A Question of Leadership

In 2018, when our client launched their in-house agency, they appointed The Industry Club to support them in their ambition to rival the external agency model with creative excellence and superior knowledge of the brand, its clients and businesses.
We would do this through a mix of new hires and training of existing teams. 

The Recruitment Brief

It was agreed that for the agency to succeed, a strong, high-calibre creative leader was essential to create award-winning cross-channel integrated marketing campaigns. We were briefed to find a Creative Director with a proven track record in the agency world who would harness existing talent, elevate creative standards and bring a commercial agency mindset to the team.

The appointed Creative Director would have ultimate creative responsibility for crucial business outputs and be instrumental in building a world-class internal creative and creative services team.

Our challenge was to find a talented leader with high creative standards and deep experience in integrated marketing who could seamlessly transition to a global corporate entity. Whilst candidate history was an open brief, we felt someone with a strong pedigree in the B2B space would be the best fit.

We were seeking a creative director who could drive our client’s strategic brand direction, champion new creative values and increase audience engagement in an often content-heavy marketing landscape. 

The Solution

Over four months, we profiled several creative directors, rigorously assessing their ability to take our client’s creativity to the next level, build new departments, integrate existing teams, and engage brand owners who had never before worked with an internal agency. The successful candidate would need to define and implement a long-term, business-focussed creative strategy and develop an in-house agency that could deliver on that vision. 

By presenting a shortlist of 3 candidates using our key criteria framework for exec-level hires, we enabled our client to identify one preferred candidate early on in the process, resulting in fewer candidates going through a time-consuming and rigorous assessment programme.

We continued to work closely with the candidate and client across all stages of the interview and assessment process including negotiating the final offer and benefits package. In 2019, we successfully placed and award-winning ECD with a strong B2B background in the role.

The Training Brief

The new agency also required some up-skilling of their existing marketing execs to ensure successful management and delivery of the creative campaigns the newly formed agency would be producing.

The Industry School consulted with senior operations members of the team to understand the agency's creative ambition, identify the short and mid-term challenges of the re-structure and ensure a smooth transition into the newly formed roles and operating models.

The Solution

Working closely with the senior operations team, we tailored our existing training workshops with bespoke content to create a training programme focussed on stakeholder management (account management) and campaign management skills (project management).

Three trainers delivered a 2-day offsite workshop, using case studies, skills practice exercises, tested frameworks, and templates which enabled team members to share their challenges, contribute ideas for the new operating model and take learnings that helped them move into their new roles with confidence and a shared understanding of what was required in the new agency,

Evolution

In 5 years, the in-house agency has grown to include strategists, creatives, filmmakers, developers, project managers and event specialists. Our ECD plays a central role in supporting our client’s position as one of the major players in the commercial services market through award-winning, diverse campaigns, and we are proud to support him in his ambitions.

If you would like to find out more about how we can help you with the development of your in-house operation, just use the form below, or email info@theindustryclub.co.uk

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