Latest news with #SaurabhVarma
Time of India
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
The lion and the wardrobe malfunction
By Saurabh Varma It's that time of the year again. The rosé is flowing on the French Riviera, creatives are polishing their case films, and somewhere on the Croisette, a man in linen is claiming that a campaign 'changed culture'. Welcome to Cannes — where creativity is king and effectiveness is… somewhere lost at baggage claim. Let's get this straight: I love Cannes and I love creativity. I've been a judge twice and have won my fair share of Lions. My hope is that Cannes starts to represent our new reality. In 2016, our team brought home a Bronze for Bajaj V. We turned the metal of a retired warship into motorcycles and a campaign into business success. It felt like something worthy of Gold. Cannes disagreed. The following year, the campaign won a Gold, but in Creative Effectiveness . Apparently, creativity is judged on vibes first, results later. This isn't a one-time thing. It's practically tradition. Let's crunch some très inconvenient numbers: From 2018 to 2023, Cannes handed out 147 Grand Prix awards. Of these, only five went on to win in the Creative Effectiveness category. That's a 3.4% conversion rate — which is impressive if you're a dodgy mutual fund, not if you're the world's premier celebration of marketing genius. Expand the scope to Grand Prix + Gold metals and you still get just 20 out of 613. Which means 593 campaigns had the Cannes jury on their feet… but couldn't move the consumers to their wallet. So, what are we actually rewarding? It's time to face an awkward truth: We, the industry, are often busy awarding ads that impress other ad people. Work that's gorgeously shot, heartbreakingly purposeful, a beautiful act and utterly forgettable at the cash register. Meanwhile, brands are fighting the battle of their lives. Consumer attention is down to milliseconds. Feeds are on fire. Platforms change every quarter. Taglines are dying, and your 'big idea' is currently losing to a meme made in someone's bathroom. In the middle of this chaos, what should creative stand for? We need to stop fetishising creativity that exists only for itself — ads that win awards but lose market share. Narcissistic creativity is fun at award shows, but it's useless in boardrooms. Yes, the game has changed. Today's ideas must flow across platforms, stay always-on, flex through the funnel. But one thing hasn't changed: Creativity is only meaningful when it changes consumer behaviour. That's why it's encouraging to see Cannes introducing a new sub-category under Creative Effectiveness — one that celebrates enduring brand platforms . Applause! But why stop there? Shouldn't this be the main show, not a sideshow? Imagine a Cannes where effectiveness is the entry ticket, not the encore. Where we judge work for what it did, not just how it looked or made a jury feel. Where ideas must prove they moved the needle before they can move the jury. Just switch. Make the first year only about effectiveness and the following year about creativity. Because let's be honest: We're not in the business of creativity. We're in the business of results — delivered creatively. And maybe, just maybe, the next time we give out a Lion… it shouldn't be for theatre. It should be for the hunt. (The author is founder of Wondrlab India. Views expressed are personal.)
Mint
29-05-2025
- Business
- Mint
Wondrlab bets ₹30 crore on SaaS platform Hector to cut e-commerce chaos
MUMBAI : In a digital economy increasingly defined by high-velocity clicks and algorithmic shelves, brands are grappling with the chaos of managing e-commerce and quick commerce campaigns across multiple platforms. Marketing technology (martech) company Wondrlab is attempting to bring clarity with the launch of Hector, a proprietary SaaS (software as a service) platform built by its performance marketing arm Neon Digital. After two years of product development and a ₹30 crore investment, the platform is being positioned as a full-stack operating system for digital commerce, already being used by over 100 clients. At its core, Hector brings together advertising and performance data from Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra, Blinkit, Instamart, Zepto and BigBasket, offering brands a unified dashboard to view, analyse and act on insights that were previously scattered across siloed platforms. The tool doesn't just visualise campaign data; it enables businesses to optimise spends, monitor competitor activity, and respond in real time to inventory, pricing and traffic shifts, all within a single interface. Also Read: Third time's the charm for this startup looking to ride India's gaming frenzy Unlike many martech products that are designed as reporting dashboards for marketers, Hector was built from the ground up by people who have lived the campaign trenches. 'We didn't start with a tech idea. We started with a problem," said Meher Patel, founder of Neon Digital. 'Every commerce platform has its own ad engine, its own language and its own reporting format. The knowledge is unstructured, and the learning curve is steep. Hector takes all of that and makes it intuitive." How Hector helps brands win The platform standardises performance metrics like ROAS (Return On Advertising Spend) and ACoS (Advertising cost of sales) across platforms, and consolidates advertising and organic revenue at the stock keeping unit (SKU) level. It enables users to track product-wise sales, ad attribution, regional performance and predictive inventory needs. For business leaders, it offers a top-down view of what's working and what's not, while also allowing deeper analysis for media managers. Saurabh Varma, founder and CEO of Wondrlab Network, sees Hector as a bet on India's growing digital commerce maturity. 'This is not just about efficiency. It's about giving brands control. The market has outgrown spreadsheets and patchwork dashboards. Hector is what a modern commerce control room looks like," he said. Also Read: Rooter picks up exclusive digital rights for esports tournament BGMI Masters Series One of Hector's standout features is its deep integration with Amazon Marketing Cloud, which enables brands to build audience cohorts based on every level of engagement, from those who simply saw an ad to those who added a product to cart but didn't complete the transaction. This kind of precision targeting, currently used by less than 1% of Amazon advertisers globally, has already helped Wondrlab clients reassess their media strategies. In one instance, a D2C mattress brand found that 65% of its Shopify and retail store buyers had interacted with its Amazon ads, prompting a rebalance of its YouTube and marketplace ad spends. But Hector doesn't stop at audience insights. It also facilitates campaign-level automation, including hourly performance analysis (dayparting), predictive alerts when top-selling SKUs are close to running out, and optimisation tools to tweak bids, placements or keywords in real time. The system also allows brands to build custom taxonomies, categorising products by size, gender, or material instead of relying on standard platform-defined hierarchies. The team is working towards a future where campaigns can be launched and managed across all marketplaces from one interface. A platform for future of commerce Hector is not licensed to other agencies and is only available via three engagement models: SaaS-only for in-house teams, full-service through Neon, or a hybrid approach. 'This is our moat," Varma said. 'We're not selling software. We're enabling commerce. If you're serious about scaling in this space, you'll need a platform like this." Also Read: From DRDO to Dinosaurs: India's listed 3D printing firm makes consumer pivot Wondrlab says the platform currently manages over ₹50 crore in monthly commerce and expects that figure to grow tenfold as it scales Hector to 500 clients over the next year. With increasing pressure on brands to demonstrate digital ROI (return on investment), especially on high-velocity platforms like quick commerce and marketplaces, Hector is being positioned as more than just a tool—it's a new way of doing business. 'In a market that's only getting noisier, you either have clarity or you're flying blind," said Patel. 'Hector gives you that clarity."
