Step into my office: RPM on why Experiential marketing is the way forward

What does your business do?

We are a creative agency who believes in the power of experience. We create value for businesses by specialising in how people experience their brand.

Describe your office culture.

Whenever people talk about RPM, they always mention the word ‘family’, which in a nutshell, describes our culture. We always look out for each other. Our people are front and centre of all our plans and friendships are made for life. We celebrate individuals and being an independent agency means we look for independent individuals. People who are interesting as well as interested do very well here.

We know that we have to produce brilliant work and to do that we need brilliant people and to get brilliant people you need to have a strong culture, so we never take it for granted; while it is often intangible we know that there are certain factors that contribute to culture, from the environment to talent management and development.

Overall, I believe the biggest contributor to culture is how people behave – and I mean everyone, no exceptions.

How do you attract and/or retain talent?

At RPM we have a simple vision: secure and develop the best industry talent by making working at RPM the best years of people’s careers.

Engagement and feedback is at the heart of what we do; we have developed a programme of coaching, personal and skills development including the RPM Academy, benefits and incentives. Our career structure offers a defined path for our strongest performers and we aim to encourage all our employees to be leaders in their fields. In 2017 we are investing even more in this work through the implementation of a progressive and ambitious HR strategy.

Oh and we host amazing social events!

Where are you located, and why?

We are based in Shepherds Bush. We were based in Wokingham and then Hampton so we have continued to move east and have now found our true home in The Old Treacle Factory in SheBu. It is a lovely light building with many floors that sits proudly next to a school (but more importantly however, it sits opposite The Crown & Sceptre pub). Practically, Shepherds Bush is fantastic – it has transport links close to Heathrow and is overall it’s a really vibrant area, constantly evolving. In 2017 Soho House will open in White City.

Name a project you were proud of in the last year (client work or otherwise)?

The #ONLYONECAPTAINMORGAN campaign was a great example of using the power of experience to put a brand at the heart of culture. Diageo came to us with a great idea to celebrate Captain ‘Wes’ Morgan and his team’s historic victory last year. We helped them creatively develop the idea into a limited edition bottle that was amplified through a thorough consumer press and social media campaign, resulting in incredible reach and consumer feedback. To date, it’s Diageo’s most successful social campaign ever, and we’re very proud we were able to help the team realise their idea.

What’s the best piece of agency marketing you’ve seen recently?

Totally biased but we did a ‘Give Up Red’ campaign for Christmas. Due to blood donations dropping over Christmas period, we decided to give up red; we took red from our logo and banned red from the office in December. We also sent all our clients & friends advent calendars that were plain white and most importantly encouraged all members of staff to give blood – we managed over 50 pints!

What do you see as the biggest challenges for Experiential and Shopper agencies wanting to grow and thrive both now and in the coming years?

Wow big question… I see a few challenges:

-Continued pressure on client budgets and focus on productivity

-Continued need to show effectiveness when there isn’t one recognised way of measuring these approaches

-The merging of disciplines and everyone claiming to do everything

-The changing landscape is so fast that clients simply aren’t confident about where to spend their monies

-There seems to be less of a value put on flawless execution, so showing the value of this is key

-The uncertainty around Brexit and less so Trump will no doubt cause some caution on our client spending

-Attracting and retaining the very best staff in a business context that requires flexibility and agility

However, I also see many opportunities:

-How a brand behaves will always affect how consumers feel about that brand and that is never going to change; Experiential and Shopper are two key channels where brand action is key

-From a shopper perspective, we know price promotion is not sustainable so we always look at added value. This not only delivers great benefits for retailers and consumers but future proofs the brand value

-To reach a broader audience we know we need the right content in the right context – again, Experiential agencies are really well placed to create and capture the content

-Being an independent agency allows us to evolve quickly. While we will never veer away for our mission, we recognise our offering constantly needs to evolve to ensure we maintain our competitive edge

-Without being glib strong insight and impactful creative will always win the day

Describe the new business ethos at your agency

1) New business for us is about beginning relationships that help potential clients experience the substance of RPM – who we are, what we do, how we think. We understand that it’s simply not enough these days to promise what we’ll deliver, we have to help clients experience us in advance

2) We have always had the view that new business is everyone’s business, it’s a known fact that referral is still the most potent source of new business

3) It’s no longer good enough to go for a coffee, you have to have relevant content for perspective clients and we work closely with our PR agency. However the emphasis for content is on the individuals within the agency

4) Having created relevant content we rely on our great partner FF to get it in front of our perspective clients

5) The net result will hopefully result in a brief!

The Future Factory is a new business agency based in London.