Agency round-up: Ideal new home for creative agency; Contract win with international foreign exchange firm; and more

International creative agency Intermarketing (IMA) are moving their HQ to Leeds Dock, occupying 26,000 sq ft in the Malthouse building.

The move comes as Allied London continues to revolutionise the Leeds Dock estate through investment and development.

Intermarketing’s new office in Leeds Dock’s South Bank area is an 18th-century brewery building called The Malthouse. Following a £2.5m revamp, the space can accommodate up to 350 people.

The new Leeds office is one of six for Intermarketing. The global agency also boasts spaces in London, Amsterdam, Sydney, New York and Manchester, as well as clients such as adidas, Moda, Co-operative, Reebok and Virgin trains.

The mixed-use development at Leeds Dock is now home to a number of dynamic, creative agencies, award-winning independent food and drink operators, as well as Sky’s nationally recognised digital HQ and the Royal Armouries Museum.

Jamie Allan, Intermarketing’s chief executive partner, said: “IMA are extremely excited to relocate our HQ from Headingley, which has been our home for over 30 years, into The Malthouse on Leeds Dock.

“After a major renovation and complete redesign the office will create an environment that will enable our business to make a step change and adopt a new way of working. It’s important for us to constantly evolve, reevaluate and look to improve on every aspect of our business.

“Our office space and environment is a major part of who we are and how we work. This move will aid our desire for increasing collaboration, driving integration and using technology and space to improve productivity.

“It will create an improved flexibility to how we deliver creative ideas to our clients. Allied London has shared our vision and facilitated our move to the Leeds Dock.

“The whole area has been transformed over recent years and there is so much more on the horizon, we look forward to being part of our new community but we will definitely miss our old one!”

Michael Ingall, Allied London CEO, said: “The Intermarketing move to Leeds Dock is an exciting one for the growing digital and tech community that has flourished here. This type of occupier underpins our decision to retain and reinvest in Leeds Dock; as we reach full occupancy, we’re excited about the next five years of growth.”

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International foreign exchange firm moneycorp has appointed a specialist Yorkshire-based agency to manage its performance marketing activity.

Using savvy automated technology to identify customer behaviours and improve online performance, moneycorp and AI and Machine Learning brand Third Foundation have enhanced the global payment services firm’s new customer acquisition performance by 32%.

Following a thorough setup, the system, built and owned by Leeds’ Third Foundation, means moneycorp can now look beyond traditional methods of extracting insight from media data to intricately understand customer-specific types of patterns – and where, when and what they’re buying or researching.

The integrated tech further analyses a user’s lifetime interactions across on/offline channels and gleans critically intuitive insight, to drive smarter commercial decisions and predict upcoming pain points.

Additionally, Third Foundation’s tech will help moneycorp – which manages £35.5bn transactions per year for individuals and corporate organisations – to enhance brand loyalty and drive market performance in an ultra-competitive space.

A moneycorp spokesman said: “Having such sophisticated technology on board means we’re able to spot extremely pivotal trends that we could never have managed previously.

“The insight we’ve gathered has helped us to drive our marketing strategy and make decisions based on patterns we simply couldn’t see before.”

Michael Ward, CEO of Third Foundation, believes moneycorp’s dedication to an AI-led approach highlights how forward-thinking the firm is.

“The business already has exceptionally capable marketing and data teams at its heart, so we knew exactly how we could complement that setup and provide a complete experience for those it serves,” he said.

“Adapting to AI and ML should not only give moneycorp an advantage within a really challenging sector but our ML-led predictive modelling also allows us to automate forecasting based on external events such as market volatility or political uncertainty.”

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The Haslams team

Established residential sales and lettings brand, Haslams has invested in state-of-the-art marketing technology from Leeds-based automation platform Force24, as the company gears up for growth over the next 12 months.

Haslams’ marketing manager, Melissa Hughes, said: “2019 statistics showed that British people now move house, on average, every 20-23 years. However, there are significant variations in the data when you drill down into different geographical areas and also age groups.

“We therefore don’t want to leave things to chance. Previously, once someone had kindly left us a review, they were unlikely to hear from us again.

“But by devising savvy personalised journeys that deliver the right content, to the right people, at the frequency most suited to them, we’re hoping to remain front-of-mind when consumers do decide to look for their new home.

“With all our communications, the priority is to add value. We’ve thought carefully about the different types of ‘customers’ who may visit our website and now channel our content accordingly.

“We are also beginning to author guides to pass on as much helpful advice as we can, without being intrusive, and Force24 will help us take this to the next level of sophistication.

“Estate agents aren’t known for continuing to offer helpful home-owning information after someone has picked up their keys.

“We don’t want people’s inboxes to be crowded with information that they don’t want to receive. By learning more about every single person in our customer base, we can hopefully enhance their experience, long after their move, to cement relationships and drive Haslams’ growth – all while remaining GDPR-compliant.”

She said Haslams was so confident in the Force24 platform that competitor products were quickly excluded from the shortlisting process.

Force24 is one of the fastest-growing UK built and managed marketing automation platforms. It now boasts sector-wide clients including Worldpay, BBC Children in Need and Hitachi.