Agency Feature: A deep dive into Admatazz's culture

Who are we? 

Admatazz is a digital marketing agency that uses creative, media, and technology to solve complex marketing problems for brands.

The agency was founded by Yash Chandiramani in 2017 and it is headquartered in Mumbai. Today they are a team of almost 60 people sitting, sipping coffees and ideating interesting campaigns.

Yash is the CEO and Chief Strategist at the agency. The core team consists of new business and client relations head - Samyaak Jain who joined them in the first year of operations itself and Avanthika Ravichandran, an ex-big 4 consulting engineer who currently heads the creative team.

The art team is run by Kylen D’souza and Sachin Acharya and the performance team is led by Parth Gandhi.

What's in the name? 

The name comes from the word - Razzmatazz – which is defined by a loud, showy activity that attracts attention (more often as a way of marketing). However, Razmatazz doesn’t always mean content of substance. 

While digital marketing was filled with a lot of razzmatazz in the industry, it majorly lacked the purpose for which it was created: Advertising. 

Hence Admatazz. Advertising in its truest, classic sense without losing the razzmatazz of digital marketing of course. Having said that, while we started out as purely digital advertising, we now work on complete integrated marketing solutions primarily, that include advertising.

What we do?

We solve advertising and now marketing problems using creative, media and technology for our clients. Our services fall under 4 categories.

Measure (marketing analytics)

Create (content: audio, text, video, strategy, interfaces, digital products)

Amplify (performance and brand marketing)

Selling (e-commerce solutions)

Why we do it? 

Our founder, Yash, was in the restaurant and F&B industry when he got introduced to digital marketing as a way to reach out to audiences at low cost. Having realized the power of digital marketing and the scope in India, he exited the FnB industry to start Admatazz.

Today, we love doing what we do for 3 main reasons. First, it’s an extremely creative field, and that’s something that keeps our minds engaged, always looking for the next challenge. Second, we get to see the impact that we’re making on brands in real time since we’re always looking to help them reach their next goal. Third, variety. We work with so many different types of clients – national and international, startups and MNCs, FMCG and BFSI, while also providing so many solutions to them. The workplace is always teaming with fresh ideas.

How we evolve? 

We are always in learning mode. We invest heavily in learning and development. Paid case studies, intense workshops, premium tools, and widely available video content resources as well. Thanks to being platform partners we have access to a lot of resources to learn from Meta, Google etc. as well.

We are also very big on learning from industry experts. For example, we recently had an intense 3-day strategy workshop with Toru Jhaveri, the ex-head of strategy at DDB.  The team was absolutely blown away by the techniques used to derive insights.

Apart from this, we have a big book culture. Admatazz has a library with books on marketing, strategy, brand management, copywriting, and many other aspects of the business. We’re always exchanging books and notes on those books.

Social responsibility in social media 

We have strict data and IT policies in place. There are multiple levels of security for sensitive data and regular training and mentorship to the younger bunch on handling information ethically.

Need of the hour 

We need to understand the proper use of AI. It’s a boon no doubt but there is a fine line between productivity improvement and straight-up plagiarism. Young agencies like ours need to be extremely careful with AI content, misuse and of course, ensure we don’t raise a generation of lazy writers and creative thinkers. 

They work with us 

We work with various industries, from BFSI to Education, hospitality, pharma, consumer goods and automobile. Some of our clients are:

TATA-AIA, ICICI Bank, Mirae Asset, Bgauss Electric, JBCN Education, Jubilant Motorworks, IIFL Finance, Anupam Stationery, Boss appliances, Edwise, Juniper hotels RW Science (Sterillium), Wellbeing Nutrition and many more

Industry as we foresee 

The industry is at an interesting juncture. With spending on digital increasing the responsibility with digital agencies is also a lot more serious. We are no longer looked at like the kids who just create trending stuff online.

Digital/Social media agencies are being given a seat at the big conference tables for brands and the overall reliance on us for marketing strategy as a whole has increased and is bound to only go up from here.

We see that ourselves with the sheer level of problems we are solving today for clients vs what we used to a couple of years back.

A day without Internet 

At Admatazz it would be divided into two teams. Cricket and books. That’s how we would spend the day. But the world may just benefit from a day a month without the internet. It will give us some much-needed detox and may get the world back to reading books. 

Gender ratio and policies

At this very moment, we are at 50% exactly and with the new hires joining in next month the ratio will tip in the favour of women.

Inclusive policies for women

Of course. We have all the policies legally required to make the workplace a safe zone for women. However, it’s not just a checklist of compliances. We truly believe in creating a safe place for women.

In digital agencies, the workforce is young, barely a few years out of college. It’s important to train them on sensitive details of conduct so they don’t end up thinking this is a college campus.  Every new joinee undergoes mandatory posh training and it’s refreshed every year as well.

We also have adequate awareness in the premise on what to do or who to speak to if you need help. 

Maternity and paternity leave

We have a 26-week maternity leave policy and a one-month paternity leave policy as well.

We also have a 12-week maternity leave policy for mothers who are adopting or having a child through surrogacy. 

Work culture and values that we believe in

We believe that our culture is what makes us who we are. Admatazz has been fortunate to have team members who share our value system and help scale the organisation without compromising our values.

We have 5 core values:  Respect, Curiosity, Work Smart, Teamwork and finally Wow the world with creativity.

We strongly believe we exist because we are creative and that should form a major part of our value system. Respect though may seem very obvious, is important to spell out. As the major problem today with agencies we feel is the lack of respect. Respect for juniors, other people’s time, applicants who are interviewing, vendors and so on. The agency business needs to be mindful of that. 

Agency growth YOY

The agency has seen a growth of approximately 60% from last FY to the current FY. 

Our work

We use creative, media and technology to solve marketing problems. Everything starts with research and strategy and goes on to creative campaigns and a precision media plan when required. 

We have attached some case studies and campaigns below for your reference: 

1. TATA AIA Kenny Sebastian and Atul Khatri Campaign (Thumbnails attached here)

2. Wellbeing Nutrition Ad Creatives

3. RW Science - Parents, Finish Your Sentences 

4. BGauss C12 Launch - Integrated Marketing Campaign
   

Awards bagged

Yes, we have been lucky enough to bag a few industry recognitions. Here a few of them:

1. Millennial Entrepreneur of the Year (Bronze) - Marketing Mind - 2024

2. Millennial Copywriter of the Year (Gold) - Marketing Mind - 2024

3. Grand Prix Award (TATA AIA - Gold) - Asian Leaders Awards - 2023

4. Best use of Martech for Social Media Marketing (TATA AIA - Bronze) - Martequity - 2023

5. Best Use of a Visual (RW Science - Bronze X2)- Afaqs - 2023

6. Fastest Growing Creative and Design Agency (Gold) - IFGDA - 2023

7. Fastest Growing Social Media Agency (Silver) - IFGDA - 2023

8. Fastest Growing Performance Marketing Agency (Bronze) - IFGDA - 2023

9. Best Design for BTL activities  (JBCN Education - Bronze) - Afaqs - 2022

10. Best Digital Marketing Startup (Gold) - Inkspell DOD - 2021

11. Top 10 Independent Digital Agencies - Inkspell DOD - 2021

Employees and hiring

We are a team of almost 60 people and we are hiring across Social media, copywriting, performance marketing and account strategy roles.