Agency roundup: 43 Clicks North; Ascensor; Rascal Creative; and more

A digital marketing company which lured some of the brightest brains in the business from Leeds back to Hull is bucking the trend again by expanding under lockdown with new recruits and new clients.

43 Clicks North opened its office at The Deep Business Centre in Hull in August 2019 with just five people, and as numbers grew managing director Mike Ellis made the decision to find the company a new home all to itself.

The complications of COVID-19 were such that by the time the company left The Deep in November 2020 it had a workforce of 12, all working from home.

But the recruitment continued, and by the time 43 Clicks takes the keys for its new office in the Old Town of Hull next month it will have 17 people with more on the way.

It will also have a work-from-home strategy which is likely to take the complement of staff beyond the planned capacity of the building.

Ellis said: “We’ve taken on five new people since we left The Deep, and four of those have joined since the start of this year.

“We expect to hire another two or three after we occupy the new building in April and we think we’ll be able to fit about 35 in there but with a rota which enables us to have a few more on the payroll.”

Two of the recent recruits have joined from other tech firms in Leeds and are likely to stay in their home city and work remotely. Others have relocated from West Yorkshire to East Yorkshire, as Ellis and his colleagues did when they arrived at The Deep.

The expansion has been driven by the company’s success in securing deals with seven new clients since November.

Ellis added: “We came back to Hull to work and to build a digital community and we’ve surprised ourselves – we thought that 20 people would be enough and we would hit that level and stay at The Deep.

“But we found somewhere just for us because the business kept growing – with new business and up-sales we exceeded our turnover from last year in just over three months from our year-end in November.”

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Andrew Firth

Digital marketing agency Ascensor is scaling up its digital apprenticeships in partnership with The Coders Guild.

It is also creating ten leadership and management apprenticeships, delivered through Pareto.

MD Andrew Firth said: “Training and development is a vital part of Ascensor’s business philosophy and growth strategy.

“We develop and build Ecommerce websites and apps for successful businesses.

“The digital sector is fast moving, and we always want to demonstrate that we are at the leading edge when it comes to the skills of our people.”

Over recent years, Leeds-based Ascensor has supported many interns, undergraduates and apprentices across all areas of their business, including technical development, digital marketing and business development.

It is working with The Coders Guild to support its recruitment and training of developers and testers.

Firth added: “The Coders Guild is a well-respected training provider with nine years’ experience designing and delivering high quality digital training.

“They have helped to create national standards for digital apprenticeships, and we are delighted to be working with them.

“The Coders Guild will help us to deliver and accredit our Level 3 and Level 4 Apprenticeship programmes. Our involvement with them dovetails perfectly with our current recruitment for a trainee website tester.”

The agency is also providing leadership and management apprenticeship training for five team leaders, with another five planned in six months’ time. It is delivering these programmes in partnership with Pareto.

Firth said: “We want to equip our team members with the skills to become the team leaders and managers of tomorrow.

“We chose Pareto because their Operational Management Apprenticeship programme is designed to deliver the core competency requirements in a range of important areas, such as leading and managing people, communication, operational management, and performance management.

“Since 80% of the learning is undertaken on the job, this is a relevant and valuable skills programme for our people.”

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Leeds-based digital-first creative agency Rascal has expanded with the appointment of two senior roles to the team.

In a newly created position, Stephanie Pullen joins as head of digital strategy.

Previously with Brilliant Agency where she worked across creative strategy for clients including Very Lazy, Newman’s Own, Yorkshire Provender and Mighty Pea; Pullen is now responsible for coordinating the overall strategic direction and growth of Rascal.

JJ Amos has taken up the head of design role, overseeing the execution of all campaigns and client work across creative, copywriting and videography.

Amos has previously held senior design and art director roles at agencies including Brilliant and Twentythree04.

Rascal founder, Joe Costandi, said: “I’m so pleased to have JJ and Steph as part of the Rascal team. We’re in a strong growth phase and these positions are vital to our business, putting us in a perfect position to push ourselves even harder on our ambitious plans.

“JJ and Steph bring a wealth of ideas and creativity with them and will be working with me to strengthen the team over the coming months.”

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Consumer electronics company, Casio, has appointed performance marketing agency Journey Further to handle its performance marketing activity.

The appointment will see Journey Further, which has offices in Leeds, Manchester and London, manage PPC and SEO for the Japanese brand, with a focus on growing consumer sales of its timepiece range, including the iconic G-Shock watch.

The agency’s remit will also include driving sales for Casio’s range of musical instruments and calculators.

Danny Power, ecommerce and digital manager at Casio, said: “We are in a process of digital transformation and as such we’ve grown significantly in this area over the past few years.

“We appointed Journey Further to supercharge our search growth and they impressed us with their flexible, data-driven approach. It’s been a fantastic start to the partnership.”

Chris Rowett, paid media director at the agency, said: “We’re really excited to be working with Casio, a brand with a fantastic range of products that are sold all over the world.

“Our strong ecommerce experience combined with our data-led approach provides the perfect platform to help grow Casio’s consumer sales across a number of different products.”