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Vox Pop: Biggest lessons of the credit crunch years? (Part Two)

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By Michael Feeley, Founder and chief exec

August 1, 2014 | 3 min read

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This week, we asked Drum Network member agencies the following question…

Q. With reports that the UK’s economy is now ahead of where it was before the credit crunch, what has been the most important lesson you have learned as a business owner during the last five years?

Jonathan Leafe, managing director, Strawberry -

We learned we couldn’t carry on doing what we were doing in the same way we were doing it. It would only end in tears! We took the opportunity to use the downturn to re-focus on what will take our business to the next level and through the next decade. Because of this we’ve nearly doubled in size in the last 5 years.

Jamie Allan, managing partner, Intermarketing Agency -

As an independent agency we have been able to make decisions quickly and change our business strategies according to the market and our clients’ requirements. As marketing budgets were and still are under pressure, there is an ever increasing emphasis placed on agencies to think differently and get things right. Using our heritage and knowledge within direct marketing and channelling our focus towards customers the downturn in the economy has actually been a positive for our agency.

Debbie Harvey, Strategic Marketing Director, Ferrier Pearce Creative Group -

When times are tough, it’s easy to recoil and to literally just stop doing any of those all-important marketing activities that help to grow your sales pipeline. We found that if you sit tight and spend wisely using the time to really evaluate what is going to be effective, while taking into account that the brands you want to interact with are also behaving differently in a crunch, it is still possible to really stand out from the crowd.

It’s also a great time to evaluate what you do well and not so well, look at getting your house in order, reviewing systems and identifying new markets that you may have overlooked before. Our most important learning has to be to keep the focus on where you want to be beyond the crunch!

James Brooke, managing director, Rooster PR -

Ride the wave, don’t fight it. The last five years has been a near perfect storm for agencies and while many moaned and grumbled about how tough it was, we learnt quickly to shut up, focus on our core strengths as a business and grab the available opportunities. During the toughest years we celebrated low levels of growth and put in place the building blocks for when recovery came. As such, we’re in the best possible position to benefit from the upturn.

Chris Bishop, Founder and CEO, 7thingsmedia -

When pitching for new business, always go into every RFP knowing it is a level playing ground. Never over or under-respect any other agency and always fully back your teams undoubted ability, talent and passion. Stay true to the agency business you want to build and ensure you make progress every single working day.

Read Part One of this vox pop...

Content created with:

Strawberry

Strawberry was established in 1993 and is a full-services creative digital agency with a team of 37 highly talented staff.

Our client base reaches far and...

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IMA

Hello. We’re IMA-HOME. A fully connected global marketing agency that lives and works in the real world. We create real world solutions for real business challenges,...

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Ferrier Pearce Creative Group

We're an award winning strategic communications company specialising in achieving real engagement through tailored campaigns designed to exceed expectations.

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Rooster PR

Rooster PR is an award-winning independent PR & digital communications agency based in central London.

We connect brands and businesses with their target...

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