Xaxis Creative Studios won’t be stepping on the toes of creative agencies:Rita Sahajpaul

With the aim of giving brands access to data-driven digital design capabilities and real-time campaign insights for better media outcomes, Xaxis, the advanced programmatic arm of GroupM, launched a new programmatic creative services solution arm, called Xaxis Creative Studios (XCS), for the Indian market on February 2, 2021.

With full-service in-house creative capability, XCS’ team of designers, producers, developers, and animators will help clients develop and deliver more relevant, more engaging creative executions to drive greater programmatic performance and insights.

XCS has already been launched in the UK, the US, Latin America and parts of the APAC market.

Announcing the launch of XCS, Rita Sahajpaul, National Head of Product and Marketing Science, Xaxis India, had said, “With the launch of Xaxis Creative Studios, Xaxis will be able to provide last-mile services to the clients and address a gap in the market in integrating creatives and media for digital ads. Digital media can be quite cluttered, and our focus is to bring innovative and engaging creative solutions which allow the brand messaging to stand-out and be effective in reaching the right audience.”

In this exclusive interaction with Adgully, Rita Sahajpaul shares her insights on Xaxis Creative Studios, how are they different from already existing agencies, the role of AI and the growth path for XCS in India.

Please give us some insight on Xaxis Creative Studios, what is it all about and how does it fullfill the requirement of the clients and the significance of this launch in today’s market? 

Xaxis is the programmatic media arm for GroupM and obviously we do all things programmatic. Within this, we have come to an analysis that creative plays a massive role in campaigns when using programmatic. A very well known study also says that it has a 47% impact on campaign performance. Creative was something we weren't playing a very proactive role into and we really didn't have a say on how to make creatives better to improve campaign performance. Xaxis Creative Studios (XCS) is an effort on exactly this and we want to be able to provide creative solutions to the clients along with all the solutions we already offer. XCS is about improving on creatives we've already received and being able to provide the most engagement and interactive formats to improve that particular campaign. We build the strategy around creative depending on the needs of the client. The formats that we offer are going to be innovative, technology enabled and formats that can be deployed at scale. Personalisation and Omni-channel execution will be of strong focus.

How are you looking at adding value for brands and what's the role of AI here? How is it different from the current offerings of Xaxis?

The offerings already existing in the market are all around media solutions. XCS is going to be a layer on top of all of those media solutions in the sense that we'll also be providing creative services corresponding to those media solutions. It's a capability that'll spread across all of Xaxis' media solutions.

Coming to AI, programmatic means more data. Everything around data we think is a great input for AI. AI already helps us optimize on the data signals across all our offerings. This helps us build models to further optimize campaigns on.

With creative, we also get additional data sources from either so creative lense which helps either integrating with the existing AI or create new algorithms. This allows us to use data signals from creative.

AI can also be used purely from a creation perspective. Dynamic Creative Optimization (DCO) is as great example where I can create multiple variations of a creative in real time using the AI that's deployed. It helps us reduce production time for creative. AI also let's us know which creative is working and which is not and that level of insights will help massively in the creative improvement.

How are you creating a team for XCS in India? Have there been new hirings and what are the specific skill sets they bring to the table?

In terms of the team, we'll definitely be building up our local set up. We'll need a lot of technology here and we'll be working with vendors to provide us various ad serving capabilities. For different formats we need different ad servers. That's already in place for us.

In terms of the actual creative designs, we'll need designers who are going to actually be using the platform for the creatives. At the moment, we'll be using our in-house team and they will be supporting us to build a lot of these creatives. Over 2021, we'll be hiring and expand the team.

How is the creative ideation done by XCS different from the normal creative ideation done by agencies?

The biggest lever we have is the data. We sit on a lot of data from the client perspective. We're able to understand user behaviour and look at the campaign data itself and also third party data like context, location or any sort of behaviour that we're looking at. One thing we do really well is data insights. That is the one key attribute that differentiates us from traditional creative agencies. We want to be able to use the data to then power the insights to tailor the communication strategy. These data insights allow us to provide optimum solutions for brands and improve the impact of the creative and campaign itself.

We'll be leveraging a lot of technology even when it comes to creative which will definitely be critical for us to service efficiently and also meet objectives.

What’s your vision for XCS in India? What kind of a growth path you are looking at?

We are very psyched about the launch and the fact that we are already existing in other markets and XCS has added value there, gives us that confidence to build narratives and outcomes relevant for the client.

Obviously, we won't be stepping on the toes of creative agencies but our ambition is to be able to bring technology, data and AI to further improvise and improve campaign performance. From a creative lens, we'll be able to use all the data signals and optimization to improve client outcome. That's where we want to be able to play.

At the same time, the growth path for us is immense. From a solutions perspective, there are some things that we see be really relevant. People are looking to step out now after the lockdown and there will be multiple avenues for brands to re-engage with the audiences and solutions like hyperlocal with DCO will work really well. We're very nicely placed to provide this capability. We're able to bring many creative options which will drive people to stores and increase footfalls.

E-commerce is going to be big as brands in 2021 will definitely be looking to make a larger presence on platforms like Amazon and Flipkart. XCS is very well placed here because of the capabilities of solutions we bring in from a creative perspective which will further help and enhance the solutions we offer.