Agency Feature: The Cat's Pajamas

How do we define The Cat's Pajamas?

It all began in Mumbai city 6 years ago on a rainy afternoon with two steaming cups of expresso - one ours, one that of a confused client. All it took were two leaps of faith, one from both sides of the table. Since then, we may have moved on from client to client, but our obsession with the combination of creativity and design experience remains unchanged.

As your partner agency, The Cat's Pajamas help to build digital content, scale your audiences, and aim to drive sales by offering integrated brand experiences unlike any other.

We’re inspired to
work with clients big and small to create more effective communications, more
impactful reactions, and more memorable experiences.

What's in the name?

‘The Cat’s Pajamas’ is a slang phrase coined by Thomas Dorgan and it became popular in the 1920s.

As a modern-day agency, we wanted a name that would not only justify our level of creativity but also have a brand recall value while stirring curiosity and intrigue.

What do we do?

• PowerPoint Presentations
• Brand Strategy
• ​Core Identity
• Brand Applications
• Marketing & Communication
• Online Reputation Management
• Experience Design
• Content & Copywriting

Why we do it?

"Soon after I had completed my MBA, as an obviously lost child trying to explore uncharted waters, I found myself at a product design group summit. Designers from the best universities were asking the most wayward questions - about technology, brands, experiences, customer support and buying urges.  This was probably my first ‘aha’ moment - they were actually trying to stir up emotions so that they could later solve problems in people's lives!", said

​No, I don't have any pedigree in design, but I realized even before I launched my business that design is more about the experience than aesthetics. It is dangerous for business owners to assume the design is only about how something looks. It's really about emotions/

We tend to see these as very finite roles - designer, artist, entrepreneur. But at the foundation, they're all the same thing:  creative problem-solving. 

Anything where design can
make a difference and the other entrepreneurs aren’t yet exploring - that's
where the opportunity lies - and that is what my team and I wish to
capitalize early on."​

How we evolve?

By keeping it simple. As we start to emerge from the paralysis of corona and look ahead, there are sure to be more questions than answers. The best we can do is imagine our new reality and accept that the design industry along with other businesses, will see a post-pandemic persona and it's only sensible for us to join the evolution wave - one that is going to be mostly virtual.

As a part of this, we recently made a change to our business model. With the internal team and the team of collaborators in tandem, we are now working on a 100% Virtual Collective Model. You can read more about this here.

Need of the hour

Balancing long-term brand building with short-term sales can be challenging. While great product offerings coupled with advertising monies are key drivers for both, without the right balance of top-funnel awareness and bottom-funnel conversions, brands can struggle to evolve and grow.

Design is like alchemy. In an era of marketing generalists, The Cat's Pajamas concentrate on doing a few things really, really well. This humane approach to small businesses is the ultimate need of the hour.

We learned the hard way

• Content is the DNA- Whatever industry you are a part of and however fancy you make your product/service to be unless your content strikes a chord with the target audience, you are fighting a lost battle.
• Accountability rules- Over-delivering on an opportunity is possibly a sure-shot way of earning a brand new one.
• No detail is too small- Always, always have people on board who have an eye for details.
• Ivory towers are the beginning of your ruin- Inclusivity and cohesive work ethics is the only way forward.
• Can do, will do- Positive attitude counts for a lot in business.
• Every contact matters
• Test, learn, optimize.
• Impact- Unless this is a large part of your end goal, you will probably never get where your potential can take you.

Also read: Agency Feature: Scatter

Did we just share that?

The Cat's Pajamas recently had a request from a client who wanted us to design a few marketing collaterals for their business. The business was that of manufacturing rolling papers/joint papers which are generally used for encasing and smoking tobacco or cannabis.

Since we are a small group of people who generally take up projects, we believe we can do justice to, we decided not to go ahead with this as no one from our group had any knowledge about the industry or any real-world experience too! Not that we are not up for challenges, but in spite of reading more about the industry, we could not really come up with creative ways on how we could promote rolling papers/joints, especially given the current health scenario in the country.

After communicating the same to the client (with due reasoning), we did not hear back from them for 3 days. On the 4^th day, three people from their team sent us emails claiming how snobbish we were.

They work with us

You can go through our clients here.

The industry as we foresee

With
the social media landscape being so dynamic, we’re now seeing and adapting to
new changes almost every day.  It is
difficult to say what will definitely work and what won’t make the cut in the
foreseeable future; however, a few things we definitely believe are here to
stay are –

• Product discovery has and will continue to be more visual (and social).
• Short-form video content is/will be the front, center, and back of all social media platforms.
• Ephemeral content coupled with discovery-based storytelling is here to stay. Stories aren’t slowing down anytime soon.
• Design is everything and it is everywhere.
• The rise of regulation and data privacy will play a huge role in the success of emerging social media-based businesses.
• Every step and every measure will need to be data-backed and analytics supported if it needs to serve a purpose. Marketers are accountable for their performance data.
• Influencer marketing goes under a microscope with the introduction of more advanced, dynamic and direct social ads and de-emphasis on “Likes” as an engagement metrics and the rise of “fake influencers”

A day without Internet

For now, we’d probably just stay at home, order a cake and eat the whole thing without the pressure of having to post it on IG (to show we have a life!). On a normal day, we’d just maybe bundle up and go glamping.

Lastly, are you hiring?

No