Synite Digital has won the digital media review launched by Mothercare for performance marketing. Team A Ventures (TAV), the official franchisee for Mothercare and multiple international brands in Pakistan, awarded the account to the Dentsu Aegis Network affiliate agency, under the Synergy Group.
The win comes following a digital media brief floated in the market, requesting that agencies with experience and expertise in eCommerce focused performance marketing pitch, along with a track record in delivering results for owned media platforms and in driving footfall to stores. With over a dozen agencies competing for the account, including Mediacom, MWM Studioz, Sybrid, and RG Blue, the pitches were evaluated by Zahid Jivanji and Tariq Hameed Siddiqui, head of digital business and Ayaz Arshad, head of marketing.
“We had agencies who were offering remuneration below our expectations and were turning out to be very cost effective, but in the final rounds Synite Digital was the only agency who agreed to come on a performance-based model – if they do well, they will be rewarded accordingly, but if they don’t it will affect their remuneration accordingly,” said Siddiqui. “Among other things was Synite’s cluster approach to conversions stood out from all the pitches we received.”
As part of the TAV digital roadmap for 2019, a new site for Mothercare has been created by RLTSquare, a software development firm with expertise in Magento enterprise. The site is currently being reviewed by Mothercare global and is expected to go launch by mid-March 2019. According to Siddiqui, Mothercare Pakistan will be the first global brand in modern-retail Pakistan to have an official e-commerce presence managed solely by a regional partner.
Rejoice!
Synite Digital reportedly won digital media accounts for the entire TAV company portfolio, including NEXT, Early Learning Centre, Superfeet, Crocs, Timberland, Havaianas, Accessorize, Monsoon Children and FitFlop. The agency has been tasked with optimizing the digital media spending for online (eCommerce) and offline (footfall) conversions.
“Our strategy was based on a full funnel approach where we would track the consumer journey along the conversion funnel using multiple data points to increase awareness (TOFU) about the presence of Mothercare’s online store and ensure qualified traffic on website that is in the consideration phase, so the consumer lands on the website and initiates purchase (BOFU),” said Waqas Artani, Media & Account Lead at Synite Digital, adding that a close partnership with Google and Facebook helped make the win possible, with the agency having access to proprietary tools and a consumer journey planning framework due to its affiliation with the Dentsu Aegis Network.
According to Siddiqui, the effectiveness of Synite Digital will be evaluated based on comparisons between previous and future performance reports, against which Siddiqui will set quantifiable targets for each month.
“CPA will be a major factor in the evaluation,” said Siddiqui. “And footfall numbers for brick and mortar conversions.”
From the brief to the pitch, the account wins were led by Saad Khalique, Emaad Ishaq Khan, Imran Kapadia, Murad Salahuddin, Waqas Artani, and Rehan Khalid of Synite Digital, representing a blend of the business, digital, and performance teams.
Takeaways
Siddiqui noted that of the 15 agencies that pitched, the majority had a local presence while a minority had a global presence. Agency selection was based on a successful track record in performance marketing and creating an impact on eCommerce and in-store footfall.
“Every agency had done a social media audit, where some even lacked basic research about the brands given in the brief, but most of them had creative solutions for us, for which we didn’t even open the pitch,” he said.
“It’s very optimistic to see that so many agencies have established over the recent past years and many are moving towards digital, but they all need to know that by just showcasing a few insights and examples that may not even be relevant to the industry in today’s age – simply does not cut it, especially when there is immense competition.”
Siddiqui lamented that only two agencies out of 15 asked for additional information apart from the brief, which only enforced the idea that curiosity has been replaced by the herd mentality.
He recommends that agencies that want to stand out must be prepared to question the client and everything they know, including all assumptions on how best to approach a pitch.
