“At Ideosphere, we aspire to be among the top agencies known for the right reasons; Progressive, Culture and Good Work” says Minal D’Rozario, co-Founder & Director, Ideosphere Group & Head Contributor, Ourbit Marketing & Communications, the Digital Extension of Ideosphere Group.
Ideosphere offers PR strategies for brands and was started 4 years ago. Today the company boasts of a 40 member team spread across various cities in India. Let’s read on.
Can you tell us about yourself, Minal?
Passionate, Collaborative & Action are among the three attributes which reflect in everything I do. Working with some of the best agencies and known brands in PR for more than a decade has substantially contributed to my grounding as a professional. From a short project with Cadbury corporate sales, to setting profitable operations at a very young age for Kidstuff Promos & Events (Mudra Group Company), to being part of some of the key corporate & crisis communications mandates with MSL and Genesis Burson Marsteller encompasses my professional experience before the birth of Ideosphere.
Have stayed in about 13 cities and exposed to a variety of people & culture in India and abroad, to now being married with more than 5 cultures in one family well describes my understanding of various insights on behaviours and culture. The significance of which, is being beautifully put forth in Ideosphere.
How did the idea of Ideosphere come about and what are its core services?
Ideosphere was started with a stranger I met over a coffee with my husband’s past student and close friend Aniruddha Atul Bhagwat Co-Founder, who was equally passionate and ambitious to start something of his own in 2011. We met at Costa Coffee in Pune, and in a week the company was registered, and within a month we were the Co-Founders of Ideosphere. The core services were always insights based communication which is PR with a structured support of insights.
With the social revolution we joined hands with Mayur Milan, Director, Ourbit to set up the social media company within the Ideosphere group. At this point in time we are spread over Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore from 1 team member we are 40 members across 3 cities and 35 retained clients.
As co-founder of the venture, what were the initial problems you faced when starting up?
The initial teething issues like any start up was the acceptance of our approach of insights based communication which then was not understood amongst our target clients, as Public Relation overall image was driven with quantity and media relations. And we were here, proposing the importance of knowing your customer to formulate content leading to impact.
The second was our overall experience not being significant to showcase our maturity in the approach created a sense of doubt, but thanks to sudden rage of the start up culture we were well accepted.
What is your typical work-day like?
My day starts at 8.30 am with first conversation with Aniruddha on our respective goals for the day, which is then translated to the white board with my TDL broken into Work, Culture (Internal), others initiatives. Team Meeting and Client Meetings are pre planned and informed well in advance with agendas, responding to all mails and insights to certain clients are communicated to the team. Lunch is the time we all sit together share our personal experiences, work is not a part of the conversations at all and back to work till 6.30 pm. Brainstorming with team are generally kept post lunch for ideas and new pitches if required. We do not believe working late and weekends are devoted to family hence planning and communication clarity is well understood by all in Ideosphere.
Can you share details of the 3 most influential projects you've worked on through Ideosphere?
Baskin-Robbins: This is the project we were really able to propogate our insights-approach. This was one of our first client mandates for Ideosphere in 2011. With an intent to reduce Baskin-Robbins new product/flavour failure rate, we established the first consumer taste panel for the ice cream industry. From one flavour to testing over 120 products and flavours over the next couple years, we were able to significantly reduce the new product failure rate for the brand. This case study was also included as one of the top 15 marketing impact case studies by SP Jain in 2013.
Mustang Socks & Accessories – A leading socks manufacturer, have been associated for more than 2 years with Ideosphere. We have been instrumental and successful in transitioning from being a commodity and just known as contractors for various international brands to having a brand identity as the preferred brand of socks in Indian subcontinent.
Ideosphere role has been instrumental in terms of Consulting, Integration and Execution of all brand communication related initiatives apart from conceptualising, facilitating and structuring the process of Socks Association led by Founders of Mustang Socks.
Worldoo.com – The only online social eco-system for kids between 6 to 12 years of age, with more than 90,000 registrations launched in early 2013. The communication mandate required achieving two objectives 1) Acceptance of online social platform amongst parents for their kids 2) Creating the right message strategy to promote connect and engage with Worldoo.com as the safe kid’s platform. Today, Worldoo.com is a democratic platform created by the parents, kids and stakeholders supported by Mr.Amitabh Bachchan supported only with PR & Social Media. Worldoo.com was among the nominated case studies for the Abby’s this year.
What made you choose entrepreneurship over a corporate job?
With all my past jobs, I always had an entrepreneurial outlook; felt I should do more and everything possible to achieve brand objectives. I look at Ideosphere as a stepping stone towards growth. Since then there has been no looking back and have till date not really compared it with a job but just as the right step towards being progressive.
Where do you hope to take the company in the next 5 years?
At Ideosphere, we aspire to be among the top agencies known for the right reasons; Progressive, Culture and Good Work. We have had an overwhelming growth over a short period of more than 4 years and now it’s about expanding our footprints in Delhi and at the initial stage to develop our own product aligned to the core ideology of Ideosphere. Our major focus is to build a strong brand with a boutique structure at the core, and evolve to become an influential brand in our industry over the next five years.