2023 will be a year of unlocking Web 3.O: Shams Jasani

As Shams Jasani, CEO Wunderman Thompson completes one year into his new role, he spoke to exchange4media about building a creative agency that is more technology-focussed, user-friendly and bullish on Web 3.0.  

Come 2023 and Jasani’s efforts of marrying creativity with technology will be more and more visible in campaigns that the agency is set to deliver. Besides, he is also driving incremental growth through ventures like WT health and Commerce.

Edited excerpts from the conversation:  

You are a pioneer in digital advertising; hence it is expected that in this one year, Wunderman Thompson (WT) must have gone through a massive digital transformation across various verticals. Can you please shed some light on the same?

This one year has been absolutely fantastic, coming into an agency that has such a strong legacy. Most people in the advertising industry have at some point either worked with or worked at WT. Honestly, it was an honour of my life to take over something as prestigious as this. In the last few years, the pandemic has changed the relationship between consumers and advertising. Digital has played a key role in changing habits, and hence I am here. In this one year, WT has evolved into a creative agency led by commerce and tech. We already had all the pieces in place, it’s just that we have integrated them all, and that has changed the way we pitch now. Talking of business, we are back to 2019 levels. It has been a fantastic year in terms of business also.  2023 should take us to higher levels.

How are you pitching differently to clients in the last one year?

We have moved from a brand experience agency to a consumer experience agency.  And that is what I have been telling my team here from Day 1. We have embarked on this evolution; we are not fully there yet. It’s an evolving concept where we want to bring clients’ solutions across the entire consumer journey. We want to use the insights that we have for over 90 years, not just to help brands but also in other aspects of the business.

You launched WT health early this year.  How has been the response? How has it helped you serve health and wellness clients differently?

Overall, the response is phenomenal. We have recently won clients like Abbott (Troponin), Dr. Reddy’s (Alfoo & Dutas T), GSK, Sun Pharma and HUL (Novology)  but it’s the B2B part of the business that has really taken off very well.  The whole content that we are building is customised and done in the language that the medical fraternity understands and relates with. And we have a large internal team as well as a team that works with us to build this content. Then we have Mirum with us, which is an extremely strong player on this front.

You collaborated with Mirum, and announced further investment in MarTech, along with a few acquisitions. By when can we expect some new announcements?

We are expecting to complete the process and make announcements by mid-2023. Most acquisitions will be around MarTech, user experience, design or Web 3.O. We are looking at hiring resources in the Martech space. Globally, India is considered a hotbed for Martech’s growth. It is really exploding in India. We are in the process of expanding our internal team as well.

Most of your popular ads released in the last year like Kingfisher or Munch had a popular face like Varun Dhawan or Samantha Prabhu. Do you agree that these ads are relying a bit more on star power than creative storytelling?

It’s horses for courses for us. We have also done a recent Times of India Campaign, TATA Pravesh and an HSBC campaign that has very powerful storytelling. Of course, there are clients who want a certain way of presentation and we go with their brief. There are clients that want storytelling. However, I do feel we need to package our work better. We need to make an effort on talking about it.

You are a 90-year-old legacy agency, you have scale, and you have clients across various sectors. However, it’s the new-age agencies who have walked away with more recognition at Cannes in 2022. Do you feel the need to reinvent the agency?

I can’t comment on the work that was done last year. It was all made before my time. In 2023, you will see a lot of good work going to Cannes and the transition that I have been talking about like digital-first, value chain etc., will reflect in our works next year.  We have done some amazing work that I can’t talk about until the campaign is out. But I am very confident of our entries that will go for Cannes next year.

Are the recent exits of a few senior people part of a restructuring or reinventing the agency?

More than a restructuring there is a new direction that we are going in, which is more and more integrated. I don’t see too many changes happening because we have some amazing people. Looking at the future, we have some critical new roles that will come in and those will get filled according to the new vision of where we want to go. All in all, the agency has done very well and has very good talent.

What exactly is Wunderman Thompson’s Commerce business? 

So, our Commerce business does high-end development. The team basically develops the back-end for high-end commerce, which involves entire platform development, choosing the kind of platform, creating it and making it live for our clients. We are very confident that in the coming years it will become the growth engine for India. The growth in this part of the business is substantially higher as compared to others. We have a lot of traditional clients who want to create their own D2C, and we are excited to be with them on this journey.

Data has lately become an integral part of advertising. How do you marry creativity with technology?

Traditionally, creativity worked in a set format that involved great storytelling, artwork and great concepts. There were some incremental innovations that were happening. In the last two years, things changed drastically and the new buzzword is the creative use of data and technology. That I believe will be a key cornerstone on how you will be evaluated as a great creative agency in the future. Your traditional parameters like storytelling will continue to be there but technology will be an additional peg that will define creative agencies. How are you telling your story by leveraging the right kind of technology on different platforms will be the key to success. 2023 will be about Web 3.O and 5G. It is going to be about how are you using technology in the consumer journey. It will be a year of unlocking Web 3.O.

While digital has been your strength and there is a lot that Wunderman is gaining from it, how has Wunderman as a 90-year-old creative agency helped you evolve as a professional?

It has been a huge learning curve for me. I had an understanding of it as towards the later part of my career I was involved in what Taproot (dentsu) was doing. But the scale that Wunderman Thompson brings is just another level.  The understanding of brands and consumers is so in-depth here and that perhaps was my biggest learning; how that really has a deep-seated impact. This also marries into one of the debates of the work, which is tactical, and the work which is long term. Where a creative agency shines is the long-term strategy work that they do for clients vs tactical, which is digital and now we are getting good at that too.