Navigating the Intersection of Creativity and Strategy

Hey, hi everyone. Welcome to your show, E-Coffee with Experts. This is your host, Ranmay here. Today we have Raven, who is the founder of Bold x Collective, which is an award-winning digital marketing and creative agency with us. Hey, Raven, how are you?

Hello, Ranmay. I’m good. I’m excited to be here. How are you doing?

All good. I can’t really complain. Great. Raven, first of all, welcome to the podcast. To kick things off, can you share a bit about what inspired you to start your journey in the media and digital marketing industry?

Yeah, definitely. I come from a background of creative. Just growing up, I was always shooting content, photo, video. Even before social media became so popular, it was just something that I love to do. I love storytelling. Growing up, I would watch commercials and I would just break them down and almost observe every little component. What makes them different? Why do they stand out? How is this connecting with the target audience? I was just always so into it. That is what led me into Getting into the whole media space. I did some documentary filming, and I did some photography. I worked in fashion photography, and I just have so much creative work, but I wanted to look at the bigger picture. Creative is one component when it comes to marketing, but there’s so much more. There’s analytics, there’s data, there’s branding. Why is your brand the way it is? Who are the faces behind the brand? What inspired you? I like to know everything. I want to dig deep and know the bigger picture and just be a part of that and bring something amazing to life. That is what got me into the whole media space, the creativity, the growth factor, and the fact that there’s just so much to learn and so much that you can do when it comes to branding and marketing.

There’s just such a big opportunity out there.

Absolutely. Talking about branding, Raven, as it happened with you, you would be speaking with a lot of business owners to understand their brand vision, why did they start, and what has been their journey and all that stuff. During the discovery sessions, did you have experience this wherein You ask an agency, what was the problem statement which you thought of when you started your journey as an entrepreneur? Why did you start this business? All of that goes getting back to drawing board questions wherein they have Where they have really come up the mark and have not really kept a track of why did they start? These questions which you share or ask to them during those discovery calls or sessions, that again, wakes them up. They go back to the drawing board and seek those answers and then come back to you. Does this happen with you?

All the time. It happens to me and it happens to my clients. It’s one thing, one really important thing that I feel a lot of people forget is When it comes to your brand, people forget why they started the brand in the first place. I think it’s so important to always remember why you started that brand, what your values are, and what problem you’re solving for your consumer. Because at the end of the day, you start a business because of values and what you bring to the table that is different from everyone else. To me, it’s really important to always go back to the basics, remember where your brand came from, why you started it. Always have that messaging around you, even in my office, when it comes to In my whole studio, we have branding items everywhere. We always remember, what do we do? Why do we do it? What problem are we solving? And what are our values as a company? It’s important to always just go back to the drawing board. Remember that when it comes to anything that you so you always remain on brand.

Absolutely. For me, this is the story that we all marketers go through when we speak to business owners, isn’t it?

Definitely, yeah. How about you? Do you face that all the time? Do you ever go back to the drawing board and you’re like, Okay, let’s think about the brand. Think the messaging, all of that?

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of times this happens, while that statement is there in terms of every brand has its own in a statement of positioning. But if you talk about real hard questions as to why did you start this business in terms of why, again, we’re talking about revenue, we’re talking about traffic and all of that. From a marketing perspective, we talk about traffic and traction, footfall, to get your phones ringing. From a business standpoint, again, revenue and brand positioning and all of that. But what is that thing that differentiates you from your immediate competition who is into the same niche? Or what is the problem that you’re solving for your customers or for your target audience? A lot of times, I’ll tell you, Raven, while Are we targeting that blue ocean out there in terms of which we have not touch base? We talk about our target audience and all that stuff as marketers. We also do it. What we target is to track our existing customer base. Why did they buy your product? Why did they buy your service? Why are they using your service for, let’s say, two years, three years, whatever time?

What did they see different in you versus your competition because of which they choose you over your competition? At times, in terms of the vision of targeting the Blue Ocean out there, we then miss out in terms of our existing customer base because that is the USP that you already have. You’re trying to build new, but that is the USP that you already have because of which you have that already existing customer base. All of this, there are a lot of stories around this. A lot of business owners then go back to the basics like you mentioned and then come back with those responses for us. It’s a fun activity as well because then again, we all go back to those days, how they started, why they started, and get all those answers to those questions.

Yeah, definitely. It’s so important just to always remember why you started what you do, because at the end of the day, any campaign you build, it has to be surrounded with that message in mind. Clients, they stuck to us for a reason, and you have to continue. You still have to take care of the clients you already have while bringing, nurturing leads. But yeah, I always keep everything on brand. Branding is so important, and we do that for our clients, we do it for ourselves, and every brand should be doing that, too.

Lovely. Now, coming to the personal front, Reven, your career spans to a variety of roles from art director to marketing coordinator, right? How did these diverse experiences shape your approach to founding WorldX Collective?

Good question. I’ve worked in a lot of different areas when it comes to media. I have worked as a creative director. I’ve done some documentary filming. I’ve done a lot of production work over the years, photography, retouching, social media advertising, social media marketing. My scope has been very large. Because of this, I feel like I look at marketing from a different perspective. When it comes to looking at a brand, I start from the beginning. What is this brand? What do they do differently? What are their values? What are they solving for their clients? Then from I try to understand what the business is and how it works. What are your differentiating factors? Who is your target audience? How do they connect with you? What platforms do they use? I like to look at every little component, and I feel like my diverse background helps me do that because If you’re only looking at it from one point of view, which is, I guess, you can say the creative, then you’re missing out on so many other important components. When we started the agency, my partner, he’s a strategist, and he has a background in business and in branding.

My background comes from creative and content and social media. Combined, we both brought our expertise. From his side, looking at the strategy side, building strategies from scratch and really understanding what a brand needs and what a brand is lacking versus what they have and what’s working. He knows how to break down all of that. Then he comes to me with all of this research, all of this information, because everything needs to be research-backed. From there, my side of the team, we come up with ideas, creative We try to figure out what we can do differently, what is a good, bold approach that we can take. Then, of course, we measure as we go. We look at the data, we look at the numbers, see where everything is working. But our approach, we’re bold acts collective for a reason. Everything we do, we want to make it bold. We stay away from any mediocre marketing. We’re always thinking creatively. I like to tell everybody, creativity is in our DNA. I like to tell everybody, creativity is in our DNA. Creative people, but we’re also very analytical. Coming from a creative background and having somebody in a strategy realm, combining, coming together, I feel like it’s created something pretty beautiful.

It is a deadly combination, Reven, that you have with your partner, branding, strategy, operations, all of that. You are a deadly combination for sure. Talking about you touched upon content. With content, with all the AI automation coming up, what is your take on, I’m not to chat GPT, but overall for the AI evolution that has happened in the recent past.

I love this question. I’m going to share my take, and then I want to get your take as a marketer as well. I think AI is amazing. I think it’s amazing. There’s a way. You need to be strategic with how you use it. Typing a question and asking it to write a whole blog for you and copying and pasting that blog is not the right way to use AI. Instead, I say use AI for different reasons. Use it for your research. It’s almost like having an assistant. I feel like I have an assistant with me all the time helping me out. Chatgpt is one of them that has been the most amazing one for me. I love using ChatGPT. It’s really good for research. I know there’s so many more out there. I just always get drawn to ChatGPT first before anything else. Ai is amazing for me just because it helps me come up with content ideas. It helps me answer some questions for specific industries because I like to research thoroughly when I’m working on a client’s marketing strategy and implementing the strategy. It’s It’s really important to know every little thing. If it’s a skincare brand, I will make sure I know everything I need to know about the skincare that they’re focusing on.

Chatgpt is very helpful when it comes to those things. But one thing I always tell everyone to stay away from is copying and pasting information from ChatGPT because it’s not good for SEO. You know that because you work in SEO. I know a lot of people do that. They copy and paste an entire blog. One, it’s not good for SEO because it’s not original content. You have no opinion. The thing differentiates us as humans is the fact that we have that human emotional intelligence. Chatgpt doesn’t have that. Chatgpt, it can try to be a human by having emotional responses. But when it comes to actual emotional intelligence, that’s something that humans have. That ChatGPT just simply doesn’t have or any other AI app. We think from our minds. We think from our hearts. We’re different. We think with emotion. When it comes to connection, that comes from a human. That’s something that AI can’t replicate. That’s why I’m not scared of AI. I’m embracing it to my advantage, and I think everyone should. Don’t be scared of AI. Embrace it as much as you can, but just remember, you’re a human at the end of the day.

You have a different outlook than AI will.

Absolutely. As long as you’re using it as an enabler in your processes, it actually works. Very good example given by you in terms of if you want to do some research and get some facts, that is where it kicks in. But it’s not the final product, at least not now. It cannot really track down the emotional question like you mentioned. A humanization of content is very important. That is what we speak in our agency to our content team, that the consumption of content is still being done by a human brain or a mind and heart to make that final decision to buy a product or use a service. That brand storytelling impact is only going to come in by by the human side of it when you’re writing that content. For sure. I can obviously assist you if you have some cast at, let’s say, to deliver at 4:00, it’s already 3:00 PM. We just got reminded of it. It gives you a Head Start. I just put in what? Top 10 stuff of whatever domain. Then it gives you some numbers, some facts. It gives you a Head Start. But you have to put in your brain and mind to prepare final PPT to be submitted at 4:00 PM.

Humanization of whatever you’re doing with AI is very important. That is how we approach it. We are not, like you mentioned, like yourself, we have embraced it and we felt that our content team, which was a bit tech savvy, so the adoption was quite gradual, I would say, without any major hiccups. And yeah, it has been quite a blast since the ChatGPT has been there.

Yeah, for sure. Do you guys use AI often?

Yeah, we use AI. Obviously, we have human-written content because we still believe we are old-school that way. We are old-school that way. I didn’t believe that content has to be written by human minds and heart and hands. Because like I told you, the example, it is going to be consumed by humans. If you want a wrist watch, you are the person who’s going to make that decision, not a robot for you. Exactly. You would only relate to a brand, a new brand for that matter. If you get to their story, they’re standing in terms of how do they make watches, how their journey has been, how did they start, who the owners are, what is their backstory, and all of that. If you want to purchase something which is not a regular buy for you, even if it is. But that’s your mind and heart that is going to make that decision. It’s very important to have the content written by humans. We are old school that phase.

I hope it stays that way because Authenticity in 2024, it’s everything. Authenticity is so important. The expertise that you offer, that’s based on your real-life experience. Anything I write about marketing, about branding, about social media, that’s all my experience. It’s things that I have learned over the years. It’s things I do for my clients, and that’s my own expertise that I’m sharing with you. The same goes for all of the people that write blogs. Their expertise is what differentiates themselves. Anyone can write a blog about five great digital marketing strategies you can try, but how about some examples? How about some case studies that you actually did? What are you doing that makes you different from everybody else? It’s all about being authentic. Showcasing your expertise is a great way to be authentic because you’re showcasing who you are and what you do. So authenticity. That’s my favorite thing about 2024.

Lovely. Starting your own agency is not an easy decision. The journey, again, is very difficult. We were talking about it in the green room, initially to keep the lights on. You do a lot of stuff and pick up a lot of projects and hustling your way through. And you have clearly made it right now. If I were to ask you, what was that initial vision for WorldX Collective, because of which you started your agency. How has that vision evolved over the past six odd years that you have been in business?

There’s a lot of different things that I’m going to share. I will start with when we first started. We first started because I was specializing in content, social media, creative strategy, video production. My partner was specializing in strategy, branding, business, operations. We came together because we were both looking at the bigger picture. I was like, I want somebody who understands the whole business side, the whole strategy side. He was like, I want somebody who understands the creative side, the social media, the trends, somebody who has an eye for esthetic and understanding what people like and what they want to see based on your target audience. So collaborating, we decided to work together. From there, we made some killer campaigns, and clients were loving it. Then the pandemic happened. When the pandemic happened, we had this one specific client, and This client, him telling a story to us was very eye-opening. He was telling us that his business was in the sign industry. He was like, Every day, we have to go all around the country and we have to remove signs because people are closing down their businesses during the pandemic because they couldn’t find a way to keep their doors open.

Then when we would go to different businesses and try to understand why they had to close their doors, a lot of the times it’s because they’re marketing. They didn’t know how to adapt. They always stuck to traditional marketing, not digital marketing. They only knew traditional. They knew giving out flyers to people, you couldn’t do that anymore. They knew how to go door to door, you couldn’t do that anymore. The pandemic stopped all of that for you. What do you do in those situations? That’s where us, digital marketers, come in because we look at everything from a different perspective. You have a location, you have to pay rent, and you’re struggling because you can’t have people coming in. Do something different. Adapt. Maybe you can start something digital. Maybe you can do something completely different, like something with ecom. But the whole point is you need to find a way to differentiate yourself when you can no longer focus on those traditional marketing approaches. That’s just what we did during the pandemic. Our goal was we want to help as many businesses as possible so they don’t want to close their doors. That’s what we did.

We just tried to find businesses, find their problems, find their pain points, and see how we could help them digitally by building strategies, pursuing different marketing efforts, depending on the brand, because everything is tailored. There’s no one size fits all approach. We came up with strategies for each of those brands. We helped implement them. We helped grow the brands. That, to me, was so big because it brought so much passion out of me. We helped businesses stay open during the pandemic. That is a really big deal to me. One of our clients, I still remember to this day, she comes to us and she said, This is the first Christmas I’ve ever been able to give my employees bonuses. That warmed my heart. I was like, Wow, that is what happens when you pursue something, you pursue something that you just have never done before. You’re willing to adapt and try something new. That’s what drove so much more passion. We just continued growing from there and just going hard with marketing. Our whole team feels the same way. We love the industry, we love marketing, we love business. Most importantly, we love to help brands grow.

There’s something just so thrilling about seeing a brand grow. I’m sure you feel the same way being in marketing. There’s something like just seeing the results, seeing 50% growth, and then the next year seeing 110% growth. There’s something so thrilling about that feeling. You’re just like, I did that. My team did that. I’m so proud.

Absolutely. 100% can relate to that, those pandemic stories. Reven, coming from a branding perspective, since you are so much involved on the branding side of things, the customer stories are really great. Give us one of your Favorite client stories or successors, maybe. Any successful client story of yours.

There’s a lot. Now I’m trying to think of which specific one. Yeah, I’m sure. Yeah, there’s quite a few. I’m just thinking of which specific one to focus on this one. Let me think for a moment. I can talk about… We’re very confidential with the specific client story, so I can give a general story about how we helped a brand. There is one specific brand we worked with for several years, and we were their video production partners. Because of video production, we were able to grow their business in a whole different way from what they’ve done in the past. They always stuck to traditional marketing. It was always cold calling. It was always going door to door, business to business. It was so much of traditional. I told them one day, I was like, You guys need to try something different. Let me help you. This was years ago. They were like, Okay, what do you want? What do you want to do that’s different? What can you bring to the table that’s different? I said, Creative. We need to do something that’s going to connect with your target audience. We need to come up with some new strategies. Mine was to go on the creative route. Let’s see what your customer’s problem is, and let’s explain how we can solve it with being creative and coming up with creative campaigns. They brought me on, my agency on as a video partner. From there, we produced so much video on a consistent basis, and people started to recognize them. People started to love the video. They were getting a lot of sales from there. They were getting a lot of leads. Their website traffic had tripled within the first five months of doing video production. There’s something different. There’s something so different about video and being able to connect with somebody. Look, we’re doing a video interview right now. We could have just done it off Zoom, but it wouldn’t have been as impactful. Because video has such a connecting factor. You get the chance to actually showcase what you do, talk about what you do, talk about what you love, showcase your authenticity. We’re being authentic here. We’re talking about what we do, what we like to do, things that we do differently. That is what we did through video production. From there, the business just started to grow and grow because they embraced a new tactic, which was creative.

People really connected to that. Their audience loved it because they’re like, Nobody else in the industry is doing what you’re doing right now. This is before video got so huge. Now they’re just killing it. Video, it makes a really big difference. I’m obsessed with video production, hence I’m always… Whether you’re a B2B brand or you’re a B2C brand, you have to remember, at the end of the day, you’re selling to a human. You’re not selling to a robot. You’re not selling a business. You’re selling to the humans within that business. Be able to grow your base and connect with people in that way. You do it right now with your podcast, and we’re having a conversation, so video is in.

Absolutely. 100%. I completely agree with you on that one. Great, Reven. This has been a brilliant conversation, but before I let you go, I’d like to play a quick rapid fire. I hope you’re game for it.

Let’s try.

All Your celebrity crush.

Celebrity crush. Oh, tough one. I’m going to say a female because I love Mila Kunal. She’s my favorite actress ever. She’s authentic. That’s my favorite thing about her.

All right. Authenticity in 2024, right? Exactly. Great. Your last Google search?

My last Google search. Honestly, likely marketing. Something with marketing. I was looking up some marketing trends.

All right. Where do you find Reven on a Friday evening after office?

Friday evening after office? Honestly, I hang out with my dog and sometimes I’ll play a little bit of music.

Okay. What do you do with your first paycheck, Reven? First paycheck of your life?

First paycheck of my life, I went to the store. First, I went to the bank, deposited the money, withdraw the money, and went shopping.

All right.

First time I ever went to shopping.

All right. Lovely. Not really any further, Revan. But before we sign off for our audiences, for our listeners, you have clearly made it in this digital marketing space, right? What is that one piece of advice that you’d want to give to our listeners today who are trying, hustling their way through to make a mark in this space or trying to start that entrepreneurial journey?

There are two different things, I would say. The first one is, obviously, keep it going. You never stop. There’s going to be some times where you may not get as many clients and customers. Sometimes in the beginning, it could be years in your business, but you always need to be strong and you always need to find a way to adapt. You need to know what’s trending. When you’re in business, you need to know what’s trending at all times. Keep learning, keep going, remain positive at all times. When it comes to pursuing marketing services, Understand that it takes time to get results. Marketing, you’re not going to see results in one month. Just like as CEO, it takes, and even three, four, five, six, seven, eight months, depending on the keywords that you’re ranking for. It takes time to see results. You need to You need to keep it going. Don’t do it for one month and stop. That’s not how it works. You need to keep going with marketing. If you want to remain at the top or you want to see results, you need to keep going. Every brand, doesn’t matter what industry you’re in.

Marketing needs to be a consistent effort. You need to put in the effort and you need to budget for marketing. So always invest in marketing and don’t stop.

Lovely. Great, Raven. Once again, thank you so much for taking out time to do this with us. We really appreciate it. Cheers.

Thank you for having me. I hope you have a great rest of the day. Enjoy your coffee.