^ a t o m network has announced the launch of its consulting wing ^ a t o m Consult.
Aniruddha Khandekar, who founded G-S-D Consulting in January 2022, has partnered the agency as the head of this wing. Prior to this, he was EVP - brand experience and planning at VMLY&R.
^a t o m Network and G-S-D Consulting will focus on ‘growth as a service’, and will operate in the areas of brand and customer strategy, marketing transformation, product and portfolio management and customer experience. It will sit at the beginning of the marketing process and work dispassionately to advice on the short term, mind term and long term journey of the business.
Khandekar said, “Growth is not a universal boiler-plate, it is a meeting of the minds brought about by ownership, expertise and openness. In my experience, deep partnerships are the secret sauce to success, Unfortunately, most mainstream agency or consulting models are structured and cultured for scale. This ends up in a heart-burn for clients who are completely invested in their own businesses. At ^a t o m Consult, we want to get in there and get our hands dirty with our clients because for us, joy is not just in success but in the process too”
Abhik Santara, founder, ^ a t o m network, said, "Advertising agencies have the reputation of bundling services or offer backtracked strategy in the pursuit of great creative work. There is nothing wrong in that, as only great ideas create great brands. But whether it is a D2C business or a business wanting to scale to new geographies or customer segments need a host of insightful, repeatable, trainable, coachable interventions that are sustainable, rational and logical. And classical agency models don’t try to look at business growth from a holistic point of view."
He added, "As a result, there has been a disconnect between the priorities of an advertising agency and the real marketing ask that any business has. Aniruddha and I have worked together in the past, and his expertise in hard core functions of brand marketing, CX and martech have provided genuine business solutions beyond just the usual hustle of creative deliveries”.
Yash Kulshresth, CCO, ^ a t o m, added, “Agencies have functioned like a relay race where one department passes the baton to the next. At ^a t o m Consult, we also infuse creative thinking into the strategic marketing process. We don't see it as a different department. It's the thinking that needs to be valued early in any marketing consultancy.”
