Exclusive | We intend to 'Mirum' the Indian clients, says Vinchurkar

In the last decade digital has seen a sea change. Clients across categories have been looking at giving a better digital experience to the end user. No wonder we see conglomerates like Dentsu Aegis, Publicis, WPP strengthening their digital expertise by acquiring specialized digital outfits, for instance, Dentsu notched up BC Web wise, Dentsu Aegis iProspect Communicate 2, Publicis acquired BeeHive Communications and so on to cater to the ever changing needs of the clients.

Last week we shared news about JWT’s latest baby in the digital space, Mirum starting its India operations. While there is not much known about Mirum we at Adgully caught up with Siddhartha Vinchurkar, Managing Director, Mirum Agency to know more about their brand and India strategy.

Launch

Siddhartha’s agency ActiveArk was a digital agency he started in 2010. In July 2012, the company was acquired by JWT and was renamed ActiveArk JWT. While JWT was in process of getting the best digital minds, in the end of January 2015 it was ready with all of them and that’s when they broke news about launching Mirum. Some of the other companies that came to form Mirum are Digitaria, XMAsia, and Quirk from South Africa. These are mainstream agencies. We also have special agencies; some specialize in service design, some in SEO and some in Shopper engagement.

“Marketing is changing and that change is a great opportunity.  We love what can happen when you commit to a digital approach to marketing, which is why we say you should never lose your sense of wonder,” says Vinchurkar.

Mirum is a Latin word which means amazing. We’re a pure digital agency. Mirum is entrepreneur lead and that’s the attitude that leads us.  Currently, Mirum has 2200 + professionals across 42 offices in 17 countries.

Mirum in short is consolidation of best brains in JWT and it is consolidation of eleven digital agencies around the world. In India this digital agency will be led by Siddhartha Vinchurkar.

Expertise & Resources

Mirum intends to be standalone digital outfit and will have an autonomous identity.  Vinchurkar tells us that, “We don’t share resources of JWT. However, there is an exchange of resources as and when we mutually feel there is a requirement for it.”

He adds, “At Mirum, we look after creative, data, data analytics, insights, user experience designs and innovation with technology. So basically it’s a blend of all this.”

How we work?

When we meet a client, we first try and understand their approach. Is it a TV first approach, or digital first approach? In the international context, yes digital first is generally the case.

We work with fewer set of clients but our endeavour is to produce quality work and hence we might be a bit premium and the Indian marketers are yet to accept that proposition. Whereas internationally, marketers work at an X price with international benchmarks.

Quoting an instance Vinchurkar tells us, when we went to one our Finnish clients with our plan with a X budget, we were refused saying that the budget is too low for our quality standards and hence we resent it to them with a 3X budget and that’s when it got approved.

In case of India, where we are yet to make a mark, clients are very calculative and price sensitive while internationally that’s not the case.

Clients

Some of the clients that Mirum caters to are Nokia Networks, Nokia Mobile which is now Microsoft Mobile, Tourism Singapore, Mazda, Nestle and Unilever to name a few.

We have worked very closely with FinnAir as thier digital agency. We have also worked closely with SSAB and Ruukki which are steel companies in Finland.

Competition

If I have to say competition then it is agencies of the level of AKQA and VML Qais.

As of now there is not pure or organic digital agency in the world, so one can say that we are competing with AKQA and VML Qais. Of course their expertise and our expertise are different, but they are a sense of competition within the umbrella.

Mobile Presence

When it comes to being on the mobile platform, all our work is compatible with all kinds of devices, be it web, tablets or mobiles. Almost all these mainstream agencies are working on that front. Every company has a unit that is dedicated to mobility.

Challenges in India

Currently we don’t have any clients in India. We will take at least another year or two to make our footprint in the Indian market.

When it comes to India, the digital first approach is a big challenge. While Internationally thats not the case. Secondly, internationally we don’t need to bother about price, whereas in India clients are very price sensitive. So as of now it’s difficult to cater to Indian clients.

Though in the coming year, we are looking at expanding our mark in the Indian market. We want to make a dent in the Indian market and be the Best Pure Digital agency in the next two years in the full service digital agency category.

Wish list

We’ve never thought of a wish list of the clients we want to work with; but we would like to work more with Travel brands and Technology brands, the reason being we feel they’re not clear about their approach and we would love to help them in doing that. Also we would like to look at acquiring a pure independent digital agency. By Archit Ambekar | Twitter: @aambarchit