Mihir Mody, Founder and CEO, Adwallz Pvt Ltd

It’s an art form that has persisted throughout the ages, peeking out at you from behind pillars, proclaiming and advertising their wares from brick walls, made by the industrious hands of unknown painters with a gift for graffiti. These painters make the bulk of how rural India advertises, i.e. on the walls of a neighborhood posing as their canvas. Since 2003 the unknown multitudes of painters and artists have been working under a new guise. The dreams of a UCLA America educated Mihir Mody have shaped this motley crew into an advertising agency like no other. Operating under the banner of “Adwallz” they are an indigenous advertising agency specialized in Wall painting.

Established in 2003 with just 5 employees, “Adwallz has grown at a steady rate and plans to go Pan-India by 2010.” Yourstory asked Mihir what his agency is all about and he replied “We are a rural advertising agency specializing in Wall painting. Mural-like painting advertisements on exterior walls are one of the cheapest and most effective methods of advertising in rural India, especially in areas which do not have billboards. Usually, wall painting comprises of paintings in the interiors of cities, villages, next to railway stations, bus stops, in and around shops and the market areas. Wall painting is also used as “guerilla marketing tactics” by companies which have low or no market share of their product. They use wall paintings to generate brand awareness in a particular area.”

As the first of their kind they plan to operate across India and will cater to clients on a national scale. If “Adwallz” meets their set targets then they will be employing more than 5000 skilled painters working on projects for various multi-nationals. There are very concrete reasons for their confidence and I am not speaking of the number of walls in India. “Adwallz” has three key sustainable competitive advantages for wall-painting:

Market model: Adwallz is consolidating the ‘wall-paintings” haphazard supply market by organizing painters into a national network and leveraging a more efficient operating model to provide higher quality services at a lower price than other national players.

New technology: It’s not just going to be any old wall painting either. Adwallz is utilizing technology to enhance its product line and increase its productivity. Adwallz is the first to rollout digital wall-paintings in which ads are 4-color digital rather than oil-paint-based.

Adwallz will also be the first to rollout environment-friendly bio-paint and glow-in-the-dark ad units in 2009. There is also an Adwallz tracking system in place which is a web-based service to enable managers and clients to review ad-campaigns. The website will be updated with photos of the ad-campaign twice per week; and every painter will be equipped with a digital camera and a mobile phone to enable constant communication between management and the painters.

First-mover advantage: There is no national network for painters or a company using technology like "Adwallz". Under Mihir’s leadership the company is positioned to translate its first-mover advantage into a network-effect and control the supply market for wall-paintings. Not only that Adwallz is removing the middlemen and thus lowering infrastructure costs to offer this service at a lower price than competitors, resulting in fewer headaches all around.

In the next three years we can expect to see some exciting developments from the crew at Adwallz. In 18 months, the company targets to acquire 1500 painters and establish offices in 20 states. In their third year of operations, the company plans to further expand its artist base to 3,000 painters and foray into the rural rented-wall painting market. Within five years the company plans to acquire 5,000 painters, and intends to cover rented-wall paintings in most of the highways, cities and villages of India. Adwallz intends to capture 3% of the rural billboard-advertising market by year three while diversifying into Digital Advertising.

It is no wonder then that Mihir compares the entrepreneurs life to “living on the edge, existing to fight the challenges of life” because only such an individual would take up such a task and dream as big as he has. Mihir says "a challenging time for me was when I left my business and went for further education to USA for 2 years. I was worried about losing business but my dad took over. I used to help him everyday for 4 hrs in the night from 11pm -3am (Los Angeles time) for a year while he took care of my business. Most of my clients did not know I was in the US and I would talk to them without them knowing that I was abroad. My biggest challenge however is to take my company national and deal with thousands of uneducated painters."

Life has not been all roses and Mihir remembers trying to scale up his business without proper funding, and a proper business plan. He chalks it up to inexperience and plans to remember his mistakes. Adwallz sprung into being with seed capital from his own savings which he made from small trade and with a little boost from his father. Adwallz has made good progress going from 3 to 10 employees and from 20 painters to 80 painters. Currently operating two branches and with a third one underway, Mihir regards scaling up from 10 painters to 80 painters and gaining 21 good corporates as the biggest feather in their cap. Their commitment towards high quality services has been appreciated and acknowledged by esteemed clients like Hindustan Unilever, Reliance, Idea cellular, Philips India, Cavin care ltd, Marico India ltd, Etc.

With a passion for business and a never give up attitude this young entrepreneur plans to take his venture Pan-India and become the premier provider of wall painting services. Mihir says "Believe in yourself and never ever give up" is his mantra for achieving goals. With this in mind we at Yourstory will keep our eyes peeled for "Adwallz" at every nook and cranny in India.