- Why do you think Tier-2 companies often struggle to access the same level of reputation-building opportunities as companies based in Mumbai, Delhi, or Bengaluru?
It’s rarely about the quality of what they’re building; it’s often about proximity. National media, investors and industry conversations have historically clustered around a few cities, so genuinely ambitious companies outside those hubs don’t always get discovered in the same way.We’ve seen this firsthand with brands like Axor and Vega, which are based out of Belgaum, Karnataka, and Rudrapur, Uttarakhand. The product, manufacturing capabilities and ambition are all there. What’s often missing isn’t substance; it’s someone who can translate that substance into a story that travels beyond the region.The good thing is that this is changing quickly. Digital media has made geography far less restrictive than it once was. A strong product, a compelling story or a genuinely differentiated business can reach a national or global audience regardless of where its headquarters are. The bigger challenge now is making sure those stories are identified, packaged and communicated well enough to get noticed.
- How do you identify stories within regional businesses that can resonate with a national or even global audience?
We start by looking past the product itself and asking what the product represents: is there a founder journey, a manufacturing story, or a category-first moment happening here that people outside the region simply don’t know about yet? With the “MX Carbon” launch for Axor (a part of Vega Auto Accessories Pvt Ltd), for instance, the real story was more than just “a new helmet.” It was a globally competitive, World’s first triple-certified helmet. It also helped that we weren’t starting this story from zero. Vega’s carbon fibre journey actually goes back to 1998, decades of composite manufacturing expertise built quietly in Belgaum, long before “carbon fibre helmet” became a competitive buzzword in the market. So when other players positioned themselves as first movers in that space, our response wasn’t to get into a noisy back-and-forth; it was simply to tell the real timeline. Sometimes the strongest counter to a competitive claim is just an accurate one. - There is often a perception that a brand needs to be physically close to media, investors and industry networks to build national visibility. How much of that is still true today?
Consider this: according to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), nearly 50% of India’s recognised startups today originate from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, not the traditional metro hubs. The country’s centre of gravity has already shifted; the perception just hasn’t caught up yet.Less than it used to be, but the perception still lingers more than the reality justifies. Digital media, national press interest in regional success stories, and platforms that don’t care where you’re headquartered have all changed the equation. What still matters is having someone who understands how to package a Tier-2 story for a national audience.
- With the MX Carbon launch, how did Scratchpad approach the story differently from a conventional product launch?
A conventional launch usually stops at the product specs, pricing, and availability.
We treated MX Carbon as a brand moment. That meant building an emotional narrative around it (we called it “Project Feather”), creating anticipation through online teasers before the reveal, leveraging the creator network in the automotive sector, and inviting the country’s finest publications and journalists for the 2-day grand launch event held in Belgaum. Making sure the history, manufacturing, and engineering story sat alongside the product story, not underneath it. The goal wasn’t just awareness of a helmet; it was building belief in what a globally recognised Indian manufacturing brand from a Tier-2 city is capable of.
- What changes when an agency becomes deeply embedded in a company’s growth journey rather than simply being brought in to execute a campaign or launch?
The relationship becomes much less transactional.
A traditional agency-client relationship can sometimes revolve around briefs, deliverables and deadlines. When an agency becomes genuinely embedded in the business, the conversation changes. You start understanding the decisions behind the brief, the commercial priorities, the constraints and where the brand is trying to go over the next few years, not just what it needs to communicate this month.With brands like Axor and Vega, we’re not just executing a content calendar. We’re understanding manufacturing timelines, being part of conversations around launches and thinking about how a decision today can influence the brand’s positioning a year from now.
That level of involvement allows an agency to challenge a brief when necessary, spot opportunities that may not have been part of the original ask and create work that is connected to the business rather than just the campaign.
But it has to work both ways. The client also needs to be willing to let the agency in that closely and share the context behind the business. The trust runs in both directions, and that’s really the foundation of this kind of partnership.
- What do you think agencies need to change in the way they work with ambitious regional businesses if they want to genuinely contribute to their growth?
The first thing is to stop treating geography as a proxy for ambition or sophistication. There is very little difference in the ambition, capability or competitiveness of businesses simply because they’re based in a Tier-1, Tier-2 or Tier-3 city. What changes is often the context in which they’ve built. Agencies need to spend time understanding that context before they start prescribing solutions. Too often, regional businesses are handed playbooks that were built for metro markets and then expected to fit themselves into them. The better approach is to understand what makes that business genuinely different, and then figure out how to make that difference relevant to a much larger audience.That’s something we’ve experienced firsthand with Axor and Vega. We didn’t learn their businesses from a presentation or a brief. We spent time with the teams, understood their manufacturing capabilities, their history and the culture behind the brands. We’ve been on the factory floor and in conversations around decisions that go far beyond a campaign. That level of proximity changes the work because you’re not trying to manufacture a story for the brand; you’re discovering the story that’s already there and finding a way to make it travel.For agencies, the opportunity is not to make regional businesses look like metro businesses. It’s to help them become nationally relevant without losing what made them distinctive in the first place.
That, to me, is where the real value of an agency lies.
- If the next wave of nationally recognised Indian companies comes from beyond the metros, what role do you see agencies like Scratchpad playing in helping them get there?
I think we’re already seeing the beginnings of that shift. Businesses and talent that once felt they had to move towards the metros are increasingly building, operating and creating from Tier-2 and Tier-3 India. As that continues, the industry will increasingly have to look at these cities not as secondary markets, but as places where significant businesses are being built.I see Scratchpad playing the role of a partner, translating and amplifying true value.The job isn’t to manufacture a story that isn’t there. It’s to recognise what is genuinely strong about a business, understand why it matters and then communicate it in a way that can travel beyond its geography.A lot of India’s ambitious companies are already building world-class products and capabilities outside the traditional metro ecosystem. The next opportunity is making sure the rest of the country, and eventually the world, gets to see them.
The future isn’t necessarily about just taking regional businesses to the metros.
It’s about making what they’re building from those regions matter everywhere.
