“We integrate brand strategy, creativity, consumer insight, design, and technology to deliver superior engagement and experience-driven marketing products, raising brand salience and enhancing consumer mindshare”, says Pulp Strategy Founder Ambika Sharma.
Excerpts from an exclusive interaction with Ambika Sharma of Pulp Strategy:
Background of Promoter
Having completed education in Software engineering and then mass Communication, I started my career in advertising. My career path has seen me with organizations such as Encompass (a WPP plc company) and Kidstuff (a DDB Mudra Group company). Before I established Pulp Strategy in 2011, I was serving as the COO at Jagran Solutions.
The initial period – the challenges & the ecstasy of quick wins!
The role of an entrepreneur is a challenging one to play, if you don’t face any challenges, then you aren’t doing it right. One must devote a lot of time, energy, and brains into building a business from scratch. Once the decision was made there was no looking back.
During the initial period, I spoke to my former colleagues from marketing and advertising, media, and technology for over a period of 5-6 months. I realized that what I was aiming for covered a wide spectrum of services; a common belief among them was that such multifaceted marketing service enablement was difficult for a single agency to manage. Takes I, however, was confident that if done right, this idea will become a valuable asset that can help brands in India reach out to their target audiences in an innovative, differentiated way.
The journey so far!
In the last five years, we have achieved several milestones. We introduced the consolidation of shared computing retail space in 30 cities in 2011, and launched an augmented reality app in 2012 which could add rich media to marketing collateral. We have built a team of over 140 young and passionate professionals, and have worked with extremely technical and regulated industries like medical tourism in addition to IT-intensive industries with major clients like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft. In our journey so far, we have proved our mettle in the media industry, winning several prestigious national and international awards.
We also launched Instappy, a cloud-based rapid mobile application development platform, in October 2015. As a technology service company, custom mobile app-development was a part of our key service offerings. With the demand for apps increasing considerably, we sensed an opportunity to empower businesses and individuals by making the app development process easier and seamless. This was what led to development of Instappy. The platform allows for easy customization, reduces go-to-market time, and creates high-quality apps that include custom APIs and advanced features at a fraction of the market cost. This levels the playing field for SMEs and businesses, and allows them to optimize their overall operations with dedicated mobile-based business offerings.
Strategic Alliances & Partnerships
We are an independent agency, we collaborate with the MAAW (Marketing agencies World Wide) for knowledge sharing and building a better business practice.
The future, as you see, 3 years from now in terms of scope & scale of your business enterprise
In the last 5 years, we have updated and developed our methods to ensure better flexibility and tighter monitoring to create stronger brand offerings and solutions. I see Pulp Strategy emerging as a strong intellectual partner to its clients and assuming a leading position in the marketing communications and interactive technology industry with a diverse portfolio of services and products in the future.
Key moments of reckoning in business life
One moment of reckoning for me was when I decided to start my own agency. There was a demand in the market for faster, stronger, and better brand-centric solutions. Marketers were increasingly disappointed because of the force-fit solutions that most communications agencies were adopting. The challenge was to do something new by collaborating with the local flavor through effective, socially-connected, and unique engagements that delivered optimum results. This ever-increasing market gap made me take the plunge into the entrepreneurial arena with Pulp Strategy.
The feelings on getting the first big order / contract for your company
Well begun is half done (I actually wrote it on the white board) to remind myself of the first step and expectations set.