“The goal behind this,” he explains, “is to give brand heads a direct line to people who shape internet culture—people who have skin in the game themselves. It’s clear that creators are the future of social, and brands need to get comfortable with becoming and working with creators themselves.”
Noronha believes that creators should be in the driver’s seat of brand social content because it challenges many of the typical misconceptions about how brands should use social media.
He provides an example: “One of our early goals was to help brands realize that they shouldn’t feel compelled to post ‘30 times a month’ just to justify costs or assume it improves reach.”
Noronha didn’t want to start The New Thing with the intention of simply fitting into the existing landscape. Instead, he shares that TNT was created “to make a powerful statement about how social can be so much more than what it is today—a growth function, not a cost center.”
The New Thing’s journey so far
Discussing the journey of the company, Noronha comments, “If it wasn’t challenging right off the bat, we honestly wouldn’t trust it.”
“Social media has been in a state of rapid and constant change for years now. However, social strategy and the industry’s approach to it have remained frozen in time. The slightest deviation from the ‘status quo’ is often met with apprehension and rejection. This resistance is evident in scope-of-work negotiations, procurement discussions, social and content strategy, and even costing. Our biggest challenge has been overcoming not just rejection, but this deep-seated resistance,” reveals Noronha.
“But,” he adds, “we also have an unfair advantage over the competition. Operating The New Thing as part of The Talented Grid of Companies has accelerated our growth and empowered us in rooms and discussions that most young agencies might find uncomfortable.”
Specialised marketing at The New Thing
Shedding light on The New Thing’s specialized social and cultural marketing, Noronha reflects on his past experience as the head of social at Tinder and Swiggy. He says it taught him “a very simple but harsh lesson: no one comes to social media to interact with your brand; they come to feel seen and heard.”
He advises, “Talk about things that your audience finds interesting, and they will engage. Talk mostly about yourself, and they will tune you out.”
“That is at the heart of how we create content—audience first, social first,” emphasizes Noronha.
He adds, “At Tinder, we created ‘dating culture content,’ not dating app content. At Swiggy, we created ‘food culture content,’ not offers and discounts content. At The New Thing, we create to give back to culture, not to sell to it.”
The New Thing is a ‘creator-first agency’
Noronha mentions that remarks by his team as The New Thing celebrated its one-year anniversary reinforced his belief in creator-first agencies.
“To hear my fellow creators say things like, ‘We’re an agency that doesn’t say “Kuch karte hain,” but rather “KUCH KARTE HAIN!”’ or ‘TNT simply makes the internet like brands more,’ proves my hypothesis that we need less marketing jargon and more of this kind of vocabulary, especially when it comes to creating content.
Seeing them act as their own creative directors, going toe-to-toe with heads of marketing—and winning—just confirms that our approach is right,” says Noronha.
Noronha on disrupting to differentiate
Noronha goes on to discuss how the disruptive approach has benefited The New Thing and his vision for its future. According to Noronha, “True disruption isn’t just doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing. It’s doing things so differently that it renders the old methods obsolete.”
“To brands,” adds Noronha, “our name offers instant clarity on who we are and what we’re about, and it has worked very well.”
“We’ve managed to work with some of the best brands in India—like Google, YouTube, Netflix, Swiggy, Flipkart, and Myntra, to name a few. We’ve also had our share of spectacular failures. No regrets,” he comments.
The New Thing is the agency Noronha had envisioned, and he brought that vision to life. “When I left agency life four years ago, I swore, like many do, never to look back. Today, I can say I founded the agency I’d come back for. To me, that’s the ideal shape for now,” he concludes.
