Services: Green Square

The Telegraph – SME Masterclass: How to deal with difficult customers. Tony Walford interviewed by The Telegraph

Posted on by admin
All customers are not created equal and sometimes they can be more trouble than they are worth. Here’s how to deal with the difficult ones:
1. Decide what the problem is. Work out exactly why they are difficult. Is it because they take up so much of your time with endless demands? Is it because they don’t pay enough for the service you are offering them? Is it because they are rude or abusive to your staff, or continually want what you cannot provide? Once you have pinpointed the problem, the solution will become more obvious.Tony Walford, partner at Green Square business consultancy says: “Look at why they are driving you crazy. If it is because your business hasn’t delivered what you said they were going to do, then you need to address that and rectify it.”2. Listen to them. Treat any criticism as useful feedback. Unless they really are completely impossible, take note of what your difficult customers are saying. If you are fed up with customers asking for products or services that you don’t provide, ask yourself why you don’t stock them. It could be that you have missed a gap in the market. If they are asking for more than you think you have agreed to, it may be that the original contract was not sufficiently precise or well worded.3. Work out what they are really worth to your firm. This is not just about calculating how much money they spend, it is about how much of your firm’s time they take up. Then ask yourself, is the gain really worth the pain? Difficult customers can not only sap your energy as you spend all your time trying to please them and attend to their every need; they can actually do irreparable harm to your business by diverting your attention away from the good customers who might have been willing to spend a lot more money with you if only you hadn’t been so preoccupied elsewhere. 4. Bigger is not always better. And don’t spare your biggest customers either. Indeed sometimes your biggest customers can be the worst culprits, because their size and negotiating ability means they are likely to have hammered out a tough deal with tight margins in the first place, and because there can be a tendency of firms to put the needs of bigger customers before those of smaller customers who might actually be making you more money. Yes it can be hard to lose a big revenue client, particularly if your industry is ranked by revenue, but ultimately it is profits not turnover that counts. 5. Decide if you could put up with their demands if they paid you more. If the answer is yes, arrange a meeting and tell them you are sorry but you need to increase your prices in order to be able to service their needs. That way you either get them at a better margin, or they go elsewhere and the problem is solved. If the answer is still no, tell them and make it clear that your decision is final. Walford says: “Sometimes you get tricky customers and no matter what you do for them it is not good enough, or they are just nasty. You really have to sit down and say this isn’t working for us, we are working to the best of our ability but we don’t think this is a great relationship so we should call it a day.” 6. Take positive action. Don’t attempt to drive unprofitable customers away by simply ignoring them and giving them increasingly poor service. Customers talk to each other – if you give one customer the cold shoulder word will get around and your reputation will suffer and you may find yourself losing more customers than you had planned. 7. Support your staff. Often it is your employees who bear the brunt of rude or horrid customers, so make sure they know you are on their side and are prepared to stick up for them, otherwise you will end up with a seriously disaffected workforce as well. Listen to their suggestions about how best to deal with the situation and offer them the option of handing over the client to a colleague to deal with instead. Walford says: “Support your staff otherwise they will get demotivated because they are being forced to work with people they don’t want to work with. If one of your staff is being bullied by a client or being treated badly, ask them what they want to do and if you can, involve them in reaching a solution.” 8. Pass it on. If the service your customer wants is no longer the kind of service you offer, recommend them to a competitor, and tell the competitor you are doing so. Don’t send them customers from hell though, as they may one day return the favour.

Apple and Beats: What Apple gains from the biggest deal in its history

Posted on by admin
After a month’s worth of rumour and speculation, Apple finally confirmed its purchase of the Beats headphone and streaming business (or, to give it its full name, Beats Electronics) this week for a staggering $3bn (about £1.85bn). The deal, which is expected to be completed before the end of the year, is made up of $400m in Apple Stock and $2.6bn in cash. Although not entirely unexpected, the deal has got many in the M&A world scratching our heads. Why would the world’s biggest technology firm pay three billion dollars for a maker of blingy headphones? Of course, in this sense, it’s a classic Apple move – something that leaves tech scene observers rather bemused, and Apple’s rivals rather fearful.
This is by far and away the biggest acquisition Apple has ever made in its 38-year history. It has always preferred to develop products in-house and its acquisitions have in the past been small – no more than a few hundred million dollars. Before this, its biggest buy was NeXT Computer in 1997, for $400m (about $760m in today’s money). But the deal is actually small beer for Apple, which is sitting on a cash pile of more that $150bn. But this particularly deal is, I think, indicative of Apple’s ability – even post-Jobs – to think long term and potentially disruptively (as it did with the iPod, iPhone and iPad). This is about much more than headphones or speakers, which Beats also sells. Apple is, through its iTunes store, the world’s biggest music retailer. But its dominance was built over a decade ago in offering the ability to purchase an approved digital music download. Now the model has changed. The rise of smartphones, tablets and systems such as Sonos, coupled with faster broadband, has enabled music streaming providers such as Spotify, Napster and now Google Play to thrive. Streaming is – outside of a small but vocal community devoted to physical formats such as vinyl – the new way to consume music. Why own music when you can rent it? The same thing goes for streamed media products, such as Netflix and LoveFilm, which have largely killed off high-street video rental stores. Apple has tried to get into streaming before, with Ping and iTunes Radio, but has never quite cracked it, and now has to play catch-up with the likes of Spotify and Pandora. It has been marginally more successful with Apple TV (again, via iTunes), but this service is commonly perceived as being behind LoveFilm or Netflix. Now, playing catch-up is not something Apple likes to do. But at a stroke it has acquired a number of things. First of all, it has acquired the world’s most high-profile headphones brand. Beats by Dr Dre may not meet the standards demanded by audiophiles, but they are definitely the ‘phones to be seen with, and they carry a huge amount of brand equity. They are, particularly among a young demographic willing to shell out cash for this kind of thing, “cool” – a patina which Apple itself may have lost over the past few years as its products became more ubiquitous; they are beloved, and used by, high-profile music and sports stars, who provide crucial brand endorsement. Beats ‘phones are also premium-priced, high-margin products in an increasingly commodified tech hardware market. In fact, the company had revenues of $1.2bn last year. As well as a brand, Apple is also buying “talent”, always an important factor in any acquisition. In this case the talent is Dr Dre (himself a brand) and perhaps more importantly, legendary producer/music mogul Jimmy Iovine, the man who helped turn Bruce Springsteen, Meat Loaf and Lady Gaga into megastars. And finally, Apple is buying into streaming; Beats doesn’t just make headphones, it also launched a US-only music subscription service, Beats Music, in January this year. In the first quarter of 2014, it attracted about 250,000 paying users (this is way, way behind Spotify’s 10+ million subscribers). But one of the things that differentiates Beats streaming from, say, Pandora or Spotify, is that it is based on a “curation” model, rather than computer algorithms. Now algorithms can be wonderful things (where would Google, and the rest of us, be without complex algorithms?) but one thing they are not is human. And with something as human, as subjective, as musical taste, they fail dismally. Either their recommendations are annoyingly random, or else they are completely inappropriate. Tastes these days tend to be more eclectic than they used to be, but there is no real reason why fans of Bring Me The Horizon would want to listen to The Eagles or folk-rocker Jack Johnson – which has been the kind of disconnect that plagues all algorithmically-driven music services, and Apple’s in particular. Beats Music can be launched internationally and could become the market leader. And, given that there is a generation for whom the idea of paying for music is anathema, and for whom the idea of listening to ads in return for freebies is near second-nature, there is the possibility of an advertising-funded streaming service which, given iTunes has well over 600 million users, could easily eclipse Spotify’s 40 million registered users. In short, Beats/Apple could become to streaming what iTunes is to downloads. Most importantly of all, it seems that the deal has the near-unanimous support of the music industry (in effect the big three international conglomerates, Universal, Sony BMG and Warners). Record companies love streaming, because they get to keep ownership of the music, rather than having to worry about easily-hacked DRM protocols or people passing on digital files. The “biz” knows and (to a degree) trusts Apple: it’s been dealing with the Cupertino behemoth for almost 15 years, and in the spirit of “better the devil you know”, would rather deal with an established company than an upstart. It knows that while Apple may play hardball, based on its past record it guarantees sustained and sustainable long-term income. So, what does this mean for the world’s most valuable tech company? As I mentioned earlier, Apple is always the kind of firm to do the unexpected; it doesn’t always get things right, but when it does, it changes entire industries. I think this will be another game changer for Apple and for the music industry. There are strong rumours that Apple may be about to unveil some sort of “smart home” system (perhaps as early as next month’s Apple World Wide Developers’ Conference) that will allow you to control a huge range of home devices and services from an iOS device, and music streaming will play an important part of this planned iOS-centric world. And one more thing – although it is sitting on a $150bn cash hoard, Apple’s traditional revenue streams are starting to decline. It will need to start spending more of that money to get revenues growing again, otherwise shareholders will start demanding some of that dosh for themselves. I think we will start seeing Apple embark on a spending spree that will put Google and Facebook’s cash-flashing of the past few months in the shade. After all, albeit I say this with my tongue firmly in my cheek, this is a company that could buy up Sony, WPP, Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, Dentsu, Havas, Panasonic and Hewlett-Packard with money to spare… exciting times ahead, methinks.

Green Square advises ISP on its sale to Sovereign Capital

ISP is the one of the largest independent foster care agencies in the UK with over 300 children in care across seven centres. It offers a unique integrated model of therapeutic foster care, specialist education, contact centres and leaving care. Run by a team of eight, many who were nearing retirement, the time had come to seek a partner who could further assist ISP to develop its holistic care offer.
Sovereign Capital is the most active UK private equity investor in Healthcare Services and has committed around £275m of capital to a diverse range of service-based healthcare businesses providing care for those with learning disabilities, mental health issues or complex needs; residential care and domiciliary care, as well as independent fostering agencies. In acquiring ISP, Sovereign subsequently launched Partnership In Children’s Services (PICS) comprising ISP, Fosterplus, Orange Grove and Clifford House. Combined, PICS is a business providing care for over 1,100 children of which ISP values have been crucial in forming a steer and best practice. Green Square acted as advisors to ISP throughout the process. Ian Butler, Chairman, ISP commented: Green Square have been fantastic. Their calm determination was as important in winning our confidence as their undoubted expertise. We are not the easiest bunch to work with and we don’t place our trust in anyone lightly. Our faith in them has been more than repaid. They were real stars. Sheila Patel, Director, ISP commented: A big thank you to Green Square and Andrew for excellent advice, patience and guidance throughout. Speaking for myself I felt safe when you guys were around and appreciated your honesty and ‘simple explanations’! Andrew Moss, Green Square Partner commented: ISP’s core values, expertise, fantastic staff and management provide the best outcomes for children in the sector. This was why it was so highly desired and ultimately formed the cornerstone that would underpin the expansion of the PICS Group. It was a challenge to take the business from the Charity sector through to profit and Private Equity ownership, but the management team, who were a pleasure to work with, saw that its long-term objectives would better be served within a larger Group. About ISP ISP is a fostering agency founded in 1987 by a small group of foster carers in Kent who were working with difficult-to-place teenagers. Having recognised the need for an integrated programme of care and specialist services for young people, they set up ISP as an independent organisation. About Sovereign Capital Sovereign Capital is a UK private equity ‘buy and build’ specialist. Established in 2001, Sovereign invests in UK based companies in the support services, education and training and healthcare sectors. Its key mantra is to commit up to £50m in each acquisition to increase capacity and facilitate growth. Sovereign has completed over 240 buy and build transactions.

Omnicom’s media networks gain new mobility

Posted on by admin
“One of the reasons this is happening,” commentators said last year when news of the Publicis-Omnicom mega-merger first broke, “is because Publicis is strong in digital and Omnicom isn’t”. And they had a point – although it possessed a blue-chip portfolio of “traditional’ agencies, Omnicom lagged behind both Publicis and WPP when it came to digital and (especially) mobile: hooking up with Publicis, which had been aggressively pursuing a digital strategy for some time, made perfect sense.
So it was interesting to see the news earlier this week that Omnicom Media Group (Omnicom’s media business unit, which includes agency brands like OMD, Novus and PHD) had bought Mobile5, the UK mobile marketing agency that counts Samsung, Canon and Trinity Mirror among its clients. Now this of course doesn’t mean that the “Publicom” merger isn’t going ahead – the acquisition of companies by both entities will carry on, albeit not on a huge scale as the merger beds in. They simply cannot discuss what they are looking at until the deal is finalised. Nobody is saying how much money changed hands in this latest deal, but it must have been a tidy sum. Although less than three years old, Mobile5 already employs over 30 people in its London offices, and has a tasty client list, as we’ve already seen. Mobile5 – set up by mobile veterans Oli Roxburgh, Steve Clarke and Guy Marks, all of whom appear to be staying – will continue to be run as a separate agency within Omnicom’s OMG network, based at the latter’s London offices. Interestingly, Mobile5 will be familiar to OMG boss Colin Gottlieb and his team – the former has already worked with the latter on a number of accounts, notably PlayStation and Waitrose. So why did he buy? I think there are two reasons. The first is that there’s a mutual synergy between acquirer and acquired. Mobile5 provides services such as mobile strategy and insight, mobile experience design, mobile content creation, mobile commerce and marketing solutions. Good, funky, creatively-led stuff – the kind of start-up DNA that big networks like OMG are always seeking to inject into themselves. But what Mobile5 doesn’t do is planning or buying: this is of course something that OMG does very well. “They are doing the stuff that’s further upstream and that’s the stuff that we’d rather have on top of our existing services,” Gottlieb said in a media statement earlier this week. It looks as if Mobile5 will now provide mobile services to its new owner’s EMEA agencies network. And the second reason? That’s more strategic and tied up with a rather different deal done by Omnicom on the other side of the Atlantic. Earlier this week the network signed a year-long contract with Instagram, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service. How much the deal was worth isn’t clear – the amount was not officially disclosed and I’ve read figures ranging from between $40m and $100m; whatever, it’s a big deal. This is the first time that Instagram, which has 150 million active users (60 per cent of them from outside the US), has signed a deal with an ad network. In fact, it’s only been taking ads since last year. Essentially, Omnicom creative and media agencies will create “ads” (possibly in the form of sponsored photos or streamed advertising) which will be delivered to Instagram users. A high level of media placement skills – not to mention sensitivity – will be needed if Instagram users (many of who have been muttering about leaving if Facebook tries to show them ads) are to be fully engaged. I have heard that Omnicom will be putting its best teams on this – so ads will be of very high quality creatively and almost “manually” placed, by tapping into the reams of data provided by Facebook. Instagram’s tentative moves into advertising have, by all accounts, been pretty successful. But they’ve all been within the US and – given almost two-thirds of Instagram users are elsewhere – to really make the deal work on behalf of clients on a global basis, Omnicom will have to use or acquire local talent. This is where a UK-based agency like Mobile5 comes in. Also, whilst Instagram is available on the desktop, it’s primarily a mobile service (which is what prompted Facebook to pay $1bn for it back in 2012). Again, for the tie-up to work properly, Omnicom will have to ensure that it has people with experience in, and understanding of, mobile as a channel and a space. And again, this is where an agency like Mobile5 excels. I can see Omnicom making similar acquisitions in other territories in the coming weeks and months as it seeks to ensure its media agencies rule the mobile space. Unless, of course, another network has other ideas…

Green Square advises Madano on its sale to National PR.

We’re delighted to announce the sale of corporate communications and public affairs agency Madano Partnership to Canada’s largest PR group, NATIONAL Public Relations Inc.
NATIONAL PR, which owns healthcare consultancy Axon Communications, has acquired Madano Partnership as the French-Canadian conglomerate looks to grow internationally, particularly in the UK and Europe. Green Square acted as advisors to Madano Partnership throughout the process. Andy Eymond, Founding Partner Madano commented: Having access to international specialists in areas such as energy, infrastructure, professional services and health will provide a real competitive advantage to us. Moreover, we are delighted to be part of a group that has a great track record of building and nurturing communications businesses, as it has done in Canada, and are looking forward to playing a key part of the group’s strategic growth plan. Ralph Sutton, International Managing Partner NATIONAL PR commented: Madano is a highly successful business with leaders who share our vision and long-term commitment to creating value for our clients. There is great synergy between our businesses that will help us expand internationally in key sectors. Tony Walford, Green Square Partner commented: There were clear reasons for Madano and NATIONAL to come together and the transaction, whilst fairly complex, was completed within a short timeframe. A detailed integration plan has been developed which will result in the management team being able to broaden Madano’s horizons as it continues on its growth strategy.

Is there any limit to Aegis’ new-found ambition?

Posted on by admin
Scarcely a fortnight ago the Green Square Deal Monitor was buzzing with news of new acquisitions by Aegis Media. Over the past week it seems to have gone up another gear.
As we’ve said before, Aegis has never been short of ambition and energy, but following its just-short-of-$5bn buyout by the Japanese giant Dentsu earlier this spring, it now has even deeper resources to fulfil those ambitions. It’s ambitious. It wants to be the world’s biggest media specialist (in the digital space especially) – to harmonise nicely with those (to expand aggressively outside its Japanese heartland) of its new owner. No less than three Aegis deals have popped onto our M&A radar over the past week or so – the purchase of Dutch social media agency Social Embassy; a buyout of Romanian agency Kinecto; and the acquisition of Belgian experiential and events specialist NewWorld. All three deals are interesting in their own individual ways and are a fascinating indicator of the mindset of Aegis post-Dentsu; and all are worth looking at in more detail. Social Embassy, based in Amsterdam, is a specialist social media agency whose focus is on community management and consulting. Established in 2008, it has built a fast-growing business, with a diverse client base including Unilever, Coca-Cola and KPN. Details of how much Aegis paid for Social Embassy have not been revealed, but I suspect what caught the acquirer’s eye was the fact that the high-flying Dutchmen have developed monitoring software to analyse the online “landscape” around a brand. The resulting “Social Media Brand Map” model classifies brands based on the share of online conversations and sentiment of posts, compared with competing brands. Based on the results of its research, Social Embassy helps clients develop social media strategies and creative concepts for content and activation, to then measure and interpret the results. The company also conducts its own Social Media Monitor research study to uncover how top 100 brands make use of it. Following the acquisition, Social Embassy will work closely with the Netherlands-based social media team of Aegis’ digital media unit, Isobar. It’s a great deal for everyone concerned: Social Embassy founder Steven Jongeneel, gets the backing to expand his unique offer into new markets (and probably gets a potentially very lucrative payday further down the line); while Social Embassy’s expertise and client base strengthens Isobar’s market position and will generate the benefits of greater scale in the Netherlands. And of course, Aegis gets some very interesting software. Unlike the Netherlands, Romania is seen as a bit of a backwater in the marketing services world. But with its membership of the EU, the former communist state is looking like an attractive prospect for ambitious pioneers – especially those with an eye on the potentially enormous Turkish market. Which is why Aegis has just bought Kinecto, part of Tempo Creative Group (a kind of Bucharest-based mini-WPP and one of the top-tier digital agencies in Romania), from its shareholders, Radu Ionescu and Dragos Grigoriu, for a total consideration of up to €5m, based on future business performance. Established in 2003 by former journalist Ionescu, (who will be staying on as managing director), Kinecto was one of the first digital agencies in Romania and grew rapidly following its 2008 acquisition, by Tempo. Kinecto had a turnover of just under €1m in 2012, up an impressive 32% on the year before. The company will be folded into Isobar and re-branded as Kinecto Isobar. Again, Aegis seems to have got itself a great deal – an experienced full service digital marketing team with connections and knowledge in the Romanian and Bulgarian markets, who can help Aegis/Isobar’s global clients expand into the region – at minimal financial risk. Finally, we return to the Benelux region, and Aegis’ acquisition of the NewWorld group, based in Mechelen (one of Belgium’s most important Dutch-speaking municipalities) and one of the leading brand activation and events specialists in the Benelux region. Headed by founder Wim Voss and working in the three Benelux countries of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, NewWorld specialises in experiential marketing, live communication and field marketing, with some great clients – including Miele, Mazda, Lyreco, Metaxa, L’Oreal and Ralph Lauren. The business will remain NewWorld, but will become part of the psLIVE experiential network with immediate effect. Wim Voss, founder of the NewWorld group, remains as managing director of the business and will become part of the management team of Aegis Media Belgium. The acquisition (full details of which have not been revealed) is consistent with Aegis’ recent strategy of acquiring businesses which enhance the breadth of products and services within its networks – so in this case they’re buying the talent of Voss and his team, good local connections, plus an agency with skills in all the right areas: brand activation, design and development, events, logistics, digital print, creative, mobile activation and even tailor-made construction (NewWorld has its own in-house team of specialist carpenters!). None of these acquisitions have made the headlines like last week’s Yahoo! buyout of Tumblr. But this spurt of activity by Aegis should be reported – it’s important because it shows the company’s energy and ambition, and gives a clue as to its wider strategic thinking. And just as importantly, this little shopping spree sends out a clear message to competitors that Aegis is no longer “just” a collection of media agencies but a global digital and marketing services group. Sometimes the small buyouts matter as much as the big ones

Data and pharma: Maybe not sexy to ad creatives, but some people find them really, really attractive

Posted on by admin
To any old-school ad creative, there’s not much to be said for data. It’s really boring, they’ll tell you, especially when you compare a day spent at your desk crunching figures to the allure of shooting a new car ad in South Africa.
They have a point – up to a point. At Green Square, we’re constantly looking at financials, drilling down and analysing, but even to M&A advisers like us – who love detail – once we have got the overview of the picture the figures provide it is hard to get really excited by the umpteenth balance sheet iteration!However, used properly, and to some of the industry’s most astute buyers – Sir Martin Sorrell for one – data is really rather sexy; something to definitely get excited about. As brands attempt to make their marketing messages more targeted, more relevant, in order to cut through the noise that fills our lives, data – or rather, the ability to interpret data and generate insights for creative and planners – becomes ever more important. Which is why we’ve seen a lot of boutique data outfits snapped up by the big boys over the past few months. This week is no different, although the acquirer is nowhere near WPP-sized. WANdisco (Wide Area Network Distributed Computing, apparently) is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has offices in both Silicon Valley and the Don Valley (i.e., Sheffield). It’s essentially a company that allows software developers to work on projects collaboratively and simultaneously, wherever they are in the world. It’s the kind of company that doesn’t look particularly exciting at first glance but which investors flock to – indeed, when WANdisco floated on the LSE six months ago, the IPO was massively oversubscribed. Although not a marketing services company in the strict sense, WANdisco and outfits like it will be very much part of the future. It obviously has ambitions, because it has just acquired a small but important US data analytics company called AltoStor. AltoStor is a pioneer in what’s called “big data” – datasets so large and so complex that standard relational databases just can’t handle them. We’re talking about tens or hundreds of terabytes (millions of gigabytes) and upward. Examples here in the UK might include bank, credit card, NHS or DVLC databases or familiar brands such as Amazon, Tesco, Facebook, eBay and British Airways – and it’s not inconceivable that FMCG giants such as Proctor & Gamble, or automotive manufacturers like Toyota and Ford, are “big data players” as well. AltoStor was a pioneer in the use of the Apache Hadoop big data platform, which is becoming a bit of an industry standard. So it’s easy to see why it was such an attractive acquisition for WANdisco, who can now offer clients some serious big data collaborative software tools. These could have far-reaching implications for the management of large CRM databases and the like, especially as brands start moving to the cloud (Amazon and Apple are two obvious examples). WANdisco said immediately after the acquisition that it hopes to have its first big data products out next year. It may be a couple of years before we start seeing the effect these tools have on digital marketing. But there will be an effect. Still with digital, it’s interesting to note that one of the fastest-growing marcomms specialisms, healthcare, has been a little slow on the digital uptake – there are relatively few digital pharma agencies in the UK. This is slightly odd because tablets and smartphones have revolutionised the working practices of physicians and pharmacists – you’re just as (if not more) likely to see a doctor clutching an iPad as a clipboard these days. So it was no surprise to see the Creston group paying a rumoured £3m for a majority 75% stake in the highly-rated digital healthcare agency DJM Digital Solutions. DJM will be incorporated into Creston’s Health division, alongside Red Door, Pan and Rock Medical Communications. The new parent has the option to buy out the remaining 25% from 2018. Creston’s “new boy” employs 26 people at its Richmond offices and specialises in fields such as iPad e-detailing (a way for pharma sales forces to interact with physicians, cut costs and get their drugs prescribed, usually through an online portal like doctors.net.uk. The great advantage with e-detailing is that it allows busy doctors to “talk” to pharma reps at a time that suits them); augmented reality; and standard website build and SEO. What’s especially interesting about this acquisition – apart from the fact that there’s one less fish in the small digi-pharma pond of course – is that there’s the opportunity to apply DJM’s specialisms – e-detailing looks very promising – to consumer and B2B marketing (Creston owns the likes of TMW, Columbus and Nelson Bostock). Imagine being able to talk to, or get info from, a virtual sales rep at your convenience and without the hassle of a hard sell – that’d be something a lot of consumers would probably be keen on – I certainly would be interested – and which might make for some very effective communications at some point in the not-too-distant future.

Green Square advises ESA on its sale to BDRC Group

We’re pleased to announce the sale of the UK’s leading in-store research and data collection agency, ESA (Market Research) Limited, to BDRC Group, the UK’s largest independent market research consultancy. The acquisition will lift the annual turnover of the BDRC Group to over £20m.
Established in 1979 and under 100% ownership of Belfast based branded drinks and foods business SHS Group Limited since 2004, ESA is the UK’s largest provider of in-store information and the leading retail customer experience measurement organisation. Through its panel of over 10,000 quality assured fieldworkers, interviewers and mystery shoppers, ESA delivers over a million facts each week to retailers and brands including Sainsbury’s, Amazon, AC Nielsen, B&Q, Iceland, Next, L’Oreal and Nestle. Green Square acted as advisor to SHS Group and the management of ESA throughout the process. Michael Howard, Group MD of SHS, commented: “As a holding company of multiple food and drink brands, we originally acquired ESA as it gave us direct insight into point of sale research across our product set. Eight years on, ESA now works across many retailers and channels and, given SHS Group’s acquisition of further food and drink brands over the period, is now non-core to its operations. Thus it was decided that ESA’s future development would be better served by being part of a more synergistic research group. Green Square have done an excellent job in finding the best fit for ESA going forward and negotiating a transaction that worked well for all concerned. I wish the management of ESA and the shareholders of BDRC every future success.”

Green Square advises Hometown on start up funded by StartJG

We’re delighted to announce the start-up of a new advertising agency, Hometown, funded by a 35% stake from world-class brand, design and retail environment agency, StartJG.
Hometown’s founders have deep experience across advertising and digital disciplines, having previously founded one of the UK’s most highly awarded digital agencies, Saint, as well as producing numerous above-the-line campaigns for some of the worlds best loved brands. Working with clients such as Guinness, Virgin Atlantic, Microsoft, Bacardi, Lloyds TSB and PlayStation has seen the team win awards across the board for creativity, innovation and effectiveness. Hometown’s ambition is to build an agency defined by the people that work with it; its own team, its clients and the work it does – allowing the culture to develop along the way. This will be reflected in their approach to the work in creating joined-up-journeys, both with clients to define and craft the stories they tell, as well as with the audience who join them along the way. The partnership with StartJG allows the new agency to work with clients delivering the whole consumer journey – from the development of brand identity and values, through to communication, engagement and environments. Green Square acted as advisors to Hometown throughout the process. Hometown commented: David Gamble says of the launch: ‘Hometown is our opportunity to take our learnings from the last 17 years, start from scratch, listen to what clients want from a modern agency, and strip out the rest to form an agency built around their business, and ideas that genuinely affect people.’ Simon Labbett adds: ‘We also want Hometown to be the most interesting agency in London to work at, that’s the ambition. To have an amazing culture that’s defined by the people, and the work we do.’ StartJG commented:  Mike Curtis, Start Group CEO says of the launch: ‘The team behind Hometown are proven agenda setters and they are on the threshold of doing so again. We look forward to a long and meaningful collaborative relationship. StartJG is delighted to be part of the team.’ Darren Whittingham Founder of Start JG adds: ‘We are terrifically excited to welcome Hometown to the StartJG family. Simon, David, Helen and Chris are extreme talents – their new school approach to advertising will be perfectly complimentary to our core Brand experience skills. Watch out world!’ Tony Walford, Green Square Partner commented: It’s always exciting when we have new start-up agencies in the market, particularly those that are backed by well known and successful brands themselves. We wish Hometown and StartJG the very best in their new collaboration.

Suggestions:

Culture Tax Transparency Reports Our Team