Meios & Publicidade (M&P): This month, you launched Gigantic – Digital Growth, a company whose mission is to "boost the sales performance of its clients through digital channels." Are we talking about a new agency? What exactly are you aiming to do?

Duarte Vilaça: The pandemic accelerated e-commerce globally, which led to two fundamental consequences. First, it gave brands much greater visibility into consumer habits and behaviours in the digital world. Second, it made it so that any consumer is less than five minutes away from making virtually any type of online purchase. Gigantic aims to improve its clients’ digital performance by using business intelligence tools that allow for the cross-referencing and interpretation of available data on consumers of any type of product. We design strategies tailored to this environment to convert interest into purchases efficiently. While Born has a holistic concern with brand creation and management, which may or may not focus on generating immediate sales, Gigantic specialises precisely in this moment.

M&P: How? Can you give two or three examples?

João Félix da Costa: Using business intelligence software like Semrush, Google Data Studio, or Hotjar gives us in-depth knowledge of potential clients' media consumption. It helps us understand how they consider purchasing a product, how they compare products and services online, their engagement with competing brands, and what campaigns these brands are running in the digital world. We can also analyse their media plans and how they generate leads. After analysing the market context, we turn our attention to our client, understanding their customer journey, growth opportunities, and how we can optimise the performance of their digital assets and campaigns to improve their relationship with consumers. The next step is sales funnel optimisation, where another class of tools like HubSpot comes into play. HubSpot, an American inbound marketing platform, helps u optimise the entire customer relationship by allowing the sharing of all client-related information between team members (e.g. marketing, sales, customer service). It tracks which campaign brought the customer to the site, what pages they visited, what emails they received and interacted with, and what calls were made, among other actions. It also allows for automated workflows that tailor responses to customers from different campaigns or to contacts who haven't completed a purchase. This automation triggers various actions aimed at completing a purchase intent or generating a future sale. Of course, none of this works without the right insights, strategy, and content. That’s another differentiating factor of Gigantic, which clearly draws on Born’s 15 years of experience.

M&P: Will Gigantic mainly serve Born’s clients? In the national market, who are your competitors? Creative agencies, media agencies?

Duarte Vilaça: We expect Gigantic to pave its own path, potentially building a much broader client base than Born’s. Its segmentation capability and precision in media make it possible for companies of all sizes to see positive impacts on their business with Gigantic. However, there is an evident complementarity since Born builds relationships and affinities, while Gigantic focuses on monetisation. Some Born clients have shown interest and are already working with Gigantic. This new project has very little to do with digital creative agencies. While it requires creativity, it doesn't rely on traffic, views, likes, or shares. It depends on tools geared towards generating traffic and leads and converting them into sales. In this sense, it can even have partners outside the branding, advertising, or digital activation fields and operate business models solely based on results. Its analytical component brings it closer to a media agency—Gigantic manages paid media campaigns—but it complements media planning with the so-called sales funnel, dynamically managing CRM. It goes much further; contact with an ad placement is just the beginning of the work.

M&P: How did the idea of launching Gigantic come about?

João Félix da Costa: Gigantic was born from a structural desire between Duarte and me, based on total commitment to our clients’ results. Throughout our careers, we have always been concerned with Born’s positive impact on areas like brand awareness or association with specific values or brand territories, as well as with product sales, some of which were co-created by the agency. This desire was heightened by the pandemic, which inevitably made us look around and confirm the market gap that a company like Gigantic would fill. I say “confirm” because, about three years ago, in another project, we consulted the market for similar services and were disappointed by the response we received. "Buy or bye-bye" is a phrase we use at Gigantic, expressing our desire to generate tangible, objective value for our clients. We created Born in Portugal and Angola, and we’ve created other companies in the communication sphere, including Gigantic. We know the risks and rewards of each project, so nothing satisfies us more than contributing decisively to the success of those who invest and take risks.

M&P: “Buy or bye-bye”? How does that apply to your relationship with potential clients? Do you pay vary based on results, for instance? What level of risk are you taking by launching Gigantic now?

Duarte Vilaça: "Buy or bye-bye" puts the focus back on sales. There is a digitalisation of brands, but not always of businesses. We need to look at e-commerce: digital must be a platform that generates revenue, not just traffic, interaction, or goodwill. Knowing this, we sometimes apply compensation models tied to objectives, whether it’s the demonstration of a client’s clear intent to purchase by providing personal data for follow-up or the actual purchase of a product or service. In these cases, Gigantic chases results. Everyone wins, or everyone loses. We feel comfortable with this model, having built a team of analysts, strategists, copywriters, and performance designers, representing an investment of 200,000 euros in the first year. We don’t focus much on the risk; we prefer to see the opportunity.

M&P: 200,000 euros in the first year... When do you expect to break even?

João Félix da Costa: Break-even will take two years.

M&P: How many people are on the team? How are their profiles different from those at Born?

João Félix da Costa: Gigantic is starting with seven people, and the recruitment process mainly targeted the Brazilian market due to its greater maturity in digital performance. These profiles are quite different from those at Born, whose team must have a broad vision across all communication areas, from brand strategy and creation to advertising and activation. At Gigantic, the focus is on specialisation in digital marketing, performance, and e-commerce.

M&P: These areas grew during the pandemic... How has Born experienced the last few months? The market is facing a sharp drop in advertising investment. What has been the impact on the agency?

Duarte Vilaça: We started 2020 with good forecasts for our operations in Portugal, but the pandemic abruptly changed those plans. Some large-scale projects continued, like Juliana for Jerónimo Martins and Pingo Doce, which was a "hero" of 2020 due to the innovative nature of the project in Portugal’s retail sector, as well as its scale and multidisciplinary approach in a context like the one we’re living in. They were extraordinarily brave. Other significant projects were postponed and will only come to light in 2021. From August onwards, the market stirred, and many smaller-scale requests came in and are currently in development. I think individual entrepreneurs and companies also used the confinement period for introspection, which gave rise to new ideas and projects. This had positive consequences in terms of new business. We also repositioned the agency closer to our core of brand strategy and communication. We prepared the launch of the new business unit and, of course, Gigantic, which is a child of the lockdown.