White Rivers Media – A vision to be a pioneering force in the advertising industry

Founded by Shrenik Gandhi & Mitesh Kothari in 2012, White Rivers Media has appeared thrice in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India list from 2015 till 2018. Based out of Mumbai and Delhi, the company has produced incredible work for India’s well known and reputed brands like Red Chillies Entertainment, ALTBalaji, Balaji Motion Pictures, Zee Studios, Vedanta Group, Aditya Birla Money, Viacom18, Gatsby, Dun & Bradstreet, and more. Eying to democratise the global trends in India, the company is passionately bringing the latest marketing technology (MarTech) as a TaaS model in India to cater homegrown and Global brands across Indian market. Today, we bring you a sneak-peek into the professional journeys of both the founders, Shrenik Gandhi and Mitesh Kothari.

How or why was White Rivers Media formed? How has the journey been so far?

Shrenik Gandhi: White Rivers Media’s journey started 7 years ago, when digital marketing was booming and brands had begun to properly embrace this new space. I had experience on the client side of things, and Mitesh had experience on the agency side. We joined hands with the purpose of creating meaningful innovations that add genuine value to consumers not just India, but all around the world. “ROI-driven creativity” is how we would describe the goal with which we came together.

These 7 years have been nothing short of enriching and rewarding. With the growth of the agency, we have not only seen personal and professional growth in ourselves, but also in the people who have become integral members of the White Rivers Media family.

We heed a principle we call “learn, unlearn, re-learn”, which speaks about the importance of constantly evolving to keep complacency at bay, and fostering a supportive creative environment. The growth of our people is our responsibility. To that end, we have frequent, informal knowledge-sharing sessions we call SnapGyaan. As of Q2 2019, we have also started our certified Accelerated Learning Programmes, or ALPS, which give White Rivers Media members structured modules on the world of advertising & marketing, as well as the development of soft skills.

Having sowed all this input, we’re now reaping its benefits in the form of eBooks and blogs written and compiled by the creative minds at White Rivers Media.

What difference are you trying to make in the industry? Your ultimate agenda.

Mitesh Kothari: We don’t know about “difference” per se, but we always keep originality as a primary criterion for all campaigns. This criterion is applied not just to creativity, where it is paramount, but also to our in-house tech development vertical. Especially in the entertainment category, we have proprietary tools and innovations that infuse a uniqueness to all our content. So, we guess you could say the difference we want to make in the industry is one of pushing the boundaries of what’s feasible on digital, expanding the playground for our writers and thinkers.

Our ultimate agenda is very simple, but you may flag it as a cliché:
To be a pioneering force in the digital advertising space, by catalysing the process of making the impossible possible.

What, in your opinion, is a powerful campaign? And how have the attributes of a powerful campaign changed over the years?

Mitesh Kothari: The core of every advertising campaign will remain unchanged, always: a compelling reason for the consumer to buy. What the consumer buys from your campaign need not be a product or a service. It could be an idea, a cause, or even a whim, as long as consumers buy into it. As a marketer, your agenda needs to have depth and substance, because any campaign that a consumer can see through, is not a compelling campaign, at least in the digital space. We believe the marrying of consumer expectation with brand philosophy is more a prerequisite than an attribute.

Videos have been the most popular tool for digital campaigns. Many experiments have been witnessed (e.g., video without sound on Facebook). What does the future hold? Will video continue to be a popular choice, or will it be overtaken by another medium?

Shrenik Gandhi: Videos still rule the digital world, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Different video formats will emerge, innovations will abound, and they will create new habits of consumption. But just as a picture speaks a thousand words, a video paints a thousand pictures. They’re not going anywhere.

White Rivers Media has ranked 25th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 50 India list for 2018. What do you think has contributed to achieving the title for the third consecutive year? What expectations do you have this year?

Shrenik Gandhi: There are a lot of things that have contributed to this Deloitte Technology Fast 50 hat-trick. It’s hard to pinpoint it to one thing, especially when you’re one of the few independent agencies to feature three years in a row. Without network backing, the reasons for this achievement are easier to identify as the stakeholders who contributed to it.

So obviously, first and foremost are the people who do the work at the ground level: those who ideate, innovate, and then creatively formulate a tangible solution for our clients. Then come the clients themselves: those who encourage avant-garde thinking, those who see the merit in investing in original tech solutions. When it comes to expectation, we’re definitely hoping to feature for the 4th time in a row. We’ve done some solid work this year, so we have every reason to believe!