Agency Case Study · Advertising & Communications

From days of pitch research to hours of structured insight.

Blak Labs, a 50-person Singapore advertising and communications agency, uses SOMIN to replace manual competitive research with real-time, GenAI-structured insight. Brand analysis fell from 10 hours to 1, content planning from 10 hours to 3, and client-reporting cost from $10,000 to $6,000 a month — freeing strategists for billable work and sharper pitches.

A SOMIN customer story · Advertising & Communications · Singapore · ~50 employees

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10h → 1h

Brand analysis, per pitch

10h → 3h

Content planning, per cycle

$10K → $6K

Client reporting, per month

The Client

Built on structure, not headcount.

Blak Labs is a Singapore-headquartered advertising and communications agency with around 50 employees and approximately S$5 million in annual revenue. The agency competes for new business against shops with significantly larger research benches — a structural disadvantage the leadership team set out to neutralise through better tooling, not bigger headcount.

The Challenge

Pitching against bigger benches without the budget for bigger research.

For a 50-person agency in a competitive Singapore market, every new-business pitch ran up against shops with deeper research and planning resources. Blak Labs needed to walk into pitches with category insight that felt agency-grade — but couldn't justify days of manual brand analysis on speculative pitches that may or may not convert.

✓ Every new-business pitch competed against shops with deeper research and planning benches.
✓ Manual brand analysis could run to days of work — hard to justify on speculative pitches that might not convert.
✓ Content audits and client reporting were soaking up multiple FTE-equivalents of time with no proportionate output.
✓ A meaningful share of salary cost was going to repetitive, manual workstreams that were ripe for compression.

The Approach

SOMIN as the front end of pitching, the back end of reporting.

SOMIN became both the front end of Blak Labs' new-business pitching and the back end of its client reporting — replacing manual research and manual audits with four connected modules.

Brand Tracker

Real-time competitive intelligence across social media, on demand — the raw material for every pitch.

Perspective Studies

Maps where competitor messaging is crowded and where the strategic gaps are, feeding new-business decks as a proprietary, tech-enabled category audit.

Expressions

Turns the resulting insight into market-ready creative ideas for pitches and client campaigns.

Content Library

The structured record behind Blak Labs' now-automated content audits, freeing the 0.5 FTE that workstream used to consume.

The Outcome

Days of pitch research, replaced by hours of structured insight.

Brand analysis dropped from 10 hours to 1 — a 90% reduction per project. Content planning fell from 10 hours to 3. Campaign planning fell from 5 hours to 2. Internal client-reporting effort collapsed from 4 FTEs to 1.75, with monthly salary cost on that workstream falling from $10,000 to $6,000. Beyond the time and cost savings, Blak Labs reports a qualitative shift in pitch dynamics: competitive sets are now genuinely understood before the pitch, giving strategy teams a defensible point of view in the room.

Understanding competitive sets is very valuable. What took days of research before now takes hours. SOMIN has streamlined our pitching process, given us quicker insights into activities by competitive brands across social media, and enabled us to identify gaps in the market to develop new strategies for our clients.

— Charlie, Co-founder & Managing Partner, Blak Labs

Brand Analysis

10h → 1h

90% reduction in research time, per pitch

Content Planning

10h → 3h

Hours spent per planning cycle

Campaign Planning

5h → 2h

Hours spent per campaign cycle

Reporting Headcount

4 → 1.75

FTE allocated to client reporting

Reporting Cost

$10K → $6K

Monthly salary cost on that workstream

Vendor Rating

5/5

Pre-sales, technical, PM & communication

Key Takeaways

Three things worth stealing from this rollout.

A bigger research bench is a solvable disadvantage. Blak Labs closed the gap with tooling, not headcount — a deliberate strategy from leadership, not an accident of budget.

The compounding cost wasn't just pitch prep — it was the back office. Content audits and client reporting were consuming multiple FTE-equivalents of time; automating them freed real people and real budget back into billable work.

Faster research changed the room, not just the workflow. With competitive sets genuinely understood before the pitch, strategy teams walk in with a defensible point of view — the qualitative shift behind Blak Labs' 5/5 vendor ratings.

Questions

About this case study.

What challenge did Blak Labs face before SOMIN?

As a 50-person Singapore advertising and communications agency, Blak Labs was pitching for new business against shops with significantly larger research benches. Manual brand analysis could take days per pitch, and content audits plus client reporting were consuming multiple FTE-equivalents of time with no proportionate output.

How did SOMIN change Blak Labs' pitch process?

SOMIN's Brand Tracker delivers competitive intelligence across social media on demand, and Perspective Studies maps where competitor messaging is crowded and where the strategic gaps are. That output now feeds directly into Blak Labs' new-business presentations as a proprietary, tech-enabled category audit, cutting brand analysis from 10 hours to 1.

What results did Blak Labs see?

Brand analysis fell from 10 hours to 1 (a 90% reduction), content planning from 10 hours to 3, and campaign planning from 5 hours to 2. Client-reporting headcount dropped from 4 FTE to 1.75 FTE, with monthly cost falling from $10,000 to $6,000. Blak Labs rates SOMIN's vendor team 5/5 on pre-sales engagement, technical competency, project management, and communication.

What SOMIN modules were used?

Blak Labs uses four SOMIN modules: Brand Tracker, Perspective Studies, Expressions, and Content Library — covering on-demand competitive intelligence, whitespace/messaging-gap mapping, creative concepting, and automated content audits.

Is this typical of SOMIN agency clients?

Directionally, yes. SOMIN's platform typically runs 13x faster than manual research workflows, and Blak Labs is one of the agency-side clients — alongside partners such as Dentsu, OMG, GroupM, Havas and Publicis — using it to compress research and reporting time without adding headcount.

About SOMIN

SOMIN is a Singapore-based deep-tech platform that turns real-time competitor and audience intelligence into market-ready creative ideas — typically 13× faster than manual research workflows. SOMIN serves clients including P&G, Audi, Ferrari, Gojek, Abbott, Citi, KFC, Nestlé and McDonald's across 11+ markets, through agency partners including Dentsu, OMG, GroupM, Havas and Publicis.

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See the full Blak Labs case study — every metric, every module, the whole story.

This page covers the headline results. The full PDF includes the complete breakdown of Blak Labs' pitch and reporting workflow, the SOMIN modules in use, and Charlie's full account of the shift in pitch dynamics.

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