Posts from — February 2010

Interesting news today of consolidation – digital agency LBi (Lost Boys International) has merged with Obtineo, parent to search marketing specialist Bigmouthmedia (read the story on Econsultancy here).

Bigmouthmedia CEO Mark Bole said: “For the past 18 months both bigmouthmedia and LBi have seen a real shift in client sentiment in regards to agencies: clients are increasingly looking for best in class agencies with the capability to cover all aspects of the digital universe – integrating search and digital media with creative and technology supported by strong transparent measurement – and the combined expertise of both companies will put us in a strong position to meet this demand.”

I couldn’t agree more with Mark. We’ve seen exactly the same shift, although for longer than the last 18 months. Steak launched as a search agency in 2005 but within 6 months we made the decision to become a full service digital agency with integration and results at our core. This has benefited our clients enormously and Steak has become the first port of call with most of our partners. Nice to see further confirmation that we had the right idea! However the real question is what’s next for agencies to offer, or should I say what’s on clients’ agendas right now.

Ollie Bishop, Co-founder and CEO

The last five years have seen Steak grow to become one of the UK’s leading digital agencies.  We’ve opened offices in New York and Melbourne, added to the range of services we offer to span the full range of digital media, and been fortunate enough to work with most interesting and inspiring digital advertisers.

There were cakes and bubbly to celebrate last week in the London office. Here’s to the next five years!

WhiteCloud Digital Solutions Ltd (WCDS) has signed Steak as the first commercial partner to use their WhiteCloud affiliate management interface. Steak will be using the serving, tracking and reporting platform to manage affiliate campaigns on behalf of its clients.
 

WhiteCloud comes from a strong heritage of ongoing development in the online marketing sector, and is based on technology and infrastructure also used by affiliate network, dealgroupmedia. The platform manages over a billion global transactions a month and is considered to be the most robust system of its kind in the marketplace.

“The shape of the media sector is changing as digital becomes an ever more important factor in the agency market” says Dan Cohen, WCDS Managing Director. “That agencies are investigating affiliate management technologies is a logical next step in their evolution. We are thrilled that Steak appreciated the technological advantages of our WhiteCloud platform and we are confident that they will benefit from the investment and expertise that has gone into it.”

Mark Joseph, Steak’s Affiliate Director, commented “Steak selected WhiteCloud as our affiliate technology provider after in depth research and review in our quest to find a robust, feature-rich and flexible affiliate tracking solution. We’re happy to say that the network setup of White Cloud was surprisingly quick and seamless. It is also satisfying to know that there is a full time development team at White Cloud, constantly working to evolve tools and technology within the affiliate channel, through which our clients’ programmes will benefit.”

About WhiteCloud Digital Solutions Ltd

WhiteCloud Digital Solutions Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of dealgroupmedia UK Ltd specialising in the development of innovative technological solutions for online marketing. 

dealgroupmedia UK Ltd also trades as dgm, dgmAffiliates and dgmSearchlab, providing a range of products and services to the online marketplace in the UK and overseas.

www.thewhitecloud.co.uk

Full-service digital agency, Steak, has achieved ‘one star status’ in the 2010 Best Companies accreditation scheme, which awards an elite ‘Michelin style’ star rating system for organisations that demonstrate high levels of employee engagement.

Based on staff feedback, organisations receive a Best Companies index score that determines their star rating compared to a fixed standard. 1,086 companies from both private and public sectors applied for Best Companies accreditation this year, of which 402 were awarded star status. Steak was one of only 28 media companies to meet the standard. 

Jonathan Austin, Founder and CEO of Best Companies, stated “We would like to congratulate Steak on their outstanding achievement. An engaged workforce is essential as organisations move out of the recession and into a more stable economic situation. No doubt many organisations have tackled redundancies and rapid change this year. But organisations like Steak that have kept on engaging their staff and making sure they are involved in the business will be in a good position for the future and should be congratulated for their efforts.”

Oliver Bishop, Steak’s CEO, commented, “In a challenging year we’ve managed to keep Steak’s people motivated and engaged, and develop our practices and processes to make Steak an even better place to work. We’ve gone from being ‘one to watch’ in 2009 to star status in 2010 and I’m delighted with this achievement.”

View the full Best Companies 2010 list here.