We are medium agnostic about content: Hogarth-WPP's Karthik Nagarajan

The CEO talks about Hogarth’s pivotal role in revolutionising ad production capabilities.

The emergence of AI, along with a plethora of mediums available today, has forced brands to rethink what ‘content’ is. Karthik Nagarajan, CEO of Hogarth India gone are the days where ‘content’ used to be just about video. Today's content landscape offers limitless possibilities, a challenge that Hogarth-WPP's production specialised agency set out to tackle.

He defines the agency as, “A creative company with its DNA in production.”

“What we are building is a culture of non-anxious growth where inclusivity and innovation both have a symbiotic relationship. We’ve always believed that technology elevates creativity but we also believe diversity and inclusivity also elevate creativity. We don't think of inclusion and diversity as catchphrases,” he explains.

Hogarth’s capabilities and content

He says Hogarth's unique proposition lies in its ability to seamlessly marry content with technology and make it medium agnostic. “We are giving all our time and attention to leveraging AI to create better content experiences for the audience, for the end user. Which is why we identify as a content experience company.”

“We are obsessed with the experience of content, but in a very medium agnostic way,” he adds.

“In a country like India where video as a communication, whether it is on TV or digital, is still very very strong. The need for Hogarth to be a scalable partner from a legacy primary and post-production perspective is very high,” adds Nagarajan.

Nagarajan further elaborated on why brands must approach content differently in light of new technologies and why they should pay close attention to audience behaviour and preferences.

According to him, e-commerce is now where social media was a decade ago. Today the lower funnel experience of a brand whether it is on social or whether it is on commerce is extremely important. In many cases it is actually becoming the lower funnel experience is actually becoming the moment of truth. The agency is currently working on a commerce content offering to tackle the issue. He explains that many times brands don't realise sometimes that the quality of the brand experience in commerce should be the same as the quality of the brand experience on television or on OTT.

“In order for brands to have consistent content experience especially in the lower funnel, and to build desirability there, especially for sectors like automotive, beauty etc is where an agency like Hogarth comes in,” he explains.

Positioning within the WPP ecosystem

While the agency has a number of independent clients especially in the beauty and automotive industry, Nagarajan states that they are also helping WPP build a future-ready production spine. Drawing  an analogy between ‘building a house’ and a ‘brand’ and how Hogarth’s role stands out.

“Let's say you are building a house. You have a certain idea in your mind and that's a long-term idea. You will engage with an architect to bring this idea to life as a designer. However, whatever you do when you start building the house, you will first test it with the subject matter experts who are, in this case, the engineers. They bring in the efficiency, they bring in the finesse, they bring in the craft of it. So Hogarth is more of that subject matter specialist,” he explains.

Another important area of function for Hogarth is improving the end client’s capabilities as well. It wants brands to be able to control production at a larger level and is helping them achieve that. He states it is time for brands to ‘de-alienate’ the production process.

“Irrespective of what is the creative agency ecosystem you have it is important to have the production engine which is parallel to your creative process,” he adds.

He further advocates for brands to hire the right people if they really want to leverage content with AI. “I am also advocating for brands to onboard great talent themselves here because you need a great designer to give great instructions and interactions,” he explains. 

Hogarth has globally built a suite of products which are all intelligent when it comes to content and address different areas like inspiration, automation and customisation.