Agency Feature: BORN

Who are we?

BORN is an award-winning global agency that focuses on Experience Design and Enterprise Commerce. With over 500+ digital transformations under its belt in over 40+ end markets that cover B2B and B2C segments. It is also one of the largest independent agencies in the customer and brand experience space with offices and operations in 8 countries.

What's in the name?

Brands have accessed customers using traditional channels such as newsprint, billboards, radio, TV, events, mail and stores. The advent of the internet and the explosive growth of the digital economy have opened entirely new channels of access to customers such as web, social, mobile IoT and gaming.

BORN helps brands to give birth to new customer experiences in the world of digital - the newer channels. In short it helps brands find a new life in the digital economy and hence the name BORN.

What we do? 

Born is all about bringing the most to the digital space, and being the best at it. Our mission is to help a customer through all aspects of experiencing a brand into one integrated experience. We call this the Brand Experience Wheel, and this combines many specialisms– from attracting an audience, interacting with them, transacting, and then reacting to their feedback. Our overall objective is to progressively improve the customer experience with each turn of the wheel. To effect our mission we have built 10 specialisms that are combined to deliver great experiences:

Why we do it? 

For over 40 years, the market has traditionally accessed customers via channels such as newsprint, radio, TV, large format adverts, stores, snail-mail and events.

With the onset of two major upheavals in tech, the Internet and mobile, the old economy was seen massive disruption and a new market economy based on how people interact with brands. Social networks are increasingly digital and websites that were built to be showrooms can now take orders on line creating an explosion in ecommerce. .

History’s most creative genius, Leonardo Da Vinci’s creativity was based on his enthusiasm for interweaving diverse disciplines. In fact, the Mona Lisa’s smile is a timeless example of embracing both the arts and sciences. Yet when it came to digital, tech firms do not quite understand the world of marketing, and ad agencies do not understand tech. This chasm gave us an opportunity  to create a firm that sat at the intersection of art (creative design) and science (tech), and provide brands with big experiences that were memorable on both traditional and new channels. The agency’s vision was to do this through a combination of Enterprise Commerce and Experience Design, something that was not done very well before.

Also Read: Agency Feature: BlueBot

How we evolve? 

We have moved from simple point solutions like creative design to content production to commerce enablement. We have extended our offerings in scope and depth and verticalized solutions to address the requirements of over 40 end markets - manufacturing, transport, luxury, tech, semiconductors, retail, fashion, distribution, CPG, travel, hospitality, insurance and so on.

Last year, BORN created 3 new assets that are accelerators which allow clients to create digital experiences in a remarkably short time. SAP accorded BORN global certification for one of its innovations – an accelerator called EAGLE. BORN opened 4 new offices in that year establishing a presence in Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Toronto and Japan in addition to growing its existing presence in Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, New York and London.

Our measure of success comes in 4 forms – an NPS score or net promoter score – a measure of customer satisfaction. In 2018 we secured the highest number of perfect scores in our history (10/10). Our second success metric is growth. The third is the loyalty of our employees. With far below average attrition at senior & mid-level, we commit ourselves for inclusive & holistic growth of our employees. The fourth is Research & Innovation Quotient. We believe in shared growth & empowering our entire value chain & ecosystem. 

BORN has strategically invested in creating accelerators, IP and internal productivity tools and best in class processes (called Alexandria).

Industry as we forsee

The Industry outlook for digital agencies is positive & exciting. There is a lot of growth & expansion opportunities for highly specialized & full-service digital agencies across Industries & business functions. Going forward agencies need to crack the code of ‘ Delivering Value through bottom-line efficiencies and lean innovation’. The market is looking for expertise in emerging technologies, best in class creativity backed by actionable analytics & stringent project management from agencies to be the growth partner.

We predict that the traditional agencies who serviced the chief marketing officer will build more tech skills and the tech vendors will build marketing skills. The roles of the CMO and CIO are blending into that of a chief digital officer (CDO) who we serve.

We learned the hard way

The impact of technology on commerce has always fascinated us. With the onset of a digital world, a massive shift began with brands wanting to take every aspect of their business, from sales to customer experience, online.

So we had to adapt as well. We needed to uncover what it takes for a brand to succeed in a digital economy, and how to provide it for them. It became crucial to change from a brand-centric to a customer-centric approach.

Our objective became to define the experience. What were the channels our clients’ customers used, how did they interact with the brand, what were their preferred channels of transactions, and their overall customer experience?

This then came down to the execution, and how we capture the entire experience a brand hopes to provide.

Our biggest learning became stitching the two together for effective storytelling, relevant to our brands’ customers, across all channels.

They work with us

BORN works with the best names in the industry. When counted it has clients in over 40 end markets – from F&B, to hospitality, services to distribution, discrete manufacturing to process, CPG, retail, education, auto, defense, insurance and financial services and so on. It’s client roster includes iconic and award-winning brands covering coffee, shoes, drinks, outerwear, luxury, fashion, semiconductors, gaming, machine tools, travel, hospitality, pet food, marketplaces, filters, auction houses, airports, diamonds.

A day without Internet

The internet has become synonymous with content, and it would certainly be ironic if a content agency should be without the internet. 

Yet, being the creative agency that we are, a day without the internet would certainly not equate to a day of low productivity. As a team of original thinkers, our brainstorming sessions would probably proceed without much deterrence.  We would also take the time to optimize our workflow and introspect on any changes we could do to improve our business. 

Lastly, are you hiring?

Yes.