Spotlight on Forever Beta
We are proud to be featured as Oystercatchers’ spotlight agency this month. Read on for the full article.
From helping Co-op turn a £134 million loss into a £72 million profit to helping Camden Town Brewery sell more beer than ever before in its history, to Google’s launch of its revolutionary partnership with the FA, they’re just a few of Forever Beta’s success stories. We caught up with them to find out a bit more.
Describe Forever Beta in three words
Curious. Dynamic. Unfinished.
What makes you unique?
We work and think in Beta. We’re not trying to be a traditional agency. This means we’re not measuring our creativity or success in the same way as most agencies. We want to challenge the agency model and see if we can find a more flexible, effective way of doing things. The current agency model needs radically rethinking and we want to stay ahead of this curve.
Tell us something we don’t know about Forever Beta?
For various reasons, our biggest clients prefer us not to PR our relationships or the work we do for them. Whilst this is great for our clients, it is somewhat challenging for our profile.
What work are you most proud of?
We’re proud of all the work we deliver. It all serves a purpose and delivers against an important client need. Whether it’s a complicated through-the-line campaign, an innovation project or a strategic audit. We strongly feel that whoever you are, whatever you do for a living, you should be proud of and stand by your work.
What’s been your biggest challenge?
Right now our biggest challenges both personally and professionally are the same as for everyone else: namely navigating through uncharted waters in the current Covid-19 crisis. This moment is a true test of our nation’s collective and individual character. The more positivity and kindness everyone can bring to the mix the better.
What are you doing to transform the way you work with clients?
We are constantly testing new and more flexible ways of working. In essence applying creativity not just to our output, but to how we resource, our timings, our client service model and even how remunerate ourselves. To that end, no two clients have the same service offering from us; our view is that clients and brands are unique and so the way we deliver should be too.
If you could give clients one piece of advice what would it be?
Be brave. Why, for example, default to a pitch? Instead, consider choosing the agency you have great chemistry with and crack on with them. Also, put your neck on the line. The most successful clients we’ve worked with make big calls and stand by their convictions – it works.
How are you future-proofing?
Our business operating model is designed to be future proofed, it’s embedded into our culture, how we work and how we deliver against our clients’ briefs. It’s even in our name. We like to challenge everything from how we deliver for our clients, what we should deliver to how we get paid. Some clients aren’t ready for this, they want a clear demarcation between their ‘advertising’ and ‘media’ agencies, they look for specialism. That’s fine, but in our humble opinion, the pace of disruption and technological change make this risky for everyone involved in this kind of relationship.
Marketing predictions for the next year?
Nothing will be the same following this crisis.
It saddens us to say so, but big established brands and agencies alike will be struggling now and many will, in all likelihood, go under. We can only hope that we will collectively come through this with a stronger sense of community and respect for one another, and realise just how lucky most of us in the UK have been for so long.
A lot of rebuilding and rethinking will be required over the next year and beyond.
Best kept secret for Friday drinks?
Biscuit Wednesday (yes, it’s a thing at Forever Beta) is probably more cherished than Friday drinks right now. Times have changed.
And finally, in these current, uncertain times, give us a top tip that’s circulated around Forever Beta – it can be anything be that exercise related, virtual meeting related, keeping sane related….
We’ve shifted very quickly and successfully to remote working and everyone at Forever Beta has played a really important role in making this work. A top tip for a disaggregated team would be to share your goals so everyone knows what each other is focussed on and why, and above all else, over-communicate.
Alan Fayolle, Group Managing Director, Forever Beta on Covid-19:
“I believe now more than ever is a time to be kind and compassionate. The whole Brexit debacle surfaced a lot of insecurities and negative behaviours from both sides. It brought out the worst in some people. Our response to the Covid-19 crisis is already highlighting the more positive side of the human condition. Let’s keep building on that.”
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