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Future bright for digital agency in UK

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In this installment of Export Figures, we chat to expat Geoff Devereux, MD of London digital marketing company Delete.

geoff devereux croppedDevereux was station manager of 95bFM for a couple of years in the 90s and worked as an IT consultant before moving to London 10 years ago. Now happily ensconced in Brighton with his wife and daughter, his commute to work is longer but his weekends are much more enjoyable.

In 2000 Devereux started online media company Paperaeroplane (“a perfect convergence of creativity, technology and strategy”) and then joined forces with Delete, headed by Kiwi creative director Damon Mangos, in 2003. Delete was a two-person creative agency based in Brixton mostly delivering print design. The merge with Paperaeroplane re-focused the business on digital marketing.

In seven years Delete has grown to a team of around 20 people, and has strong position in the London market as an independent, well respected digital hot shop. Devereux “oversees all commercial activity, participating in the creative or tech teams’ activities when they let me”.

Devereux explains some of Delete’s campaigns below.

Westfield

Westfield Stratford City: For the launch online of Westfield’s biggest global project, this was a full service project – from strategy to content generation to delivery and ongoing optimisation. Also this was a large technical delivery on Westfield’s technical framework – quite a complex project from a delivery perspective.”

Hangover

The Hangover: Microsite delivered for the film’s release in 18 languages in 3 weeks.”

Ugly_Billy

Ugly Billy: Video-driven campaign for a new male grooming product from BaByliss. Generated over 1 million views of content. Delete delivered the whole campaign from strategy to content generation (video shoot) to media and campaign optimisation.”

DFGW

DFGW: Advertising agency site (now no longer around – agency was sold).  Well respected as a great piece of design.”

Yutaka

Yutaka Loves London: Campaign delivered for Virgin Atlantic to promote London as a destination to young Americans – from concept to delivery and seeding. The brief came from Crispin Porter + Bogusky, which at the time was the world’s number one creative agency. The brief was a paragraph – we did the rest.

Deletelondon.com

“Oh, and our own website which seems to be an influence for many designers globally. It is often featured in design portals as an example of best practice and inspired design (most recently www.smashingmagazine.com). Good that the industry like it – we agonised over that one!”

So what’s the future of digital marketing, Geoff?

“Digital marketing is a challenging but exciting place to be right now. With the recession, marketing budgets have been cut and the finance guys are scrutinising every spend. This has resulted in a huge opportunity for digital to move up the agenda to the heart of the marketing strategy with digital is getting a larger proportion of the total marketing budget. Case in point: recently digital marketing spend overtook television in the UK.

“In fact, much of this budget goes into search but the important point is that when budgets are increased again, with the increased proportion of the total budget, agencies with digital capability will be in a very strong position.

“The other interesting trend is that clients are realising that spending on search does nothing more than drive traffic – they need to invest in the rest of the customer journey or the desired action will never be achieved. There is a move to invest in upgrading websites to ensure that the customer’s relationship is managed effectively through the rest of the digital journey. We are in the process of undertaking this exercise for Just Eat (a fast-growing fast-food portal) and Picturehouse, (an independent cinema chain).

“Still, it will be nice when we see a bit more adventure returning to the market, and an opportunity for more creative scope. Medium term with other media converging online, the opportunity for innovation is high and savvy, talented agencies will be well positioned to capitalise on technology-enabled, and trend-enabled opportunities. Digital media is fluid, changing every day. The future is bright for those involved.”

Fantastic insight from Kiwi boy done good in Londontown. Know any expats in the marcomms biz who can give us an update on industry trends overseas? Write to [email protected].

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