Agency roundup: Engage; The Engine Room; connective3; and more

Leeds-based digital agency, Engage, has partnered with national education charity, The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) after a competitive bid process for its digital contract.

The latest win for the agency will include a diverse brief across the digital mix including SEO, strategy, content and design.

The scope of work will span all elements of digital, with a focus on design, development and performance.

Engage will continue to evolve the EEF site, powered by Craft CMS (content management system).

Hilary Cornwell, head of communications at EEF, said: “I knew Engage were the right choice to drive our digital strategy forward.

“The team’s expertise will ensure we’re in safe hands as we look to push things forward. We’re really looking forward to working with the team and seeing the impact that their work has on our digital presence.”

EEF is dedicated to breaking the link between family income and educational achievement and supports schools, colleges, and nurseries to improve teaching and learning.

Dom Mernock, director at Engage, added: “It’s great to be able to announce that we’ve formed a new partnership with the EEF.

“It’s  an exciting, innovative charity with core values that strongly align with our own as a B Corp; putting purpose on the top of the agenda.

“With a focus on strategy, our goal is to help the EEF reach more people with its ground-breaking and insightful research.

“As the website is housed on Craft CMS, it’ll enable us to drive enterprise level performance efficiently, meaning the foundation’s investment can go further.”

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Mirfield-based strategic brand consultancy, The Engine Room, has scooped a series of health briefs.

The agency has been re-appointed by medical diagnostics specialist, 2San.

Having experienced significant expansion through the sale of Covid tests, the global firm approached The Engine Room, post-pandemic, with a range of new ‘at home’ wellness and female health kits.

With a packaging design project already complete to accelerate 2San’s B2B routes to market, The Engine Room has now turned its attention to the launch of a consumer-facing brand.

This adds to the strategic rebrand — including renaming — of NHS healthtech firm, Mizaic (formerly IMMJ Systems).

Having already provided electronic document management technology to a number of Trusts nationwide, the business — under the steer of a new CEO and senior leadership team — approached The Engine Room to help consolidate and reposition the brand, as it advances its support to digitise the NHS.

Former client ADL Smartcare — trailblazers in the provision of evidence-based data, research and intelligence on age-related decline — has engaged The Engine Room to rebrand The Lifecurve.

The LifeCurve is an app-based toolkit, specially developed to empower people to take better care of their bodies as they approach key markers in their life, and consequently reduce pressure on the NHS as the population ages.

Meanwhile, Leeds GP Confederation — which originally approached The Engine Room to develop its training offer — has undertaken a values-based positioning project.

The brief has morphed into a project to redefine the confederation’s purpose, principles and personality, review its brand architecture, and map its full service offering.

By helping the confederation visualise its multifaceted structure, the goal is to drive greater advocacy and understanding of the organisation’s work, in turn better supporting the GPs they are here to serve.

The launch of a new online magazine created by surgeons, for surgeons, completes the five-strong project line-up.

“Surgery International” represents a new brand that The Engine Room has built from the bottom up, with the potential for it to become a revenue-generating asset with real estate for commercial sponsorships and ad placements in future.

The Engine Room’s founder and design director, Darren Evans, said: “We have long been passionate about using brand to drive change when it comes to the health, wellness and social care in society.

“Our extensive credentials in this complex field – not to mention deep-rooted understanding of global terminology, regulatory landscape and societal challenges – now see us support a growing number of public and private sector brands with important change agendas.

“Innovation is continually bringing new products and services to market, and brand naturally plays its part.

“But as the needs of the general public — and pressures on the health service — further evolve, it’s also important to redesign processes and propositions too.”

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Digital marketing agency connective3 has been appointed by Moneypenny, a provider of telephone answering, outsourced switchboard, live chat, and customer contact solutions.

The agency will deliver Digital PR, SEO and PPC activity across the UK, and Organic activity only for the provider’s US sites Moneypenny US and Voicenation. 

Having previously worked with connective3’s international team to deliver link building activity in the US, the business appointed the agency following a competitive pitch process.

The brief was to deliver work that expanded on the previous Digital PR channels and focused on performance across both Paid and Organic activity in the UK. 

Launched in 2019, Leeds-based connective3 has grown from seven to nearly 100 people in headcount across less than four years of trading.

The agency’s cross channel offering, adopted by Moneypenny, has proven to be effective in driving business performance for a number of brands including Wren Kitchens, Tapi Carpets and most recently Delivery App – the Rio Ferdinand-backed same day courier solution. 

Tim Grice, connective3 CEO, said: “We’ve worked with the Moneypenny team for sometime on Digital PR and to now have the opportunity to connect our specialists and channels is beyond exciting. connective3 was built on the principle of connecting our clients with an A-Team of specialists, working together to drive maximum value from each channel.

“This way of working has resonated internationally and allowed us to expand our client base into the US and Europe.

“We’re relishing the opportunity to work with the Moneypenny team, driving performance to new levels across multiple territories and channels.” 

Dan Marshall, group head of digital at Moneypenny, said: “We’re really excited to partner with connective3 to drive our global digital acquisition strategy forwards.

“After speaking with several agencies, we felt the team connective3 put together really understood our business and objectives and they demonstrated their expertise across multiple channels and international territories.

“The team at Moneypenny are looking forward to working with connective3 to ensure we continue to improve performance across all our digital channels.”

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Harrogate-based idhl Group has confirmed the arrival of a new CEO.

Ben Wood joins the digital agency group from his VP position at Meta and looks forward to driving the next period of growth.

Dennis Engel, group CEO, said: “Ben has a background in growing businesses to a significant scale and has a thorough understanding of the market.

“He is the ideal person to guide us into our next chapter and I look forward to working more closely with him over these coming months.”

Wood said: “After seven brilliant years with Meta, I couldn’t be more excited to be stepping back into the agency world with idhl.

“idhl is unparalleled in the quality, breadth, and scope of its digital offering, and in its growth story and ambition.

“In partnership with Dennis, Bridgepoint, and the incredible team of 420 people across the group, I can’t wait to contribute to the continued momentum of the business as we build something that redefines the digital agency space and continues to deliver incredible results for our clients.”

Engel will now move into the role of group CEO and will continue to provide strategic guidance to Wood.

idhl Group consists of nine digital marketing agencies including WMG, Ingenuity Digital, equation, NetConstruct, Statement, Pinpoint, Conesso, Fostr and Ampersand.