Agency round-up: Tank; Distinction; Cartwright

Nottingham digital marketing and PR agency Tank has been appointed by cloud hosting provider 20i to support its expansion in the US market.

The agency will deliver a digital PR and communications strategy designed to increase brand awareness and strengthen 20i’s profile in the competitive international technology sector.

Founded in 2016, 20i has grown into an international managed hosting business with data centres across three continents and an established customer base in the US.

Tank’s brief includes delivering major campaign activity, reactive media relations and thought leadership content to support the next phase of 20i’s growth strategy.

Becca Peel, head of digital PR at Tank, said: “The 20i team is an exceptional example of an ambitious UK tech brand ready to break new ground on the global stage.

“This partnership offers us the exciting opportunity to support their expansion into one of the world’s most competitive tech markets.”

Matthew Telfer, marketing director at 20i, said: “As we continue to strengthen our presence in the US, it’s important that our communications strategy reflects both the scale of our ambitions and the quality of the platform we’ve built.

“Tank impressed us with their strategic approach to digital PR and proven ability to deliver campaigns that drive meaningful engagement.”

The appointment continues Tank’s expansion in the technology sector, where it has been delivering international campaigns across software, e-commerce and sustainability markets.

Digital consultancy Distinction is celebrating its 25th anniversary after growing from a Nottingham start-up into an international business with operations in the UK and the US.

Founded in 2001 by brothers James and Greg Bloor, the company began life in a back room in Nottingham before expanding nationally and internationally over the following two decades.

Now headquartered in London, Distinction has delivered more than 500 projects for over 200 clients and employs a core team of 14, supported by a global network of more than 40 associates.

The business, which originally traded as creo before rebranding in 2006, has worked with organisations including Unilever, Barclays, Ford, BMW, Speedo and Confused.com, alongside its core base of mid-market B2B clients.

James Bloor, chief executive and co-founder of Distinction, said: “When Greg and I started in 2001, the height of our ambition was helping local firms get a bit more out of digital, back when most of them weren’t sure they needed it.

“A small back-room, slow dial-up connection and a fair bit of optimism got us going. Twenty-five years on, we’re advising senior leaders on both sides of the Atlantic – and the optimism has mostly survived.”

The business opened a London office in 2008 and expanded into the US in 2016. In 2021, it shifted from an agency model to a digital consultancy and launched Rise, a digital product studio focused on entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses.

To mark its anniversary, Distinction has launched an interactive timeline charting its history alongside major world events and asked four leading AI models to predict what the next five years could hold.

Bloor said the responses suggested that as artificial intelligence becomes more widely available, competitive advantage will increasingly depend on “judgement, taste, trust, and being accountable when the work ships”.

The winning idea at the breakfast came from Sally Grindrod-Smith, director of planning, regeneration and communities at West Lindsey District Council

Skills shortages, artificial intelligence and planning reform have overtaken housing as the property sector’s biggest concerns, according to a new report published by UKREiiF and Nottingham marketing agency Cartwright.

The “One Big Idea” report analysed more than 150 submissions from developers, investors, consultants and public sector organisations collected before and during this year’s UKREiiF conference.

Despite housing accounting for 12.4% of sessions at UKREiiF, just 6% of submissions focused solely on housing delivery.

Instead, the most common themes identified were skills, inclusion and social value (20%), followed by AI and data (16%) and planning reform (16%).

The report suggests the sector is increasingly focused on addressing structural barriers to growth rather than solely increasing housing supply.

Katie Nelson, director and head of construction at Cartwright, said: “Across all submissions, we can see the pressure the industry is facing from different directions and levels.

“What One Big Idea has also shown is that there’s no shortage of ambition, imagination or technical ingenuity. However, in many cases, what the sector is short of is the collaboration, capacity and coordination to turn those ideas into delivery.”

The report also found significant concern around skills shortages and workforce development, with industry leaders highlighting the need for stronger links between education and the built environment sector.

The winning submission in the initiative came from Sally Grindrod-Smith, director of planning, regeneration and communities at West Lindsey District Council, who proposed a nationally scalable programme linking employers with primary schools to promote careers in the built environment, engineering and STEM.

James Bywood, marketing director at UKREiiF, said the findings highlighted a gap between industry ambition and the mechanisms needed to deliver change.

“One Big Idea has given us an opportunity to listen to the industry at scale, which has revealed clear ambition, but a gap when it comes to routes to delivery,” he said.