Agency Report Card 2017: The Womb

Over the last few decades, the communications industry has been dancing on a hot tin roof. Clients with short-term thinking have squeezed the agency retainers to beef up their profitability. Agencies haven’t shown the courage to stand up against this. As a result, agency bottom-lines have been hit. Agencies aren’t just losing standing and respect with clients, but are also threatened by the tech and consulting champs. 

 

In this scenario, The Womb decided to go back to the roots of what the business is all about! The answer: it's not about just ads, but about helping to find creative and non-linear ways to help clients grow their businesses and brands.

 

 

This could be managed by moving creativity upstream and bringing creativity to strategy itself -- most traditional beliefs are that creativity begins after the strategy. 

 

Another traditional belief is that there is strategy (usually left-brained), and then there is creative (usually right-brained). However, executives at The Womb believe, "from Cadbury to Vodafone to Idea, there’s enough proof that actually the more creative and thoughtful your positioning, the easier it is to do the so-called creative ads". 

 

It took that belief a little further. Creative heads are no less than rock stars in most creative agencies. At The Womb, there is no creative chief. 

 

The other point of departure from the norm is that The Womb claims to never pitch for a business, as most pitches happen when agencies work on a brand on the eve of a pitch (a few weeks prior), which is rarely enough to bring out deep category insights and therefore, clarity in the strategic output. 

 

In 2017, Saregama Carvaan, a product conceptualised by the agency was one way of showing that insight, creativity, and business acumen could get together to create transformational products. Watch the product concept here: