Which digital agency handles which brand?

afaqs! has launched Brand Search, a pay-per-search service which reveals which digital agency handles which brand.

Explaining the rationale behind Brand Search, Sreekant Khandekar, the co-founder & CEO of afaqs!, says, "With digital becoming the largest medium in India, the number of brands and agencies, both, have exploded. There are hundreds of digital agencies, big and small, managing the spends of thousands of brands, ranging from the national to the regional and even local ones."

In 2024, he adds, more than Rs 50,000 crore was spent in India on digital advertising. "Which agencies control the purse strings to these enormous spends? Anyone whose business is brands would want to know that," says Khandekar.

According to Khandekar, the idea for creating Brand Search came from observing the afaqs! sales, edit and events teams struggling to identify the digital agencies for specific brands. "So we thought, wouldn't it be great to create a public database which links brands to the agencies that handle them? Imagine how much time it will save everyone."

Brand Search is targeted at executives from marketing companies, agencies, online publishers, procurement teams, startups and ad tech firms.

The pricing is pay-per-search and affordable, going as low as Rs 100 per search (several pack options are available). "Our research showed that executives in the marketing, advertising and media space have widely varying needs for a service like Brand Search," reasons Khandekar. "While one person may need to make a handful of searches in a year, another in business development may decide to make several hundred of them. That's why we have avoided a one-size-fits-all subscription. Pay-per-search is the simplest and most cost-effective option from a customer point of view."

Khandekar says that brands are being included in Brand Search everyday and promises that many new features will be added in the coming months. "Our hope is that this will be a daily tool for people in the business," he says.