Chairmans Statement23 May 2017 14:39
The Chairman's Statement - three words that have introduced annual reports for over a century but which sound a little stiff for the digital era when the leader of the free world engages his nation in bursts of 140 characters or less...
So let me brush aside convention and talk to you about what's been happening in our business and our market place over the last twelve months just as if we were all sitting down and sharing a coffee together.
We live in exciting times. Almost daily we hear of new wonder technology, new algorithms, new ways of working and communicating that challenge the old order - with much of it driven by that infuriating little object in your pocket, hand, or bag, or lying quietly on your desk, or recharging in the socket - that 'ever so smart' phone that lets you communicate, search, investigate, buy, sell, invest, verify - do almost anything from almost anywhere at any time.
Ten years ago mobile phones were just that: mobile phones - and mostly called Nokia.
Facebook had been open to all for less than a year.
The morning chorus was bird song rather than tweets.
Taxis were taxis or mini cabs not Ubers.
BnB had no Air.
And Google still looked as though it had competitors in with a chance of surviving.
How our world has changed and how that change seems to be accelerating by the day.
Today we think about AI, virtual assistants, voice search, chatbots, virtual and augmented reality, the internet of things,?home automation, drones,? robotics and cybersecurity as much as we?think about our traditional IRL (In Real Life) ways of doing things.
So as older consumers learn to adapt and younger consumers enthusiastically encourage disruption we have to find new, quicker, smarter, more engaging, and more measurable ways of talking to consumers about our clients' brands and services.
Be Heard began with a simple premise.
We, like everybody, could see that the world of marketing communications was fast moving to all things digital (remember online advertising expenditure overtook TV in the U.K. way back in 2009).
We could see that the marketing services sector was polarising between the behemoths and the younger, agile independents who sensed the danger of being marginalised - despite their extraordinary skills sets - in a disaggregated, fragmented but increasingly global market place.
So we thought that there was an irrefutable logic in bringing together a group of these smarter, independent agencies.
It all made sense to us because the digital world is connected, and because we could see value in connecting digital services that followed the customer journey from beginning to end, from social through search, through creative and content to website or app, all the way through to purchase.
Today we have four partners in the group covering many of these digital skill sets. They all understand, like and trust what their fellow partners do and are starting to work tog
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