It’s been a busy couple of years for marketing communications agency IAS. Not only has it overhauled its management team, it has also made a massive investment in training, doubled its profits and gained coveted awards. And IAS won’t be stopping there – its aim is to become the world’s best B2B marketing agency.
New team
When the account handler led board of IAS was replaced with a leaner team; of new MD Robert Morrice, CD Reuben Webb and FD Alan Brandwood, its stakeholders were forced to sit up and take notice.
Maurice and Webb had already unveiled IAS’ business targets, which were clearly only achievable with a high growth and high visibility programme. The agency planned to become number one in B2B Marketing magazine’s UK league table within five years.
To help it achieve this, an immediate, massive investment was made in marketing and training, the focal point being an initiative combining both. A book and training manual, the result of a wide ranging study implemented by Maurice and called Pitching – Guidelines for a Winner, marked the launch of a company concept of three P’s – Profiling, Pitching and People. It is this fresh approach to the business that has in the past couple of years seen IAS win 16 out of 19 pitches, gain a coveted Investors in People award and be named North West Advertising Agency of the Year. On top of all of that, revenue in the past year has grown by 11 per cent and profits doubled – not bad against the backdrop of an economic downturn.
Increased budget
To help achieve all of this, IAS has increased its marketing budget six-fold and has a new motto – ‘our most important account is our own’. It recently published the 101 Cliches in B2B Creativity Book, which has since won six awards and produced three new websites – for IAS, IAS PR and one devoted to the book. It also runs two blogs – one for IAS and one for ‘B2B guru’ Tim Hazelhurst.
IAS is expanding fast, having branched out to target four new sectors in public oil, oil and gas, environmental care and the financial and commercial industries. Its own PR machine meanwhile sees it churn out at least two press releases a month, whilst several of its staff are now established industry commentators.
IAS works on the principal that award winning agencies get more business. Clients have, it believes, little recall of which awards are win, just whether an agency is award winning or not. Prior to 2007, IAS was low pitch and adverse, gaining virtually all new business organically and seldom winning the three or four pitches it entered into a year. Since then, the agency has won 21 awards across six different schemes – doubling the success rate previously achieved in its 35 year history.
Investment in people
But its not just external business that has been the focus of a revamped business strategy at IAS. The agency has invested considerably in its people to improve its standing too – it calls it ‘branding inside out’.
A training plan encourages the development of three core cultural company values – learning, courage and courtesy. Quarterly staff information afternoons are held, where employee awards are dished out, an online social network is used to promote learning in digital marketing and the staff-manager review process has been overhauled. As part of its Investor in People programme, IAS has also hired an HR development manager to manage its 50 strong-staff and introduced a new bonus and incentive scheme and flexible working. And to top it all off, every Friday has a happy hour with a free bar – and some ‘structured interaction’ related to current workflow of course.
