When did you launch your agency and what were your reasons for going it alone?
Wolf Brand Experience came into life on 1 July in 2014 as we acquired the skills of three businesses - The Lounge Group, Evoke and AMPP - into a newly fired-up entity. By having more resources, skills and focus, I believe we have created a new business that creates many more opportunities that clients demand and that smaller agencies could not achieve on their own.
Which campaigns were your favourites to work on last year and why?
This is difficult as it’s like asking to pick your favourite child. Whether it’s seeing our teams putting festive smiles on the face of shoppers with personalised tubes of Merry Pringles, supporting the launch of the powerful and iconic American Eagle into the UK, or immersing kids into the world Spiderman 2 to promote its DVD release, there is a power to experiential activity that creates a ripple effect that goes beyond any single event.
Our mantra is to ensure that we are not just creating experiences enjoyed by the few but something that is being shared with the many.
How successfully did your agency trade in the first year?
It has been less than six months but since this period, including last summer - the really busy period - we are ahead of our expectations. So the true test of whether our message of creating immersive experiences out of consumer insights delivered by our own community of consumers and bloggers will emerge over the next six months, when things can traditionally go quiet.
What were the biggest challenges of the year?
Creating a new agency is never easy, but merging together three cultures certainly has its challenges. The issues were made harder because there was no real bedding-in period, as the number of live campaigns from day one meant we were simultaneously managing three different sets of working practices while creating the Wolf way.
What have you got coming up in the 2015?
While we are a shiny new agency there is always a lot to do and there is the belief we can take on the world; cynicism has not crept in yet. So 2015 will see us continue to invest in the business to further build out our insight community, ensure the brands optimise their campaigns through our social media skills and add more creative resources.
My crystal ball also says there will be more client wins.
Do you have any long-term goals, targets and strategies for your agency?
The client demands an integrated marketing solution by working with true experts in each key marketing discipline and our goal is to be their strategic partner as the experts in live brand experience. Hence our investment in the business continues to be in the value-added services, including our community of consumers and bloggers and analytics tools to measure campaign reach, as well as being able to listen to both consumer and client feedback.
Our aim is to deliver a differentiated service to our clients that goes beyond experiential. This means that by listening to the conversation from one activity, we can create an iteractive process that results in delivering long-term campaigns.
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