The next time you lay your hands on a catalogue of one of the largest auction houses in the world, there is every chance that some of the images have been colour-corrected, enhanced, shadows made richer, and texture made superior by a team in an office on Chennai’s IT corridor.

“We have to get every detail right,” says Prakash Gurumoorthy, Managing Director (Asia), BORN, as he walks you through the work being done for his clients. After all, these catalogues are sent to billionaires and they would like nothing but the best.

BORN, a digital agency with offices in the US, Europe and Asia, works with several high-profile brands on the creative, content, and commerce aspects of their brand communication.

“We are a digital agency that enables a brand for commerce,” explains Gurumoorthy, an alumnus of BITS Pilani, who worked in the life sciences and IT industries before joining BORN group as a founding member. Private equity firm IVFA is the single largest shareholder in BORN, followed by Zodius, a growth equity firm.

What it offers Many of BORN’s engagements are large, multi-year contracts and a lot of work is done in New York and London, as well as in Chennai. Last year, it expanded to Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad.

“Our work is pixel-perfect. We offer clients a two sided proposition – on the one hand we offer globally balanced production so we can save costs and increase efficiency. On the other hand, BORN can create new revenue streams for a client – using a website or mobile app, clients can sell their products.” says Gurumoorthy.

This is an interesting angle, as most companies with centres in India focus on cost saving and not revenue growth solutions.

BORN works with nearly 220 brands, including Skull Candy, Harley Davidson, Textron, Lorna Jane, Bulgari, Salvatore Ferragamo, DKNY, Shoppers Stop and Tatas. “We support all the experiences one may encounter – from brand discovery to purchase, from awareness to advocacy,” he adds.

Any brand has to have a strategy for each medium of communication. BORN works with the brands on an omni-channel strategy, ensuring the creative and content work are uniform – from the font that is used, the tonality, colour palette, typography, photography, where to place the video, how to play the text around the image and integrating all of these elements in a single page.

The marketing head of any company now needs to have an omni-channel strategy so that the brand’s strengths are effectively communicated across channels.

Brand experience BORN believes a brand experience is founded on four pillars – attract (an audience), interact (with visitors in a personalised way), transact (path to purchase) and react (analytics from their feedback).

Brands first need to attract customers to its online properties, and interact with them leading to a transaction in the form of a purchase. The ‘react’ part comes when a customer gives a feedback, and how effectively the feedback get monitored, especially on social media. BORN has partnered with SAP, which has a commerce platform called Hybris. BORN has implemented Hybris for clients such as Shoppers Stop and 36 others.

“When you do digital transformation of a brand, you cannot ignore the four brand experience pillars,” says Gurumoorthy. But, BORN chooses to work with brands on either or all the pillars. ‘Attract’ is about creative and digital marketing, while ‘interact’ is about content.

All the global production, according to Gurumoorthy, converges at Chennai. BORN has over 400 employees in India – Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Bengaluru.

The company has experienced phenomenal growth and the India team supports operations in Singapore, New York, London, and other locations. BORN is looking to grow the business, work with more brands, and establish itself as the digital agency of record for leading brands.

According to Gurumoorthy (42), BORN has a few competitors, but none has the capability to work in all the aspects as BORN does.

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