Aiming to make India a hub of international clients: Scarecrow's Manish Bhatt

Under the proficient leadership of Manish Bhatt, Founder Director, Scarecrow Communication has grown beyond expectations and continues to surpass new heights. Having been in the industry for over 15 years, Bhatt aspires the advertising space to be B2T instead of B2B, where T stands for Talent. In an attempt to give back to the industry, Bhatt, a man of humble origins along with his partners launched an Art Gallery within the office premises where regular shows would be held. Another initiative in the pipeline is merchandising e-commerce which will be shortly looked into. In an exclusive interview with Adgully, Bhatt assess this space in close quarters.

Adgully: Tell us about the journey so far that led to Scarecrow Communications...

Manish Bhatt: Raghu Bhat and I have worked together for the last 15 years in various ad agencies; starting from Contract, to O&M, McCann Erickson, Ambience Publicis and the like. Exactly one year ago, on 9th February 2010, we started Scarecrow Communications. Raghu and I have been one of the longest going teams in advertisement. The experience has been diverse; we have worked on various brands like Cadbury, Asian Paints, HSBC, Tata Indicom and the like. We have touched upon most of the categories in this space. After being in this space for so long, we began to have our own ideas on how the agencies should function and how certain things should be done which is why we decided to move on.

Ag: How has Scarecrow done in the past year?

MB: Scarecrow has done really well in just a year's time. We have been working around 12 to 15 brands with a team of 25 people. We would be one of the youngest and fastest growing agencies. We have diverse and large clients in our platter like Bharat Petroleum, Margo Soap, Religare group, Future capital, DNA etc. We have talent joining from various backgrounds. Our hard work for the year has paid off well within the year.

Ag: Can you share with us two or three milestones with Scarecrow?

MB: One would say that it is one of the fastest growing agencies. We have FMCG and MNC client like Margo which is an achievement. We also have Bharat Petroleum, which is large in itself. Another good thing that happened to us was acquiring group clients like Religare and Future. We got lucky to start with bigger sized clients.

Ag: Were there any setbacks to establish Scarecrow?

MB: The only setback was that we took time to build our office. Also due to which the talent hiring got delayed, however we have completed that and we are now a robust team. So now there are no glitches.

Ag: What is the mantra which is within Scarecrow that has given it success in such short time?

MB: Our vision is to do advertising which has a longer shelf life. Advertising should get into popular culture. We are constantly attempting and putting an effort to enforce our vision. Also we are not reluctant to new media and because we are flexible and adaptable, things have fallen into our laps.

Ag: In a line, how would you define Scarecrow Communications?

MB: It is a full-fledged agency with a media neutral attitude and the fact that idea is better than media.

Ag: Could you share with us some of the memorable work Scarecrow has done?

MB: Religare Broking was one large campaign which was successful. Also our campaign for DNA was appreciated and effective. We also did a large print campaign for ShriRam Transport Finance which fetched us huge results even in digital medium.

Ag: What is the next step for Scarecrow?

MB: We would work towards achieving multinational clients to make India a hub. The entire industry should work towards this as there is a definite potential.

Ag: How have you seen the advertising space evolving over the last few years in your varied experience?

MB: It is a very unique mix where electronic media and digital media is booming and co-existing heavily. The space has evolved quite well. It has become more open and clients are taking more risks. They are becoming more innovative in their ways.

Ag: What have been the learnings in the last one year?

MB: Being an entrepreneur, you have to take care of every small detail right from house-keeping needs of the office to the financial pay out monthly. This is has been a huge learning experience.

Ag: What are the upcoming initiatives at Scarecrow?

MB: We are looking at the huge scope in rural marketing and advertising. There is a huge area to be tapped. We back ended the UID project where we scored well. We also participated in e-governance and did pretty well. "Scarecrow' is also a rural name, as all of us were from the villages and could connect to it easily and it was also very apt.

Ag: Any message for the creative young people entering this industry...

MB: Don't let award be the only expectation of creativity you have, you should create newer avenues and create a new way of achieving their goals. | By Janees Antoo [janees(at)adgully.com]

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