BANGALORE, INDIA — Gautam Reghunath & PG Aditiya’s indie agency, Talented, announced the launch of a new specialized social & culture marketing agency, The New Thing. Viren Noronha, who previously led the social charter at Swiggy & Tinder, joins as Co-founder of the new entrepreneur-operated creative shop. Staffed entirely by creators, The New Thing’s primary focus for its brands will be to help them create cultural conversations and moments on social – something they believe very few brands are getting right. And true to its name, the agency does not want to shy away from keeping up with the ever-changing landscape of the internet.
On the launch of the new venture, Viren said, “Getting social right is hard. And, the way agencies and brands look at it needs a desperate refresh. My experience at Swiggy & Tinder showed me evidence of a crucial shift; it’s not about what your brand is saying, it’s about what people are saying about your brand. To keep yourself relevant you need to lean into those conversations. You need to contribute to internet culture with your content. And, you need creators who do that for themselves every day, as part of your team.”
“Look at some of India’s most popular campaigns over the last few years – It’s not that people hate
advertising, they just hate boring ads. Great advertising or social doesn’t force your audience to talk
about you, it invites them to. And it certainly doesn’t need ‘30 posts a month’ to do that. The New
Thing wants to help brands be in charge of those conversations, whether it’s daily social or spike
campaigns. We want to make brands work for the internet, not the other way around. I’m now excited, to begin with colleagues and partners who, like me, believe that social done right is a growth function,
not a cost center,” Viren explained.
Talented Founders Gautam Reghunath & PG Aditiya had this to say about their new agency: “Viren has
executed some of the most talked about social-first campaigns in India but we think he’s been masquerading as a brand-side marketer & an agency-side creative these last few years. Now in his avatar as a creative entrepreneur, we simply want to liberate him and his founding team and help them launch the social and cultural agency of their dreams. There’s a clear reason why we’re launching this as a separate agency. Right from the kind of talent needed to workflow and processes, it’s become evidently clear that specialized social-first creative mandates for brands have to be run very differently from wider creative mandates. It’s equally exciting to see what an agency staffed & run entirely by creators looks like. It gives our clients a direct line to people who are shaping internet culture. All of this means we now believe we have a disruptive take on the business behind social-first creativity.”
On Talented’s future ambitions, the founders added, “This model is how we currently envision scaling Talented & our brand – by enabling creative entrepreneurs their own platform to build from, instead of
assuming we can simply incubate a new practice internally by ourselves. At the core of our new ‘Talented grid of agencies’ will sit Talented itself – an ideas shop, a medium-agnostic creative agency staffed by the brightest creative talent in the market. Specialized agencies like The New Thing and potentially others in the future will be organized under and report into Talented – therefore having the ability to tap into this grid of shared services, while continuing to run as independent shops with their own unique personalities and specialization. So, if you’ve got a disruptive new take on creative-adjacent businesses and want to begin, text us!”
On the agency’s name, Viren added, “Funnily, The New Thing is both the company’s name and the
heart of its business model. The name holds us accountable to our own definition of disruption – to do
things so differently that it destroys the old methods. To brands, it offers instant clarity on who we are –
a shorthand that communicates that we’re not shy about keeping up with trends and how the internet
is moving. So, our clients shouldn’t be either. The New Thing is going to change how social media can
work for brands in India.”
