Building Models, Finding Solutions

Zoo Media is a home-grown media network of seven agency brands—FoxyMoron, Doyen Oink, Pollen, The Rabbit Hole, Mammoth Media, Noesis. Tech and, Phosphene. Zoo Media was started with the drive to do something different. At the age of 19, Pratik Gupta (founding partner and CEO) and his colleagues did not feel challenged by the education they were being provided. Recalling how they got started, Gupta says, “It was started on a whim. There was no business plan. There was no focus area. There was no vision or mission. It was just about putting your head down and doing some work. And, it’s been 13 long years since.”

Digital Solutions: As stated, Zoo Media is a network of seven agencies that work in an integrated format to solve business problems for clients digitally. Each of these verticals specialises in the service they provide whether it is video production, technology, influencers, consulting, media planning or social. Everyone in these agencies come with their own specialisation. This provides the clients with the best of both worlds, getting an integrated service offering, along with, specialists in each of the service offerings.

Pratik’s philosophy, which is shared across the Zoo Media network, is to work with clients as business partners with a singular focus to achieve business outcomes.
 Over the past five years advertising has changed drastically. Advertising was divided between the creative and the media ecosystems. With the digital, it has become nearly impossible for these agencies to work in silos. Zoo Media built a new model of horizontally and verticals coming together to solve multiple purposes of brands.

Over the pandemic, Gupta and his team had the ability to re-calibrate and take a closer, more analytical look at their working business model to find where large parts of growth as a network come from. He states, “The reset button has allowed us to expand and has proven the hypothesis we were writing on this new model of advertising.” With digital at the centre of everything, Zoo Media is realising its vision, seeing growth in both the top line and in terms of people.

Industry Trends: Moving to digital was the largest trend in the last five years, accelerated by the pandemic. Within digital there are increasingly more specialist teams being developed. However, Gupta points out, “None of the teams are working in integrated formats because that’s how the advertising model was initially built.” Bigger brands are asking for consolidated service offerings, asking singular specialised teams to deliver singular or multiple products. In this manner, Zoo Media was prepared.

Other than specialist teams, trends across AdTech and marketing tech are continuously evolving. Content and media practices have also changed significantly, especially with the rise of influencer culture that has had a strong impact on the market. All of these factors play into the business model adapted by Zoo Media. Gupta explains, “We have this beautiful tree at Zoo Media called ‘Data, Tech, Media and Content’. It’s about the coming together of data, media, content and tech and that is what’s happening today.” Adding that, “our vision is coming to life and our vision was correct.”  

Vasudha Mukherjee

BW Reporters The author works with BW Education