Schbang records 35% growth in revenue in 2023: Harshil Karia

Schbang, led by Harshil Karia, Founder and MD, experienced substantial growth in 2023 with new account acquisitions, increased revenue, and a broadened client portfolio achieving a 35% increase in revenue this calendar year.

In a conversation with BestMediaInfo, Karia shed light on the agency’s growth in the past one year in terms of new account wins, revenue growth and client size.

"This calendar year, our revenue has seen a robust growth of approximately 35%. On the client side, we have welcomed several new clients, including notable additions from the L'Oreal Group – L'Oreal Redken and Maybelline, strengthening our existing relationship with Garnier,” Karia said.

“Additionally, ITC Personal Care and Dr. Reddy's Venusia brand are now part of our portfolio. Kinder and IQOO Mobile are significant new additions, along with major collaborations with ITC Hotels, Reliance Group's NMACC and JWCC launches, Nerolac, and BookMyShow. Notably, our involvement in the ShareChat launch has made this an overall successful year for us in terms of new business," he added.

Furthermore, he emphasised some of the major growth drivers behind the agency’s success this year, saying that these growth drivers stem from clients seeking dependable, high-quality creative output. The robust technology backend further enhances integration between creative and technology, evident in successes like launching Jio World Plaza's website and securing the Coca-Cola mandate for website delivery.

“Our expertise lies in the strong intersection of technology and creativity, particularly in MarTech. Cultivating solid MarTech partnerships, deploying CDPs, building consumer journeys, and seamlessly linking them to CRM touchpoints showcase our increasing proficiency in this domain,” Karia said.

"Some of the challenges that we have faced are primarily to do with staff attrition. Our industry is changing a fair bit and it's a young industry, so attrition is something that we have struggled with and something that we are looking into solving," he added.

While speaking about his expectations set aside for the agency's next year along with business strategy and scope of growth, Karia said that next year their primary objective is to double the size of their technology business.

“Simultaneously, we aim to sustain a growth rate of approximately 35% in our creative business. Additionally, we will soon announce a new acquisition outside India, to generate about seven and a half percent of our revenue from outside India in the coming year.

The agency is looking at small acquisitions and organic entry into marketplaces where there is a good respect for Indian creativity,” he added.

A few months back, digital content creators Masoom Minawala and Schbang launched a talent management vertical, MMaximize. Karia highlighted how that vertical is performing and what new can people expect from it in the coming year.

“The vertical is thriving, and we've onboarded notable talents. Looking ahead, our focus is on consolidating and driving revenue for these talents. Some of our talents have already created robust IPs, such as Shivani Bafna's four-episode series with Tanishq jewellery. Our talents are increasingly taking on entrepreneurial roles with these IPs, a trend we anticipate to grow,” he said.

Karia also highlighted key trends that will prevail in the digital diaspora in the upcoming year.

He said, “A major trend that we will see is that AI will become a mainstay rather than becoming experimental. Second is that the level of tools being used by clients concerning the creation of CDP, creation of personalisation journeys, and creation of avenues to better utilise their first-party data will only increase and we will start reaching a stage of maturity in the market around it.” 

“So far it has been a conversation but we will start seeing a stage of maturity. I think 2024 will be a year where a lot of the ideas that we have spoken about for the last two or three years will finally take shape in a more meaningful way and settle and become mainstays in the marketplace,” he added.

On being asked that while the share of digital advertising in the overall Indian ad expenditure surpasses that of TV, digital agencies are grappling with challenges in proportionally increasing their revenue. So, why is it happening and how can one navigate this challenge? Karia said, “Concerning digital agencies, there are two or three challenges. One is that the mainline agencies are also selling digital now. So that is a challenge that we are focusing on driving better efficiencies on digital to help clients consider us only for their digital mandates.”

The trend is driven by banks questioning digital, mainly due to concerns such as ad fraud. Tighter measures are essential to address challenges like linking one-time digital purchases to building loyalty loops. Agencies need to deliver enhanced value for clients in their digital media spend to own the entire consumer journey. Additionally, there's a growing focus on the efficacy of digital, prompting digital agencies to pose more hard questions to publishers, he said.

While there has been an increasing trend of reducing agency commissions in digital, Karia emphasised, “We are managing that with greater value-added services to clients. From analytics to tools to technology deployment to creative. So that's how we are making it affordable for us.”

Karia also shared his views on how he envisions digital agencies reinventing themselves to stay at the forefront of the industry and what role Schbang see itself playing in this transformation, in light of advancements in technology, particularly AI.

“With OpenAI, customisation is a key focus across three dimensions. Firstly, leveraging the OpenAI API for client tool development. Second, implementing 22 internal tools as bespoke bots for diverse creative processes. Third, it elevates design capabilities by harnessing the synergy of design and AI throughout our ecosystem. Additionally, our code team is exploring AI applications to enhance coding efficiency and optimise code stacks,” he added.

Info@BestMediaInfo.com