The journey of Six Inches to BigBrandTheory...

Mumbai-based Six Inches, a creative and integrated brand communication agency has recently undergone a major change not only in terms of its visual manifestations but also in terms of the name itself.

So, how important is re-branding or repositioning for a creative agency? We endeavour to find out as we speak to Pravin Shah, founder, BigBrandTheory (erstwhile Six Inches).

Shah recalls the entire journey from his Six Inches days to the present BigBrandTheory.

An Interior Design drop-out, advertising always fascinated him. He started out in a small agency as a graphic designer but in 2003, he quickly learnt that advertising was a bigger world (at a time when the idea of startups was not considered to be as cool as it is today).

Pravin Shah

"I tried joining many large ad networks, but no one offered me a job then. One day, I decided to start out on my own. I read books on positioning from Jack Trout and a line struck me - "between six inches of grey matter is where advertising wars take place" - and I decided to start my own 'startup' then with Six Inches as the brand name," he explains.

Shah recalls what his first big break was like, "It was a call that came from an international client - Kingston Technology - who was looking for young guns."

From then on Six Inches handled brands across categories - BFSI, Retail, CPG, Corporate, Manufacturing, and Logistics. Some of their major clients include Reliance Power, Phillip Capital, and Kingston Technology that the agency has been handling for more than 13 years now.

Cut to 2017, Shah began to feel that the advertising and digital space was becoming a red ocean.

He speaks to us about his idea of 'revisiting' and 're-inventing' the entire brand journey that was at the core of an effort like this. He explains it with a bit of help from his 'red and blue ocean' theories - "Red ocean is a space where there are too many players and all contesting for the same business and a blue ocean is a space where you look for a new set of customers."

He continues, "These new customers are those who are ambitious, entrepreneurs and bold. Ones who are driven by the future and looking for business innovation. Ones who believe in long-term strategies and have the patience to get results. And to attract them, we also wanted to shift our focus to appeal to these sets of customers. Our small experiments of innovative ideas started attracting these customers."

When discussing the re-launch, Shah says, "Today, as we launch BigBrandTheory - we are consulting leading game development firms who are on the brink of a massive e-sports growth. We are taking them through a complete soul-searching journey, crafting their positioning and spreading the spirit in their organisation and then taking them to the market. On the global front - East Africa looks promising and we are in touch with Kenya's largest IT Management Firm that consults government and large corporates, to re-energise the firm. Primarily, our focus areas are brands that need re-energising for a promising future, new brands who want to be 21st Century brands and brands that look for memorable experiences."

According to Shah, it's one of those gut feelings of an entrepreneur to change, to keep pace with evolving business landscape and consumer behaviour. "Two years ago, I felt that the future is very different from what it is today, when it comes to branding. We live in a world where a tweet can affect the stock market, where voice is becoming our next search engine. Connectedness is defining our moments. The Subscription Economy is gaining ground. These are signals of a future that is changing very fast. These are times of tectonic shifts for businesses and brands. In short, an experience economy is the next big shift for brands," he shares.

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It has not been an easy decision to make, he admits. "We started with re-writing our purpose to be in business and it was no longer TV commercials or creating campaigns. When the entire team sat together, we knew that the soul of our existence had to be business and brand acceleration. It took us eight months to craft our thinking and bring out our vision book to share with our clients," he says signing off.