Dentsu Impact forays into CRM & Digital; Kartikeya Srivastava to lead

Dentsu Impact, the full-service creative agency from Dentsu Aegis Network that was in news recently for winning the Maruti Suzuki digital business and the IKEA account, is expanding its investment and expertise in digital and CRM with an eye on the future landscape. The agency has launched two new divisions – digital and CRM that will be strategically driven by Kartikeya Srivastava, head – planning, Dentsu Impact.

The agency has also roped in Sanjay Pokhriyal as vice-president, CRM. Pokhriyal comes with more than 17 years of rich experience in CRM. He has helped run multiple CRM programs and implement the right CRM strategy, customized for brands. He will report to Kartikeya and will help in building the CRM division.

It is pertinent to note here that over the past one year, Dentsu Impact had been advancing steadily in digital and CRM capabilities with an idea to create in-house expertise that would help the agency own the idea better and provide holistic brand solutions to its clients. Meanwhile, the agency will continue to partner and work with other Dentsu Aegis Network digital agencies, depending on client requirements.

On this new move Amit Wadhwa, President Dentsu Impact said, “if we talk about brand building, digital and CRM are the two most important elements that continue to gain prominence every single day. However, today these two are more often than not discussed more from a technology and process point-of-view rather than brand-out or brand-led.

What we at Dentsu Impact would want to do is to seamlessly bind these two elements together along with the brand idea. This is the reason why Kartik, who has been a close partner and has been heading strategic planning for us for a while now, was a natural choice when it came to leading these initiatives and building these capabilities further. We are looking forward to some exciting times ahead.”

On this new development, Kartikeya added, “The new responsibility is both exciting and challenging…exciting because creative thinking and creativity can be given a new meaning in an ever evolving data-driven, connected world. Digital and CRM are becoming great enablers in creating unified experiences and finding new ways to build brands. It is also a challenge because it requires change management, breaking of silos and reorienting the way people look at these functions not so much as technology or process led, but rather as brand and experience led.

On his appointment Sanjay said, “Dentsu Impact is the most exciting place to be in as it strives to build capabilities to deliver holistic and consistent brand experience for its partners. I am super excited about my assignment with Dentsu Impact and look forward to doing some path breaking work to deliver a superlative customer experience.”