We are delighted to rank in this years C&IT Top 20 UK incentive agencies for the second year running. Earlier this week C&IT Magazine published the table as part of their ‘State of the Industry’ report.
Incentives and reward programmes are an ever-growing offering from Strata, and a key part of our strategy to offer a single touchpoint for all services to our clients.
With the passing of our first birthday we thought it was time to reflect on the first 12 months of trading as Strata.
Strata, a name chosen specifically to represent the broad layered offering, brought together the best of Crown and Communique. Offering everything from strategy and creative, through to asset management and storage, at the heart of the agency sits an experienced production and logistics team. With Communique’s expertise deep rooted in experiential events and exhibitions, and Crown’s expertise in B2B and content production, all the core elements needed to form this unique agency were in place.
Two examples that illustrate this vision coming to life come from long-standing clients of Crown and Communique – Allergan Medical Institute and Groupe PSA – who have expanded their business with us through new contracts with us as a direct result of the merger.
During 2019 Allergan went through a tendering process for production services, which up until then was seen as very distinct and sourced through a separate supplier. We were included in the tender process – the first opportunity to showcase Strata’s broad layered offering – and we were awarded the contract due to demonstrating how one agency, not two would deliver improved communication, faster response times and help reduce costs for our client.
Another long-standing client of ours is Groupe PSA. Crown had been delivering conferences, press and media events and incentives for Groupe PSA for several years. One part of the Groupe PSA business Crown could not deliver was dealer events, with no infrastructure or expertise in place to do so, until the merger with Communique. During 2019, Groupe PSA tendered for their dealer marketing events and we were awarded the contract as a result of a blend of strategic and creative input, infrastructure expertise and the appeal of one account team, bringing commercial efficiencies and added value for our client. We are now working on many live projects with Groupe PSA and have a team member permanently based in their office alongside their in-house events team.
Our CEO Simon Hambley said: “When you decide to merge your business and create something new as we did, you never really know how it is going to turn out. The main reason we believed it would succeed is because we had road-tested working together and are close to our clients. We could see that they had a need for that broader offering through one touchpoint. Through an agency that can deliver brand consistency and commercial efficiencies, without compromising on quality.
While it’s been a year of building and investing for the future, we could not be happier with how it has gone. Our unique offering has struck a chord with our clients and opened up new opportunities.
Allergan and Groupe PSA are just two examples of the vision in action. The agency has won other new clients in the automotive and services sector, who were looking for all of the same benefits. All of this has helped Strata deliver a strong first year with further growth forecast in 2020. The energy within the agency is tangible. It’s been an exciting year and we are looking forward to many more.”
Ewan Hurford-Jones our COO added: “We are thrilled with the way the business has performed in line with our vision. Of course, it’s not all plain sailing. We have had to work incredibly hard to keep up with the growth, while managing the integration of two companies. We’ve also grown the number of people in the business by more than 30 per cent this year and we are still recruiting.
It’s allowed us to bring in some great new people with fantastic experience, as well as young new blood to train and develop for the future. What has been most amazing and rewarding for Simon and me, is seeing how our teams have stepped up and handled the challenge and how quickly we have become one team.
We have transformed the agency into a different business. One capable of so much more and able to operate at the highest level. We’ll continue to focus on our clients’ needs and evolve as they evolve. We’ll continue to invest in our people, processes and infrastructure, and we’ll stay focused on what we do best, live events.”
Strata Creative Communications has expanded into Europe with a new operating base in Lyon, France, which allows the full-service agency to branch out of the UK to extend its reach, and widen its service offering to their clients.
The new base increases the facilities and working space for the agency, which to date has operated from two UK sites in Fitzrovia, London and Brackley, Northamptonshire since launching in 2018. This expansion provides a foothold for both asset storage and a workable base for staff, to enable smooth delivery of existing and new client events outside of the UK despite the recent changes caused by Brexit.
CEO, Simon Hambley, comments: “The long-term vision for Strata has always been to expand outside of the UK and we’re delighted we have been able to realise this after such a challenging year. This new footprint provides us with the ability to manage events outside of the UK without the worry of Brexit complications and delays, which in turn enables us to provide practical and timely solutions to our clients regardless of location.
The ever changing landscape of live events and post-Brexit trading pressures require us to be flexible and adaptable to our client’s needs, and this new space increases our ability to meet that demand and facilitate event delivery both in and out of the UK.
The recent turbulence within our industry has been a challenge, but this expansion is part of our long-term strategy to strengthen our service offering to our clients and create a better platform for delivering live face-to-face events in 2021 and beyond.
We are delighted to be announcing twelve new additions to the agency across all departments from client services to logistics, and finance to operations.
Laura Awcock joins in the role of client services director dedicated to supporting the agency’s pharmaceutical business. Laura brings with her over eleven years’ industry experience from her time with Global Event Solutions, including her most recent position as operations director responsible for a number of leading pharmaceutical clients.
The automotive client services teams are further bolstered by Rhian Head, account project manager; Amy Pragnell, account executive; Lucy Burton, account executive and Sam Murphy, event officer, who is implanted within a client team.
Other senior hires include Alison Franklin who heads up the event operations team, and Sarah Stanyer, senior project manager. Steve Dubois assumes the role of event operator helping the event support teams, bringing with him many years of automotive events’ experience. Jenny Warrick joins as finance administrator to support the finance team.
The agency is also delighted to welcome three new interns as part of their respective Event Management courses – Elizabeth Shirley, Libby Penny and Charlotte Bute.
Our CEO, Simon Hambley said: “Over the last six months the agency has been responding to the growing needs of our clients by investing in our talent base across all the different layers of expertise. Our multi-layered approach allows us to service the needs of our clients and deliver a wide spectrum of projects from end-to-end, through one touchpoint. Delivering real efficiencies without compromising on creativity or quality.
I’m delighted to welcome Laura, Rhian, Amy, Lucy, Sam, Alison, Sarah, Steve, Jenny and our three new interns – Elizabeth, Libby and Charlotte to the Strata family. We have an exciting future ahead!”
Today we are delighted to announce three new appointments across the agency to support growing partnerships with existing and new clients. Mike Parrott joins the senior leadership team in the newly created role of head of incentives and client services director, Ecem Pasa joins the creative department in the role of junior designer, and Martin Yexley takes on the position of event operator.
The new appointments come directly off the back of a strong start to 2019, which has seen the team deliver high profile conferences, roadshows and incentive programmes for long-term clients including Vauxhall and Citroën, Royal London and Sony, in addition to, yet to be announced new clients. Of particular note is the growth of our incentive travel business, and wider performance improvement programmes, which has led to the appointment of Mike Parrott, who previously held senior roles at Grass Roots, Maritz and AYMTM.
Our CEO Simon Hambley, said: “The first six months of operation for the newly formed Strata has been strong with the delivery of high-profile events and programmes for existing clients, along with a number of significant new client wins. As such, we need to bolster our talent through a number of key roles so that we can continue to offer exceptional end-to-end solutions to our existing clients, and service the new clients with the same attention to detail. The new appointments across our two locations reflect the depth and breadth of our value proposition from strategy and creative through to production and operations, and from consumer programmes to B2B. We’re thrilled to welcome Mike, Ecem and Martin to the team.”
Mike Parrott, client services director and head of incentives, Strata adds: “This is a hugely exciting move for me, not least because of the potential that exists since the merger of the two companies into Strata and its subsequent growth. I’ve worked with a number of agencies and brands over my 25-year career, and there’s an opportunity to make a real difference to the motivation programme offering here using my cross-industry experience of automotive and consumer electronics, in particular. And with a spate of new client wins over the last few months, I look forward to working with a portfolio of exciting brands, and hopefully attracting some new ones to boot!”
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