Prasad Shejale, Founder and CEO, Logicserve Digital, in an exclusive chat, speaks about Logicserve Digital’s path to success, how it helped its clients adapt during the pandemic, the future of digital, the importance of digital storytelling and the trends that will shape the industry in 2021.

Prasad is an entrepreneur and digital maven who has been instrumental in setting up and growing integrated digital media agencies in the UK & India and has established successful consumer-facing products in India and Europe.

An IIT Chennai alumnus, he co-founded Logicserve Group in 2007 and built it from a small team to a high-performing result-oriented group. He spearheads Logicserve Digital, the Indian arm of Logicserve Group, and has enabled the agency to become a DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner in India.

Tell us about Logicserve Digital, its different verticals, and what differentiates it from its competitors?

Logicserve Digital prides itself on being a truly integrated digital marketing and transformation company. For us, being integrated means amalgamating our capabilities across Media, Creative, Data and Insights and Technology for every campaign and client need to design integrated solutions that drive results.

Our internal training structure and teams are aligned in such a way that we don’t have rigid compartmentalisation. Instead, we follow a matrix structure which we call ‘V-Teaming’ (V for Virtual) to help our clients achieve their Digital Business goals.

My background in technology and extensive experience of working with large service as well as consulting firms has helped us build a robust organisational structure that keeps us ready for a complex yet ever-changing digital marketing ecosystem.

With the help of our strong Leadership Council that comprises of people from diverse backgrounds and experiences, the teams can quickly pick up trends and work on new opportunities with agility.

If we talk about our competitive advantage, it definitely has to be our culture and our people. This is what truly makes us different and helps us stay ahead always. We have inculcated leadership ethos not only at the top management level but also at every other level of the organisation. We have various training initiatives in place that help us identify some of the best talent and provide guidance and training to the existing employees (Logimates, as we call them) across tech and soft skills.

Logimates also have access to a program called LEAP (Leadership Energising Activation Program). Logicserve is constantly evolving, and with that, we want our employees to evolve with us too. Through this program, we provide learning and focused mentorship opportunities to the upcoming talent in the organisation where the individuals can enhance their leadership skills.

We realise that as we continue to grow, we will need more leaders at all levels. This program helps us prepare the next generation of leaders who are adept at working on real business issues and can take up greater responsibilities when the need arises.

LEAP is helping us have a distributed leadership concept that enables smooth execution of campaigns and provides a stronger force to continuously adapt to the changing ecosystem in a proactive way.

How does the current roster of Logicserve’s clients look like, and where do you see yourself in the pecking order today?

With our integrated approach for digital marketing, we have been able to build a truly diversified client base. We cater to clients across categories like BFSI, E-commerce, FMCG, Consumer Durables, Gaming, Travel & Tourism, Real Estate & Retail in all our service areas that include Media, Creative, Data & Insights and Technology.

This integrated approach has helped us win clients across all services and, the brands find value in the service when we work together and focus on their digital business from a holistic perspective. Almost half of our clients partner with us for more than one area of expertise. Also, the tenure for which we have been working with our clients is a testament to the trust they have in us.

I still remember the first 5 clients that we started working with when we began our operations. We continue to serve 4 of them till date, and our relationship has further matured with them.

This zeal and focus on delivering value coupled with a sharp vision of acquiring new business has been a key driving force for us and has enabled us to grow by 100% year on year, even at our size.

What has been your communication strategy to reach out to newer clients?

Our extensive clientele and experience of working across sectors like BFSI, consumer durables, Consumer Packed Goods (CPG), and startups are helping us understand the client needs in a better way. Many awards and case studies that we have, assist us in presenting solutions to a wide range of problems faced by brands.

Being the largest independent digital marketing and transformation company, we have access to preferential arrangements with partners and stakeholders. It also allows us to be quick to integrate different solutions and customise them basis individual client needs that can reap maximum benefits for them.

Thus, our clients not only get an integrated digital marketing agency with a true-blue consulting approach, but also benefits through the best deals from publishers as well as partners while being agile.

Also, we never believe in a one-size-fits-all solution. We design solutions that are specific to the individual client needs/ goals that can drive optimal results.

How is digital marketing, digital storytelling adding value to brands in 2021?

COVID-19 has completely changed the way people shop, work, train, learn, entertain, consume information and interact with brands. Even though we all know that the future will focus more on the importance and dependency of digital touchpoints, the pandemic just accelerated this entire change.

The second wave has cemented this change, and there is now no way of going back. While the digital interactions have increased, and for many industries, these are the only touchpoints, the consumer journeys have become much more complex and consumer loyalties more fickle.

The definition of relevance has become even sharper for consumers, and thus, they expect handholding by the brand across their journey (throughout the Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act and Advocacy phase).

These new consumers want personalised communication without an explicit push and expect a frictionless experience. Even with the slightest of discomfort, they are now willing to switch their loyalties. Thus, storytelling has become extremely important nowadays to evoke trust and loyalty among consumers.

Taking consumers for granted is a strict no-no, and especially so in the current times. Continuous reinforcement about the importance of a brand in the minds of the customers, even the converted ones, is crucial to keep them hooked and maintain their position in the Advocacy phase. This is when they will promote the brand further among their friends and family circles through their interactions across social channels.

Hence, storytelling is not only helping brands in the current times to connect with their consumers and maintain healthy relationships but also has become a crucial force to gain customers’ trust and build long term loyalties.

What has been the impact of COVID-19 on your business, and how have you helped your clients navigate the COVID-19 crises?

Starting early March 2020, we adopted McKinsey’s 5R model prioritising the organisation’s operational and business needs. This further helped us mould ourselves to the changing situations and be ready for the post-covid world.

Our priority has always been our employees. Early on, we focused on tackling the urgent health and medical needs of our employees and their families. With regards to business needs, our clients have been very understanding and supportive throughout this time, and we have sailed through the challenging times strongly together.

From April to July 2020, client billing and media spend plummeted. But we were resilient and continued supporting each other. We put together a stringent financial control policy to prevent us from drowning in difficult times.

While doing this, we prepared our employees through various training programs and sessions to keep them ready for the upcoming large wave of digital projects. We ensured that we stood together as a large team and made sure we do not sack any of our logimates, and provided them all the support in every possible way.

The Return phase was full of new services and innovative ways of working. We also incorporated newer ways of connecting with and pitching to clients during this phase. Just in the last fiscal year, we have onboarded 70+ new clients, and the share of non-media projects has significantly gone up. This ensured we are not heavily dependent on media selling and can utilise other approaches to amplify the client base.

The Reimagination and Reform phases have taught us the importance of exploring different options and helped us become much more integrated with our approach. We also developed some new frameworks that bring efficiency among the teams and assist us in delivering on clients’ promises swiftly and in a cohesive manner.

Also, in the initial months, when the media spends went down, we helped our clients to audit their business and strategies, rebuild and redesign the digital journeys as per the rapidly changing environment. For this, the necessary infrastructure needed to be designed and implemented immediately to help our clients be prepared when their consumers moved to digital.

We all are aware of the huge jump in digital just after the first wave of the pandemic. All the work we did in the initial time to prepare our clients during the first wave helped them immensely, and they were able to get good results.

How have brands changed or modified their communication strategy post-COVID?

The first significant change has been in the overall tone of voice. Brands have now started being more genuine and more humane in their communication approach. Every brand challenge is now addressed from the lens of empathy.

Safety, convenience and empathy are essentially the underlying values that define the overall communication aspect. While selling is important, the most important part now is how the brand can help, change, or add value to the consumers’ lives in these unpredictable times. They stress on how the consumer wants to feel at any given point and then direct their strategies accordingly.

Do you think the pandemic has forced brands to rely more on digital? How would this play out in the long run?

There has been an enormous spike in digital adoption and consumption due to the pandemic. It encouraged a step change and got businesses thinking about the digital space, especially the traditional businesses. And this change has helped them identify their target audience and connect with them in newer ways on digital platforms.

It is worth mentioning that, with the pandemic, the global e-commerce sales growth jumped up significantly and also, the number of users adapting to the digital ways has risen to the numbers that were only expected in the next 3-5 years. Despite the slowing economy, the digital segment has seen positive growth and provided a sustainable way for businesses to survive and grow in these challenging times.

I am sure we will only see the numbers rising even further, and it won’t be too long when we might see the share of digital surpassing other traditional mediums in India.

Can you share with us your plans for Logicserve’s brand building and growth?

We will continue discovering new ways of working on varied consumer needs and pain points, keeping in mind the integrated digital business for our clients. This means we will focus on solving the client problems while being mindful of the changing environment.

Trends keep changing rapidly, and we will continuously strive to identify them sooner and quickly adopt them in our work.

We have created a Digital Marketing Transformation Framework called LD Transformation framework. This framework harnesses the power of analytical as well as emotional perspectives to engage with the new-age consumers. The LD Transformation Framework encompasses 6 key areas, i.e. Media, Content, CX, Technology, Tools and Data & Insights.

It allows us to help brands quickly and efficiently measure current marketing areas, identify changes and incorporate them to develop a high-level digital marketing roadmap specific to individual business challenges. With this, it becomes extremely important for us to ensure that our teams and employees are rightly trained to address the changes and any critical updates. This will undoubtedly continue to be our focus area in the future too.

Since last year, we have put in tremendous efforts in knowledge sharing and educating our partners as well as clients through various online sessions and seminars. We will surely continue doing this in the future. This is also an excellent way for us to strengthen our thought leadership and enrich it further. I personally invest a lot of my time here.

We have also introduced multiple new services last year to cater to the changing needs of the industries and businesses and help them move further ahead in their digital journey. This step has certainly acted as a boon for us as we saw many traditional businesses opting for the digital route for their growth. Also, a lot of our existing clients moved up in the maturity curve with the right investments in different tools and technologies.

We always have been very active participants and partners at key industry events across the country. And we plan to continue doing that. We are eagerly looking forward to the time when we can go back to having physical events and meet many more people at these events.

What are some trends in digital marketing that will take center stage in 2021?

This year, brands will address the aspects of digital consumers that matter the most to them. Various studies suggest that enhanced user experiences, improved offerings, intensified privacy and security measures, as well as a phygital expertise, are some of the approaches that will become crucial for businesses to gain their customers’ trust and successfully continue serving their needs.

With regards to trends, AI, chatbots, conversational banners, voice search will dominate in 2021. Omnichannel marketing has been vital for many businesses to sustain and, I am sure, it will continue to make an impact this year too. The key segment will be CDP/ CIP technology which is a significant shift considering the reliability on cookie-based data. CDP technology is a breakthrough and will disrupt the market with its new ways of online marketing.

Emails will become even more personalised, and interactive content will be mainstream. Similarly, looking at the way the multi-lingual approach is progressing, we will see more and more of the vernacular course being followed by brands, and it will soon become mainstream for a lot of them.

Anything else you would like to add?

In today’s world, the consumer is changing rapidly, and so are brands. Digital touchpoints will be extremely important, and to achieve the digital goals, an integrated strategy will be a game-changer. Logicserve Digital is well poised to help brands with this, and we are already seeing some amazing work being done by our clients with the support from our partners.