In our 10th year of business, DNX took a break from concentrating on profit and focused instead on investing for the future. Nevertheless, its profit margin was 13.08 per cent. It moved into new offices twice the size of its old one, invested in new infrastructure, and restructured its account team into four groups.
In the same period, it took on three substantial new clients - Vodafone Enterprise, Travelport and Cisco – and doubled the size of two existing clients - SITA and SAP. A total of 34 new members of staff joined the agency, including an executive creative director, a traffic manager and a recruitment manager. In April 2011, its headcount was 61; a 47.5 per cent growth year-on-year.
In the same period, staff retention was 73.5 per cent. New initiatives were instigated to provide creative inspiration, a stronger team spirit and given all staff a say in the running of the agency. Campaigns for SAP, SITA, Hymans Robertson, Club Vita and InterGlobal demonstrated that DNX was just as adept at creating games, virtual offices and social media toolkits for global software giants as it was for rebranding one of the major players in the Air Transport Industry.
Client work
SITA
DNX’s integrated campaign to promote Horizon, SITA’s portfolio of passenger management solutions, produced 40,000 banner views, 30,000 YouTube views, 1 million Google Adwords impressions, 600 enquiries. “The response generated by the Horizon campaign is more than we could have hoped for,” commented Samantha Ross, director marketing communications, SITA Hymans Robertson
Hymans Robertson
A brand advertising campaign featuring caricatures perfectly captured the personality of the independent pensions and benefits company. “DNX’s caricature campaign captures us perfectly and sends out exactly the right messages: we’re real people with real skills delivering real results – and enjoying every minute of it,” commented Terri Lucas, marketing director, Hymans Robertson.
SAP
Three campaigns were conducted for SAP in this period
‘Best Run Office’: a virtual office packed with business intelligence.
‘Social media partner program’: which recruited 600 members from 350 partners in 46 countries.
‘Crystal cubes’, an online game promoting Crystal Solutions and a healthy work/life balance played 300,000 times to date
“DNX offers great support from a strategic and creative perspective across our EMEIA region and we trust all of the team implicitly to deliver the right campaigns in the right way. They understand the market, our competitors, the intricacies of SAP and our direct and indirect business – not an easy task! They really do feel like an extension of our team,” comments Michael Grekin, Volume & Ecosystem EMEIA marketing director, SAP.
Staff development
DNX holds annual 360° appraisals (plus Objective Update meetings every four months) with all staff, at which objectives are set based on individual requirements, specific areas of interest and career path. Training requirements are also agreed, allowing up to £1000 per person per year. Training is offered on or off-site, face-to-face or online. Internal training includes ‘Lunch‘n’learn’ briefings presented by senior staff members, one-to-one creative development sessions run by the executive creative director and individual coaching sessions by line managers and HR. Professional training and coaching consultant Pete Hollins provides mentoring for the board helping to keep decision-making on track.
Our growing creative team has been joined by 13 new starters, including Darren Bolton, our Executive Creative Director. Our initiatives in creative include six half days a year each to “get inspired” at exhibitions, galleries etc.
The Sideboard
The Sideboard is a team of senior staff who act as a conduit between the board and the rest of the agency. They make proposals for improvements and feed back insight from the staff. This gives them a stake in the running of DNX. The Sideboard holds regular ‘Three good, three bad’ surveys in which all employees are invited to comment on their current likes/dislikes about the agency. The results are shared with the board who then respond and act accordingly.
Building the team
The last Friday of every month is Free Food Friday (FFF). The agency provides lunch, including wine and beer, and we gather to share what’s been going on in the previous four weeks. Presentations cover pitch wins, major projects and industry trends. Each FFF includes “PechaKucha” presentations in which new staff members introduce themselves. The format is 10 PowerPoint slides, 20 seconds per slide. It’s fast but great fun.
DNX has a 5-a-side football team, a golf team, a keen and competitive Running Club and corporate membership of the local swimming pool. Small groups are also taken on overnight sailing trips.
A voice to be heard
As one of the largest specialist B2B agencies in the UK, we see ourselves as one of the creative
and strategic drivers of the B2B marketing community. Dnxers Drew Nicholson and Teresa
Richards regularly address B2B and social media events, we contribute to blogs and the ITSMA.
The numbers
(April 2010 to April 2011)
Staff retention 73.5 per cent
New joiners 34
Headcount at April 2011 61
Growth (our fastest ever!) 47.5 per cent
Total income £5.84m
Total profit £764k (13.08 per cent)
