Agency Feature: Blue Vector

Who is Blue Vector?

Blue Vector is a lot of things, but we’re not an agency. We’re a creative collective, a social experiment, a power ballad, an overpainted canvas, an angry mob, but we’re not the translators of briefs. We like to reimagine things altogether and show you the images that run through our heads. Funny looking blots, audible colours or whatever it is.

Not to say that we’re mean, but we might be a little stubborn. And, we back this all up with brains, big brains; you’d be surprised because we’re gunning for a different type of greatness, the one that’s self-fulfilling and un-answering to some greater motive. We’re ambitious, a little cocky, fun to be around, and generally nice(ish) people. We’re that endearing high-performance creative house that loves your brand if your brand loves the ‘art’ of communication. We’re Blue Vector, a high-performance Creative House. Please take a seat.

Started in 2016 as local branding-outfit of 4 people in Piyush Kedia’s bedroom, we’re now a 30-people strong legitimate creative organization dabbling with film, art, branding, and advertising, with clients from around Gurgaon, India and the rest of planet Earth. 

What's in the name? 

Blue, because it’s the colour of trust, wisdom, and meth(od). And Vector, because a vector is something that’s got direction and magnitude, something that we like to think we have, and besides, a vector is the most fundamental element of digital design.

What do we do? 

Branding, Video Content, Photography, Sound and Art & Design.

Why we do it? 

Blue Vector was conceived when founder Piyush Kedia was tired of the corporate rigmarole in a well-known global consultancy that he worked in and thought it was probably a good time to channel his inner upstart, the one he’d been cultivating since his Skribble days in DU (Skribble was a stationary brand he started, and ended, in college). He had a strong network of designer friends and local entrepreneur associates and he realized it was a good idea to connect the two, setting up a little agency from his bedroom that did branding for local restaurants. Then with a Blue Vision strategy and a constant exploration of creative abilities, Blue Vector skipped, hopped and jumped to a fun, full-fledged creative outpost.

How we evolve? 

At the heart of Blue Vector’s operative culture is breakneck agility and agnosticism, the type that asks you to be equally adept at both research and creativity. This allows us to constantly experiment and adapt to every new creative trend and practice in the market, and that’s why we don’t limit ourselves to saying that we just do ‘design’. We’re constantly adding creative solutions to our kitty. So you’ll find one of us creating a massive wall-art illustration in one corner of the office while somebody designs a strategically efficient Emailer and the rest of the team is downstairs in the recording studio creating a sonic pneumonic for a new brand.

To complement our creativity, we’re also in the midst of product development for better in-house data and intelligence capabilities, something that combines influencers, insights, reputation management, and content discovery.

Social responsibility in social media 

An agency in this regard becomes more consultant than a vendor, as the gatekeeper of information and custodian of the brand’s reputation. Sometimes the agency may have to step in as a moral and hygiene director, telling brands where to draw the line in terms of the content they might want to get published. Eyeballs will have to be grabbed with intelligence, not shock value.

The need of the hour 

Some things that marketers, publishers, and even agencies might want to look into:

• More robust reportage on the Advertising Industry by big research/consulting bodies.
• A little recalibration of the imagery of agencies as less vendor and more consultant.
• Possibly something akin to a Credit score that gauges the timeliness of client payments.

Also Read: Agency Feature: Graffiti Collaborative

We learned the hard way 

There’s a bunch of learnings we’ve gathered over the years but some obviously stand to make the agency cheatsheet:

• If your claim is specialization, go all out for it. Don’t just call yourself digital because you know how to make posts.
• Don’t undersell your financial worth because you’re pitching alongside the big guys.
• Make your contracts watertight and don’t just copy templates. 
• Don’t compromise delivery for timelines. Sure the deadline’s always going to be breathing down your neck but you’ll have to convince clients that good things take time.
• Value your people and their personal backgrounds. This cannot be overstated enough. The industry has boiled to a point where toxic physical and mental exhaustion is simply accepted as the norm but this is also the reason for the quick burnout and crazy churn rates. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is ask your creative to take a day off, the standee can go a day later.

Did we just share that? 

There are far too many to not be publicly comfortable about, but here some shameless recreated admissions:

• HYPOTHETICALLY, your client is a large consumer electronics brand and you end up sending them art for a Ladies’ Night restaurant post. The client reverts with a ‘hey this is a Ladies’ Night’ post’ but you apologise and invite them to join you for Ladies’ Night at the restaurant because you obviously want to level up your relationship with them.
• HYPOTHETICALLY, you forget to change the designer’s personal file name for the art piece ‘_Satan666’
• HYPOTHETICALLY, you create a festivity-based artwork and forget to switch off a stray layer of a PNG of a washing machine and the creative somehow gets uploaded and stays there for a good 5-6 hours before the client notices. 

They work with us 

Some of our clients: PVR, Uber Exchange Leasing, Lite Bite Foods, Pernod Ricard, Porsche, Hong Kong Club, Trump Towers, Sotheby’s

Industry as we foresee 

Some famous adman recently said ‘Advertising is Everything and Everything is Advertising’ and we couldn’t agree more. In our opinion we’re headed towards some sort of grand integration and odd fragmentation — consultancies, big agencies, and small agencies are going to end up creating some supergroup entities that will be more involved in their clients’ business than ever while small and medium-sized agencies, especially with deep specialisations (e.g. SM hygiene) are going to become mainstream vendors to these client-big agency hybrids.

A day without Internet 

There is no merit in pretending on paper, or otherwise, that a day without the internet in the office is the worst. Work is stalled, the pressure only mounts, research becomes half-hearted. And if this was to become a thing then you could expect 95% of all communication work, of any nature, to implode. Considering how addicted we are to the convenience and efficiency that the internet brings, we wouldn’t do well to deal with withdrawal. You’d think that print might get a boost but we’ve changed for too much as a race to deal with anything lesser than the wonders of the internet.

Lastly, are you hiring?

We’re looking for Senior Copywriters and Brand Strategists as of now.