João Santos is interviewed by Marketeer magazine, to talk about WYgroup and its positioning as a one-stop-shop, creating added value for its customers.

João Santos stresses that at the moment, more than 30% of WYgroup’s turnover is international. “We ended the semester with a growth of 38% and we believe that we will finish this year with a growth between 20 and 30%”.

1. With 20 years of activity, WYgroup is the largest independent group of Marketing and Consumer Experience services in Portugal. In what context did it arise and how was it following the changes in this sector, in particular with the development of Digital Marketing?

WYgroup was created 20 years ago, with 3 entrepreneurs eager to do something different. Already at that time, digital marketing, which was taking its first steps, was at the genesis of the group, being structured as its most important development axis, and which was evolving along with the latest innovations and technologies. And if in the beginning, everything revolved around the sites and their development, over time we have evolved in capacity, experience, extending our reach and launching new in-house skills. Today, we are more than 350 people dedicated to communication and consumer experience, distributed across our 8 business units – Bliss, BloomCast, BY, Fever, Lisbon Digital School, NERVO, Performance Sales, and White, who work in areas that are as different as they are complementary to each other.

2. What is WYgroup positioning? And what sets you apart from the competition, in which skills do you excel?

WYgroup is today the largest and most complete ecosystem of business communication in the country. We are effectively a hybrid between a consultant and an agency, as we started with consultancy and brand and communication strategy and ended with the implementation, in its various supports, online and offline. In between, we include and merge Creativity, Technology, Data, and Media, in an integrated way as no one can do in Portugal. We are a “one-stop-shop” of Portuguese origin with consolidated growth and success, and we are very proud of it. Furthermore, we are “locals” with vast international experience, not the other way around: we work for our clients from multiple geographies from Portugal to the world. We believe that our model brings real value to our customers, our stakeholders, and also all the talents who are with us.

3. As a one-stop-shop, what is the range of services provided by the group and its different companies? And what weight does the Digital Marketing area assume in this operation and at what pace has it evolved?

Naturally, we have witnessed an affirmation of digital in the communication plans of companies, which has become quite accentuated since the beginning of the pandemic. But we believe that digital is a priority medium for marketing that offers countless possibilities for communication, and this is our specialty, whatever the format and medium. We are specialists in communication, which is why we operate, as a group, in all its areas, whether digital or not. Our in-house skills and talent cover all aspects of the consumer experience, from strategy, design thinking, business intelligence, data, SEO, digital media purchasing, marketing automation, e-commerce, Android and IOS App development, creation and development of websites and their respective content, including social media, branding and design, employer branding and public relations, events and brand activation, etc. But it is the capacity and know-how that we have in aggregating internal competencies in an agile way that allows us to offer business solutions that merge technology, innovation, creativity, and data in digital services. When we form synergies, the real value becomes immense.

4. The WYgroup is made up of eight companies. How do they complement each other and what kind of synergies are there between them?

That is your great strength. The fact that we have 8 business units – Bliss, BloomCast, BY, Fever, Lisbon Digital School, NERVO, Performance Sales, and White – which are simultaneously autonomous, but very aligned, allows us to have a very significant and differentiating commercial approach. To a large extent, the vast majority of our activities end up being synergistic, which allows the intervention, whenever necessary, of another unit to complement a job or a challenge. This allows us to always accept the proposed challenge, stating with conviction that we are going to look for the best solution. Because we have it! Afterward, and because I like caricatures, I like to look at the group as a gigantic Swiss army knife: not all problems are solved with a knife. Many of them need more specific and specialized instruments. That we have. The big advantage for the customer is that he doesn’t need to worry about aligning the various partners, we take care of that. You don’t need to worry about the specific solution, our job is to find it and implement it according to our client’s request. We turn problems into viable solutions, and our synergies save our customers time and costs.

5. Is the fact that the group has in-house creative skills, but also technological ones, a competitive advantage these days? Why?

It is a huge advantage and an asset that distinguishes us both in delivering more value to the customer and internally, in our work processes. Typically, creative minds and engineering minds have different approaches to the same problem. Our concern is always to join the UX/UI to Engineering, to join creativity and thinking centered on the consumer/user with the process. And above all simplify it. Make you more human and closer. The most complex process we can address is the simplification of our surroundings. In general, technology consultants do not have creative teams, and creative agencies rarely have integrated technology support structures. We have and always have since the beginning, as we don’t believe in silos and shared structures. One and the other are complementary and never antagonistic. And with this, we were also able to develop better engineers and better creatives, as each one began to better understand the approaches they had to share. And in the end, who wins is our customer and their consumers.

6. What are WYgroup’s main clients? And which customers have already been recruited this year?

Our larger clients are international and, above all, American and Canadian clients, for this reason, we have some limitations in disclosing their names. But we work in sectors as different as banking, insurance, or the food sector. Right now, more than 30% of our turnover is international. In Portugal, we also work with a huge diversity of sectors, and we have many and diverse clients, among them and without any specific order, Sogrape, Volkswagen Digital Solutions, Fidelidade, EDP, Barbot, Amorim, Lactogal, MOCHE, OGMA, MUDA, Parques from Sintra, REN, MSD, Ascendum, Vanguard Properties, VOLVO, 24Kitchen, National Geographic, etc. Among the many customers gained this year, we highlight Sociedade Central de Cervejas, Izidoro, Filorga, Microsoft, Apifarma, SP Television, Plátano Editora, Portuguese Basketball Federation, Kalorias, Viplant, and we have yet to disclose the biggest achievement of the year, an account of the top 20 national that will very soon be public…

7. In recent times, what are the main Digital Marketing projects and campaigns with a WYgroup subscription? And what results have they obtained?

WYgoup doesn’t sign campaigns, but its companies. We have many recognized works with high visibility, but I prefer to highlight the most recent projects that focused on awareness and support for comprehensive, pedagogical, and socially relevant information, with a purpose, and that impacts society as a whole. For example, in the case of By, as was the case of the website of the Portuguese Presidency of the European Union, where we were responsible for the website, web design and social media. We helped to create a communication platform that allowed us to better monitor and understand the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and which was a great opportunity and responsibility for us to be able to contribute to a very important project for the Portuguese. In addition, with FEVER, for example, we also developed all the digital communication of the ambitious EuSouDigital project, which promotes digital literacy in Portuguese society through multiple initiatives through digital training actions developed by volunteers dedicated mainly to the more senior layers, to that these can be more adapted to the digitization and, consequently, more monitored and integrated into society. Or, NERVO and Performance Sales, together with the Portuguese League Against Cancer, with the “HPV and What?” campaign, a roadshow that became entirely digital in the last year, whose objective was to “end with the whats and the HPV reasons” among young people, highlighting the importance of vaccination. These projects are extremely important, as they promote a common purpose, and they make us very proud of their real impact and the success they achieved with their targets.

8. Has the growth of Digital Marketing forced you to bring new talents, with other skills, into the WYgroup? What positions have been created or strengthened?

It is a fact, and it is currently one of our main challenges, as we have more and more places available. Today, everything that is more oriented to programming and design is the order of the day, as developers or UX/UI designers, without forgetting the search for professionals dedicated to data analysis, Marketing Automation, and digital strategy in all its components, whether in Media or SEO.We know that we have an extremely rich and diverse business ecosystem, as we bring together engineers, strategists, analysts, creatives, designers, and managers all with the same goal. Therefore, there is a great need for different profiles, but with the common transversal components that are part of our culture: people full of talent, curious, willing to know, and always do more, so that our work can be of excellence. We are a company of incredible people, talented, upright, and dedicated to delivering the best that is done in the world from Portugal.

9. What are the main current trends in Digital Marketing identified by WYgroup? And how have you tried to follow up or anticipate?

This concern is part of our genesis and our DNA, as we have always been aware of trends and at the forefront of the latest innovations and technologies, maintaining critical thinking and anticipating their practical applications, impacts, and what professions in the future will be needed.Nowadays we apply Artificial Intelligence to some projects, but its cost is not yet within the reach of any company. In the very near future, this reality will be changed and at a speed that will surprise everyone. Let’s imagine a data processing area that, thanks to the introduction of machine learning, can reduce its workforce by 80%. Will this destroy 80% of employment? The answer is no! Because new needs will be created, such as an Artificial Intelligence Manager and then the technicians who have to monitor and maintain it. If we look at everything that involves Data, this change will be radical and profound. A machine can make accounting entries as well as anyone else, but the people who will supervise them will just have to be excellently trained, as they will have to deal with all the exceptions, and that is where the fundamental requirement of the professions will be. future.We believe that the new Marketing 5.0 will have 2 essential conditions: a profound transformation of everything we have studied so far, including retraining of the staff of many companies. That’s why we believe so much in training, and we don’t want to lose sight of this sector.

10. How has the Covid-19 pandemic impacted WYgroup’s business and with what effect on results? And what are the prospects for the rest of the year?

The Group already had a very strong growth track record and in 2020 it grew more than 20%, with all its units registering growth. The need to digitize and transform some business models were catalysts for the strengthening of communication and sales channels of companies across the board, namely in terms of Social Media, e-commerce, Data, products, and digital content. In this last year, we have witnessed a huge amplification in the need and delivery of digital services, in order to allow brands to communicate and interact with their consumers during periods when we were accessible, sometimes only through digital. The pandemic has undoubtedly impacted our business, but it has strengthened the partnership ties with our customers, who know that we are at their side to make them grow and go further. We ended the semester with a growth of 38% and we believe that we will finish this year with a growth of between 20 and 30%.

11. The group has an office in Boston, USA. How has the operation in the North American market evolved? And what balance does it make?

The American market is our biggest market after the Portuguese. But it has been critical for WYgroup to maintain this operation for competitive reasons. The American market challenges us and constantly forces us to sophisticate and develop. We couldn’t win a project in the United States for being friendly or just for being Portuguese. We win and keep projects because we are good. Because we do it better and with more quality. Because we bring value and innovation and above all because we deliver with intelligence, making a difference for that specific business. And we do all this from Portugal, or rather, from Praia de Santo Amaro in Oeiras.The sophistication we have achieved working in this and other markets are equally applied to Portuguese customers, with exactly the same tools, and with the same intelligence. We do not differentiate the type of service we offer based on the client’s nationality, but rather on account of their specific needs.

12. What are WYgroup’s main goals for 2021?

WYgroup aims to be the best Digital Marketing ecosystem in the world. It intends to be a place of learning and appreciation. It wants to be a research laboratory and an implementation workshop. He wants to be always looking for innovation, different thinking, combining the unknown and the new. And treat both equally, making it easier and simpler for technology to intervene with consumers. It wants to gather skills and reduce friction between ways of thinking, as they are all valid. It wants to be a single stopping point for its customers, developing agile methodologies that allow them to solve business problems while developing and valuing their customer’s employees. And yours. This is a journey that is already 20 years old, and we are just beginning…

Opinion article originally published in Marketeer.