Ex | On a strategic storytelling approach: MSL India's Jaideep Shergill

MSLGROUP India, Publicis Groupe’s flagship strategic communications and engagement company and the largest public relations and social media network in India, recently launched  its global digital and social practice in the country, Social Hive. With this it also introduced a new proprietary and social tool: the Social Hive Index, which can benchmark a company’s social engagement and compare it to its peers (see below box). For Social Hive initiative, the group has set up a team of 40 consultants in Mumbai and Delhi capable of managing five million people across communities.

While MSLGROUP India is a leader in digital and social engagement for years, the launch of Social Hive means that taking the practice to a new level, with even tighter connections across the globe. Digital and social capabilities are central parts of idea -based and fully-integrated client communications solutions. Speaking to Adgully, Jaideep Shergill, CEO MSLGROUP India said, “Our top talent at Social Hive makes us well positioned to continue to create award-winning work for our clients across all platforms. Social Hive’s strategic storytelling approach helps brands create stronger connections and relationships with the consumer.”

MSLGROUP India’s social and digital communications is the leading practice of its kind, advising clients such as Sony, Monsanto, Volkswagen, KPMG, Singapore Tourism Board, Australian High Commission (OzFest), Whirlpool and eBay. The network has also won several international awards which showcase world class, outstanding performance in digital and social media, such as the International Business Awards (Bronze, Social Media Focused Campaign 2012, Sony Mobile) and the Bees Awards (Winner, Best Social CRM 2012, eBay India).

Through an integrated digital approach, has seven service offerings:

• Research and insights: Social listening and monitoring through the use of specialised tools, category analysis and regular reporting, social analytics and insights
• Social media marketing: Influencer marketing, contests and activations, stakeholder outreach programmes
• Content creation: Branded content, conversation calendars, community engagement
• Digital design and build: Facebook apps, mobile apps, social application programming interfaces, websites, microsites, banner ads
• Media planning and buying: Target-oriented digital media plans for specific audiences, buying media and release of ads, monitoring performance of ads, Facebook ads, portal ads
• Social business: Social customer relationship management, social commerce, social enterprise
• Proprietary platforms: People’s Lab, an MSLGROUP proprietary platform for crowd sourcing, analytics and insights; and Social Hive Index, a proprietary social influence measurement tool

When asked on how will this initiative help to sustain market leadership in the digital & social media space, Shergill replied, “Our leadership position will be maintained through our strategic storytelling approach. Through purpose driven, consistent narrative, storytelling engages multiple audiences through diverse media. Through its unique storytelling approach, MSLGROUP Social Hive transforms brands to stories (stories have proven to connect better and stronger with people).”

However in a rapidly changing digital environment, a company needs to have an agenda to keep its leadership initiative going. Adds Shergill as a solution, “Global exposure, robust training programmes and a challenging work profile will ensure talent satisfaction. Besides keeping abreast of the tech-innovations, white-papers/ research papers, roster of clients and global award wins will make certain the thought leadership”