Adgully Exclusive | Technology will disrupt all aspects of human life: SapientNitro's Ramswaroop Gopalan

With technological developments and the growth and popularity of the digital world, the world is getting closer and closer, only to make competition fierce. The ad-world is not far behind and the utilization of digital medium has also progressed at a rapid pace in the industry. One such player in the digital space is SapientNitro. Speaking exclusively to Adgully, Ramswaroop Gopalan, Country Manager, SapientNitro, shed some light on this increasingly popular phenomenon of digital marketing solutions.

When asked about the current happenings at SapientNitro, Gopalan said, "When we launched SapientNitro, it was essentially an acquisition ofthe Nitro group by Sapient." Across various markets, be it Europe or Asia-pacific, SapientNitro offers a variety of combination of capabilities. "In the last 12-15 months we have been working on the capability development exercise. We have also started looking at the Asia-Pacific market, working together collectively for the clients in this region. We are also looking at Singapore as a growing potential market. Hence on the whole, we have had a bunch of movements, trying to build variety of capabilities across different territories", he said.

Citing some of the challenges they face in the space where they function today, Gopalan said, "One of the main challenges is that clients are not used to dealing with an organization like SapientNitro. They are accustomed to deal with an advertising agency, digital marketing agency or IT services company. Also within the organization, there are different departments within brands to deal with across various categories. SapientNitro provides services across all these segments."

"We offer a variety of services, so even in a marketing pitch where the client comes from a technological background and understanding, we offer them solutions that are easy to comprehend and relate to", he said.

From SapientNitro's internal point'of'view, he adds dealing with different senior people, coming in from variety of industries, with different style of working and approach, has been a challenge along with coordinating with various professionals to work collectivelyfor the end product.

When asked whether clients are hesitant in accepting the company's offerings, Gopalan was of the opinion that, "The difficulty is not in accepting our offerings, but it is in terms of clients' being used to buying such type of services. Typically, it's very easy to avail services from advertising agencies, as opposed to technology, because clients are not sure of what they will be offered. This is because; technology services are traditionallylooked after by their IT counter parts, and not the marketing counterparts."

He further adds that though clients recognize SapientNitro as experts, but somewhere they lack the understanding and internal knowledge to to take things in control. "So there is no hesitation in buying the idea, it's just that there are lots of things that the client is unaware of", he said.

Elaborating further on the fact that measurability is another key challenge, he added, "The digital marketing industry in the last 8 years or so, has moved ahead but clients always harp on measurement and measurability from a quantitative perspective rather than qualitative. Moreover, clients have started realising that everything is measurable in digital marketing. It is only through efforts by agencies like SapientNitro, that clients now understand that they are not merely measuring a banner ad or a click through, but the actual measurement is in terms of effectiveness of a particular activity. There is this myth that everything can be measured, and that is the problem, because we have not thought about introducing parameters to judge the quality of the response."

Further indicating that "measurability' aspect in the digital medium has become a boon to them, while a problem for agencies, Gopalan was of the thought that, "Measurability is possible to a certain extent, like one can measure how may banner ads were clicked. But today the client can possibly ask how they fared in terms of clicks and views in particular campaign. However, the client forgets to consider the value that a digital activity adds to brand recall and in creating a direct conversation between the brand and its consumers."

He says that, instead of understanding the working of the medium and its effectiveness, a lot of agencies are playing on the number game, rather than trying to educate the client on what it means to engage in the digital medium. "Today, clients' demands are becoming difficult to meet, since comparisons drawn are also complex. For example, if a client's consumer is a housewife, it is difficult to measure the effectiveness here, since she is usually not available on the digital medium", he said.

Sharing with us a few of their key highlights which gives SapientNitro an edge over the other agencies, Gopalan said, "There are 3 kindof services that we offer - pure advertising, digital marketing and IT solutions." Explaining the workings of SapientNitro, he went ahead and said, "On the advertising front it is an advantage that we understand the brand and the consumer, but unfortunately they do not understand digital medium or the technology."

Gopalan adds that while the digital marketing agencies are caught somewhere in between; they don't understand that they have typically not invested in consumer understanding and the creative ideas. "They have always depended on the advertising agency for creative and consumer insights and hencethey would suffer if they had to get into hard core data integration etc. And similarly, the IT section does not understand the consumer or creative, but definitely understand the technology better," he said speaking of digital marketing agencies' dilemma in the country.

Thus, a complete mix of services is what makes SapientNitro stand apart. "When we work with a client, there is a complete transfer of knowledge of a consumer's understanding, we take it to a creative team who understand exactly what goes into the creatives across mediums and lastly we implement it on every technological medium and all of this is delivered to the client in a process-driven manner. Thus ours is a holistic offering which looks only at the customer and that creative idea which can cut across variety of media", he said.

Being one of the few agencies who spend on promoting themselves as a "brand', they plan to continue investing heavily in this area, since they believe that they are new in this market and want people to understand them and their new offerings. Lastly, when asked about their vision going forward, Gopalan said, "We believe that technology will disrupt all aspects of human life. Having said that industry should be redefined, and where ever there is a problem, we want to partner with our clients seamlessly. Our vision is to see a digitally disrupted world where consumer is the center of conversation with the brand, while we enable such conversations".

SapientNitro is a leading integrated marketing, commerce and technology services firm that created and engineers highly relevant brand experiences, to accelerate business growth and fuel brand advocacy. With a strong clientele like Coca Cola, Yahoo, Jeep, Unilever, Mars, Sony, Volvo and many more, SapientNitro is sure to make waves on the digital front in the coming future. | By Ankita Tanna [ankita(at)adgully.com]