of the business.
Can you share some of your latest work for brands?
Given the current scenario where brands are more confidently plunging into digital, our projects include but are not limited to Interactive Websites, Youth-focused campaigns, Tech innovations, Branding, Creative outdoor projects, and video innovations.
Despite the pandemic slowing down the businesses, we worked with industry leaders like realme, Oral-B, Century Ply, Voot, Starbucks, and more. We launched quite a few successful campaigns for brands, bagging numerous awards.
When Tinder U, the student-community platform by Tinder, wanted to get maximum relatability among Gen Z, Sociowash cracked the meme code and spoke to them in their language. We garnered 30+ million impressions and a massive 60% increase in follower growth. We were awarded a MOMMY award by Mad over Marketing and a SAMMIE award by Social Samosa for ‘Best Use of Memes’. In line with developing strategic tech innovations, we launched an AR-enabled hyper-casual game ‘Campus Run’ under the #FreshAF campaign which got thousands of organic entries, helping us bag the Drivers Of Digital Award in the category of Best Innovation/Creativity in a mobile campaign.
Our social media post for Oral-B for Holi became a viral sensation, both among the brand’s audience and industry experts. It got a whopping 19 features by platforms like Social Samosa, Ads with benefits, Social Media Dissect, and more.
When Century Ply introduced the industry-leading ViroKill technology, Sociowash helped them generate 66+ million impressions and 40k+ leads. For this, we won the Best Performance Marketing Campaign Award by Inkspell DOD award.
Due to the pandemic digital usage is seeing a surge, is the ad spends by a brand now skewed toward the digital medium?
While we were inching towards a more digitally-savvy marketing strategy already, the pandemic nudged brands towards the inevitable a little earlier than planned. Overnight, the offline world grew dependent on online mediums as their only path to communicate with users. The demographic range of social media is rapidly stretching, making digital one of the primary business providers to many brands and thus, an indispensable part of the overall marketing budget. There are a lot of growth opportunities waiting to be explored when it comes to digital in the new normal. We’re not just talking about amping up traditional digital practices but also innovation-led digital media that pave the way for personalized and interactive communication to its users.
How do you help your client /brand in measuring the performance on the digital platform?
More and more brands hopping on to the digital bandwagon have opened many doors for Sociowash since we specialize in digital solutions. We take equal, if not more, responsibility in helping our brands establish and expand their business online. Through services like Performance Marketing, we formulate holistic digital strategies that help brands reap the benefits of creative and digital innovations. We measure the same basis the brand objectives while mapping them to the impact created. From growth on social for brands seeking awareness to growth in online leads for brands looking for business expansion, the metric to map online performance differs from case to case.
Where do you see yourself in the next 3 years?
We see Sociowash 2025 as one of the best places to work in the country, a testimony to how much pride we take in our culture. We aim to be among the Top 3 full-service agencies in the country by then and have offices in 5 national and 1 international location. Sheer commitment to hard work, a goal-oriented mind-set and working cohesively as a team are the key foundation pillars that are holding this lofty vision up high. We are on the path of supporting business needs of clients through solutions that thrive on cutting-edge innovation, mixed with pure creativity and a data-driven approach. We also plan to expand into Media Sciences and Video Production domains in the near future.
