Helping brands realise their digital dreams - Media Mint

Until a couple of months ago, I used to cover the advertising industry very closely. At that time, seeing the transition from mainstream to digital advertising was an intriguing one. The entire ecosystem – agencies, clients, advertising and marketing professionals - were all figuring out what is best for the brands. Now the space of digital advertising has many players, and one reason it has taken off in such a big way is that, as digital specialist, you can be sitting anywhere in the world, and work for a client halfway across the globe from you.

One such startup in this space is Hyderabad-based Media Mint that partners clients for their product strategy, product development and operational support needs. Founded by Aditya Vuchi, Media Mint does display, video and mobile advertising for ad agencies and publishers. They also work closely with creative agencies, media buying firms and analytics suites to deliver results for top brands. Before starting on his own, Aditya was working with Tribal Fusion – an independent ad network -- where he held various positions, including that of a product manager, where he led the development and evolution of Expo9, Tribal Fusion’s ad server and helped build audience targeting and data-driven products. Aditya is mechanical engineer by qualification, and has long a strong advocate of social media. “While working for Tribal Fusion in India, I saw a latent need for experts in digital advertising as the western markets went into recession and all companies looked towards the emerging markets to tap into the advertising potential. This shaped the vision for Media Mint to help ad companies achieve global operational scale through creating, managing and optimizing digital campaigns,” says Aditya.

From a modest start in 2010, Media Mint today has more than 85 employees across their offices in India and San Jose. Talking about their physical presence in California, Aditya says: “Media Mint works with a number of reputed multinational ad firms whose primary hub is in the United States which made California a natural choice for our second office outside of HQ in Hyderabad. Our clients are present in the US, the UK, Spain, Germany, Dubai, Argentina, Australia and India.” Located in the US, also helps them be in touch with developments in the advertising space in a mature market like the US.

Aditya is bullish about the potential growth for digital advertising in India. “Strategies around audience-based measurement and tracking are quickly picking up which allows us to lend our expertise to ad firms that are still in discovery mode and figuring out how these new approaches apply to their campaigns,” says Aditya. Media Mint sees itself as a niche partner to large ad agencies that are looking to fulfill the digital component of their overall budget. So while mass media budgets have been shrinking, every brand is willing to look the digital way for ads that can be measured for its effectiveness. “Blind buys on television and print where you 'spray and pray' have taken a big hit; and, display, video and mobile advertising, where consumers are spending more time on and can be tracked effectively have thrived in this economic climate,” says Aditya.

Media Mint works on both retainer as well as services model, and actively participates in reaching out to clients for business. Aditya’s interest in educating more people on the benefits of digital advertising, is shared by the Media Mint team, and they actively contribute to the digital advertising community in forums to help small and medium buyers get off the ground with digital monetization. Participating in conferences and industry-level events, to share their experiences and trends in the digital space, is also their way of giving back.

So, as startups, if you haven’t figured out the optimal way to communicate your brand to the world, reach out to Media Mint for help.