‘We act as a matchmaker between brands and celebrities’

We are a celebrity endorsement company and are also getting into the video content space, feature films and web series, says Sonya V Kapoor, Founder of M5 Entertainment.

In a chat with exchange4media, Sonya and Amrita spoke about the company’s marketing expansion and growth plans, ad campaigns and associations with brands and celebrities. 

Edited Excerpts:

How did the agency perform in the last couple of years and what sets you apart from other agencies in the market?

Over the last five years, we have grown by leaps and bounds. Our core verticals have always been celebrity endorsements and we have worked with a lot of actors, sports celebrities, musicians, influencers and brands. Moreover, we prefer to keep our marketing mantra simple, transparent and cost-effective. Also, we as an agency work for brands because celebrities have their talent agencies to represent them. Therefore, we differentiate ourselves by representing brands in the market. We help brands in negotiating with talent by figuring out what is best for them based on their marketing strategies and brand requirements. Despite representing brands at a core, we also work with celebrities in giving them what we promise.

What celebrities and brands have recently joined you, and what strategies does the agency follow while connecting brands with celebrities? 

Amrita 

We have been excited about the campaign ‘Five Volts’ in which Mahindra Singh Dhoni has appeared. It is our latest campaign which is already out in the market. Moreover, we worked with many other actors including Kiara. 

Sonya

The best deals that we have done recently include Tata Play. Tata has completely changed their branding. Earlier, it was called Tata Sky and now it is called Tata Play. They are in different characters and stuff. It has worked well for brands because that’s again something very innovative that has come into that space. We have worked with a bunch of actors, including Siddharth Malhotra, Samantha Prabhu and Mimi Parambrata. We have cut across the entire geography of India. 

Apart from collaborating brands with celebrities, M5 also produces OTT and video content. How does that help the agency in boosting the overall business? 

We have an association with the actors; it just lifts the entire profile because the actors want to do coursework with us on various content pieces. The actors also know the fact that we are not limited and working with them on different levels. We should be soon coming out with some very interesting announcements in the space of web series and feature films. 

You have your office in Gurugram and Mumbai. Are you planning to expand your office to other cities? 

We work across different markets and we're also very strong in the south. We have excellent partners in the south who we work with. Also, it doesn't matter how many offices you have in this particular field, it's all based on relationships. We also work with brands in Bangalore and work with actors in Hyderabad, Chennai, West Bengal and Northeast. 

Our core philosophy has always been to work with women. We try to give women opportunities and encourage a lot of women who can work from home and be a part of our team. We believe in providing work-life balance to them. 

Over the years, the kind of transparency that we have built up, and the relationships that we have built up as an agency with both actors and brands have held us in good stead, and we plan to continue that. So it's not about offices. It's about how you're kind of having those connections because it's a very people-oriented industry. We are a digital agency, however, for shoots, we have to go to Bombay and visit other different locations. 

What marketing strategies do you follow while targeting your clients or engaging with your clients? 

When we connect with a client, our main agenda is to make the entire process of onboarding a

celebrity as simple as possible. We keep it very focused, based on their marketing strategy. When we reach out to them, we tell them what's possible and what's not possible. 

The other marketing strategy is word of mouth. A lot of founders and a lot of owners recommend this strategy. What we bring to the table at the end of the day, it's essentially word of mouth.

Would you like to talk about your revenues? Quarter four revenues and what are you expecting from quarters one and two? 

We have overreached our targets and are growing day by day. We've already surpassed our targets for the first quarter and are almost going to close our targets for the second quarter. There is a lot of demand for celebrity business in India. The brands and celebrities are reaching out to us as they have become more familiar with our agency. 

Almost two years ago the agency announced hiring more women in the business. Could you tell us how many women have joined you in the last couple of years? 

We endeavour to get as many women as possible but obviously, we want to keep our numbers tight. We don't want to become a very overhead-heavy company because it's not required at the end of the day. 

Any acquisition and investment plans in the upcoming months? 

We are planning to go abroad as we are performing well in India. We want to expand our horizons. Bollywood actors and celebrities abroad are really in demand. Also, we are planning to expand very slowly and steadily in the Middle East market in Europe and maybe America as well. 

In terms of investments, we have just established our content vertical and are investing heavily in building up the library of content that we are going to be creating in the upcoming months. We are going all out in the production side of things as well now and the fact that we work with a lot of actors allows us to have access to them and get them the kind of content they also want to do. 

Any other growth plans? Where are you seeing your agency in the coming two years?

Amrita

We are planning to do a lot of live events across India; however, we're already doing wedding events across the globe. Apart from everything that's already going on, we have a lot on our plate already. We're excited about that as well and establish ourselves basically as content producers because that's the way we want to take it. Also, we are hoping to become a very powerful content studio sooner than later.