Clients now have less tolerance for failure, less patience for success: Joseph George of Tilt Brand Solutions

Starting its journey in 2018, Tilt Brand Solutions has had an excellent run in the first 17 months of operations. In an interaction with BestMediaInfo.com, Joseph George, Founder and Chairman, Tilt Brand Solutions, said that the agency, which has modelled itself as a strategic and communications consultancy, has had an overwhelming response from clients. 

“Our offerings and talents have exceeded Tilt’s expectations on all parameters. Our next 12-18 months is where we will be tested, and that’s what we are all focused on, and prepping for,” he said.

The consultancy currently holds a roster of 18 clients, ranging from brick and mortar giants to ambitious game changers.

According to George, what differentiates Tilt from other creative agencies is its offering on strategies and specialised communication consultancy. He talked about the changing expectations of clients.

Excerpts:

Tilt Brand Solutions was launched as a strategic and creative enterprise that offers consulting, communication and content services to brands and businesses. How has the journey been?

We have been in operation for 17 full months now. With much gratitude, I must admit that the response to our offering and our talent so far has been overwhelming. It has exceeded our expectations on all parameters. We are well on course to meet our stretch targets for 2019/20. We are as pleased with our body of work and the variety and stature of clients who have reached out to work with us, thus far.

But I keep telling my folks not to read too much into our initial success. The next 12-18 months is where we will be tested, and that’s what we are all focussed on, and prepping for.

What is the overall growth that you are expecting in 2020?

Not doubling our 2019/20 numbers in 2020/21 would, let me just say, be contrarian and against the run of play. We have just moved into an office that is more than four times the size of the office we were operating out of till just a month back. So, that’s probably a good clue to what we are working towards.

Would it be wrong to call Tilt just a creative agency? How differentiated is Tilt’s offering from the rest of the creative agencies in India?

We call ourselves a “Strategic & Communication Consultancy”. And while creativity is at the very core of what we do and offer, we are significantly different from other creative agencies in terms of our internal inputting process, our output philosophy, our ways of working and our engagement with clients.

There are four fundamental differences. First is that we have left and right brained planners in competency and experience, who work in tandem to deliver on what we call, “Full Brained Thinking”. This is at the core of our inputting process. Secondly, our belief is that different cohorts at different stages in their journey need bespoke creative interventions. And this is what guides our output philosophy “One Brand. Many Stories”. Third is that we are structured in form and intent as a consultancy and therefore we believe that practitioners should form the bulk of our talent; as also the ones engaging with clients. So at Tilt, only Creatives or Strategists are client facing.

And fourth; our creative philosophy of “One Brand. Many Stories” needs a production eco system that allows for time and cost-efficient asset production. Which is why Tilt Studios is also part of our offering.

We are absolutely committed to the above four and our current client and reputation base is a great springboard to pursue with these with confidence, determination and purpose.

What are the company's expansion plans? Any plans to launch new services in the company portfolio for the brands?

We will expand only as a single city office entity. We are an enterprise that is “Made in Mumbai, for the World”

Be it in data, talent, media or technology, all of our investments will only be in what allows us to operate and deliver in full, on the four fundamental differences I spoke about earlier.

And any and all future services and spaces will be determined solely by what Tilt has been set up for, i.e. “To build brands and design communication interventions to influence affinity, preference and behaviour at every touch point of a consumer’s journey”.

It seems that Tilt Brand Solutions believes in collaboration with other companies when it comes to delivering content services to the clients. The company partnered with Supari Studios and also Ryde Network, both dealing in content. No plans to build an in-house content team?

Our ABC decision, i.e. Acquire, Build or Collaborate, on competency expansion is a function of what is our core business. To repeat, we are here to “build brands and design communication interventions to influence affinity, preference and behaviour at every touch point of a consumer’s journey”.

We are, therefore, not a content company, and so, acquiring or building a pure play content team in-house is not on the table.

We are, however, acutely aware of short and long-format content’s role in building brands and engaging with consumers today. Which is why, content is a key component in “CommsGenome” — Tilt Brand Solutions’ proprietary Campaign Design Framework.

Both Ryde and Supari Studios are experts in their spaces and there is tremendous chemistry and a shared understanding of what we want to achieve for our clients and brands.

How has clients’ demand evolved over time? Has the task of acquiring new businesses become even tougher? How well prepared is Tilt Brand Solutions to do so?

Less tolerance for failure, less patience for success, more demands on ROI, more desire for fame and buzz. Add to this, consumers, purchase behaviour, media, technology and everything around changing so much and so fast, most clients are learning and discovering on the job.

This is understandably, both scary and frustrating for clients.

Partners who understand, acknowledge and respond to this reality of theirs, with both expertise and empathy and with the right intent, talent and speed, are the ones who will succeed.  We hope to be one of those who succeed.

What were your most significant achievements of 2019?

We are an extremely talented bunch of people who have come together to make a difference.  We have an enviable roster of 18 clients that range from brick and mortar giants (HUL, GSK and others) to new age players (Dream11, Flipkart and others) to ambitious game-changers (Livspace, upGrad). We have got a great body of work, including the work for Dream11, arguably 2019’s best in the country and a resounding ratification from all whom we have engaged with, on our offering and our ways of working.

How well placed is the agency in terms of talent? How has the team grown at the company’s end since its inception?

We started with four of us. Today, we are 24 of us operating out of an office we all love. We have talent from FMCG Marketing, Media and Entertainment, Advertising, Sports Marketing, Space Sciences, BFSI, Research, Technology, Content, Digital and Production. We are attempting to redefine the definition of competence diversity in the business of brand building and communication.

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