Aneil ‘Andee’ Deepak launches Inka, an agency for SMEs

Inka, in Telugu, means “what else”. When Aneil Deepak, co-founder, Inka, an agency for SMEs, decided to relocate to his native Hyderabad, he decided that the casual remark that denotes “wassup” in his mother tongue, would become the agency’s name. 

 

But Inka, started in partnership with Sunil Reddy, a media executive from Hyderabad claims to be a unique agency in many other aspects. For instance, it claims to swear by a magic number of five. “We will never have more than five clients,” says Andee, as he’s known in the business. All of them would be brands with a turnover of less than Rs 1,000 crore. 

 

Andee says that the idea is to spend one day a week on a client. “If people of our calibre spend eight hours on a client, the brand can do phenomenally well. In a large agency, it’s extremely rare that a CCO-level person would spend that kind of time on a brand.  

 

He adds that Inka is a ‘creative free-stylist agency’. Definition? “Exactly, we do not want to be defined,” says Andee and adds that they do not want to be categorised as a media agency, content agency, creative boutique and so on. “We shall deliver whatever works for the client,” he says.

 

What will they do if big brands approach them? “I will say no,” says Andee and qualifies that by adding that big brands come with a lot of red tape for a creative person. “By the time the actual idea finds shape everything changes,” he says.

 

In the case of SMEs, the creative head is talking directly and getting his worked either approved or rejected by the founders. “Also, big agencies ask for big brands. Small guys are underserved,” he says. 

 

As of now, the agency has clients like Barista, Priya cement, Akanksha hospital among others.

Inka has no designations and employees are not fitted into pigeon-holes like a planner, creative guy and so on. It also ensures that the employees are recruited from a closed circle of friends.  

He says, that being small also helps the agency think beyond the norm and recommend what the brand needs and not what the client expects. “Clients have to align to this kind of thinking,” he says. 

 

For instance, during Independence Day this year, Inka executed a campaign on Instagram for DNA newspapers, where 400 years of British rule was unveiled every six minutes on the platform.