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History
How we
came to be.
At the end of
2004 Ian found himself at home writing himself a telling list on what
aspects of marketing he enjoyed most and least.
It soon became
obvious that Ian was not someone cut out for large corporate life and that
it was his work with feisty, up and coming personality laden challenger
brands that had given him a real buzz.
Ringing around
it soon became clear that there were a number of small to medium-sized
companies whose limited resources, fledgling portfolios and more pressing
short term issues meant that thus far they had either:
a) reluctantly muddled through
b) put non-urgent marketing priorities on the back-burner, OR c) taken on board an overtly expensive agency whose key priority was to get its feet under the table and not really deal with the issue in hand. On closer inspection there appeared to be a wealth of compact
companies who at this point in their development:
- simply couldn't justify a full-time marketing team OR
- were already enjoying such phenomenal growth that any longer-term projects residing at the bottom of their work trays never saw the light of day. This was about the time Ian met Victoria in creative writing
classes. It seemed no time before they had the idea about joining forces
really took shape. Vicki's infuriatingly logical brain and impressive
planning pedigree seemed to fit very snugly with Ian's more 'curved ball'
creativity
Ian
Hills - An award-winning marketer (&
recent children's author - see www.toxictoad.co.uk) who has spent the last 15 years championing an
array of personality-laden, 'challenger brands,' across a number of
distinct product sectors and consumer profiles.
Ian has been fortunate enough to operate within both highly
structured blue-chip multi-nationals and a number of smaller UK orientated
start-ups. He also spent a fair time in sales (6yrs) which hopefully
precludes him from dreaming up any wishy-washy/unrealistic marketing
strategies, opting instead for focused, financially viable initiatives
with real cut-through.
Victoria
Hazel - Victoria is a supremely
well-organised brand champion with a wealth of experience (11 years) in
brand-leading products in sectors as diverse as baby, white goods and
power tools. She has been frustrated by how slowly multi-nationals work
and she can share her thoughts on how to outmanoeuvre them. If Victoria can make microwave
ovens, Dustbusters, Snakelights and baby milk sound exciting, think what
she could do for your brand!
A silly name (Purple Pilchard) that reflected their 'marketing
is fun' philosophy was plucked out of the ether and the rest, as we say,
is history.
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