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The tail end of the 90s heralded the very beginning of marketing’s long term love affair with the internet. A relationship that has altered the way brands communicate with consumers forever. It started with enabling people to find and receive information, but boy has that changed. We’re looking at you, social media.

An array of brands are beginning to build a metaverse infrastructure. One industry however has not been quick off the mark...banking.

Which forward-thinking agencies should marketing teams and procurement professionals have their eye on? As part of my Agency Hotshots series, here are my Top 11 Metaverse Moguls for your perusal.

The Northern brand and agency scene is evolving at a rate of knots. There’s no shortage of creativity and agency talent for a consultancy like Ingenuity to nurture and support, which I personally find hugely exciting.

In 2022, consumers are savvier than ever, and customer affinity to a brand is no longer centred on brand look and feel. We care more now about who we give our cash to, than what we spend it on. And our affinity to a brand is measured in its purpose, values, and meaning.

When you search ‘social media and content agency UK’ on Google, you’ll get roughly 6,120,000,000 results. That’s a lot of zeros… and a tall order for any brand marketer to trawl through these results in the hope of finding that needle-in-a-haystack agency that’ll help them create marketing magic.

*Must read if you’re a fan of bottomless brunch

Years ago, I sat in a meeting with an agency's top talent, in which there was a 20-minute discussion about whether to “link in” with a prospect before or after a meeting. The days of this being the only thing to think about on the platform are long gone......

It’s been a bizarre couple of years. The agency landscape and a client’s ‘marketing mix’ has changed considerably. However, have the rules of attraction between clients and agencies changed to the same extent?

While it’s a great time to be in recruitment, it’s been an incredibly frustrating period for those struggling to build a future-proof team of marketers. Whether it’s content, events, PR or new business, one of our most common client enquiries is, “We’re recruiting for X, do you know anyone?” (This is second only to, “How do we get [and win] more briefs?”)

In today’s world, it’s not just about sales and flogging products - brands must stand for something and be a part of positive change that earns loyal and prospective customer’s respect. The licensing industry must pivot in line with this in order to remain relevant.

In a world where everything is rapidly moving and consumers are expected to retain information at lightning speeds, it’s undoubtedly imperative for brands to stand out. For the sake of this article, we’re going to take a deep dive into the world of loyalty in partnerships and personal targeting in marketing.

Any live experience that didn’t don a brand partnership pre-covid was a missed opportunity. Back then, live experiences and brand partnerships came hand in hand, and brands rejoiced in the ability to reach new audiences, rake in the revenue and rally full steam ahead on product launches in new and creative ways.

Ideating new ways to excite consumers during covid was a tough task. In 2020, the world of in-person came to a halt, but brands got creative to fit the new mould of the virtual world.

Ingenuity's top 20 choices for Brand Partnerships that we cannot believe haven't happened

At the start of 2020, and the global pandemic, the brand partnerships team here at Ingenuity predicted a high rise in interest of esports and brand sponsorship collaborations.

In the face of the summer season’s initial collapse, which began with the decision to reschedule Glastonbury despite their efforts to move ‘Heaven and Earth’, festival season returned. The window of opportunity for brands looking to build an in-person connection on a level playing field (quite literally), finally reopened after 2 years of music lovers waiting to dance, thrash and stage dive without the risk of infection.

A 5-point plan in driving new relationships with brands

Over the 14 years of events running, we’ve been lucky enough not to just match brands and agencies, but also watch how their relationships have grown and the success of the content they’ve generated.

Being at the forefront of driving new business for agencies (sat on both sides of the coin in terms of client side and agency side) our CEO and Founder, Chris Kemp, came up with the brilliant idea of leveraging this and bringing agencies and brands together in a different way, not explored before.

In the room an agency sells itself, its team and its services, in the hope of winning a new client, and a brand meets a pool of potential agencies who are qualified to nail their live briefs. If there’s chemistry, a new business relationship is born.

It’s been almost 13 years since we launched our connect events business back in 2009; back when Apple’s latest product was the iPhone 4, Wikipedia had only half of their 6.5 million article bank and only a ¼ of 2023’s 4.66 billion digital natives were using the internet.