Interview with Oliver Robinson – Director of Brandwave

What is the business?

Brandwave is a sports marketing consultancy based on the South Coast, UK. We specialise in the sports, outdoor and fitness markets, typically working as global lead agency on strategic and creative. Our clients range from household iconic sport brand names all the way through to fledgling start-ups. What unites them is a need for an agency who understands the dynamics of the sports industry market and has the proven experience to deliver.

 

brandwave-marketing

 

How did it start?

Our Founder and CEO, Daniel Macaulay, was working brand side as European Marketing Director for O’Neill in 2007. He worked with many generalist agencies who delivered great work and creative, but there was always that learning curve to get them up to speed. They always needed a lot of educating on the consumer, athletes, trends and product. This is where the idea for a niche sports marketing agency came from – narrow and deep on expertise.

 

How are you different?

We only work within sport, outdoor and fitness industries which gives us an unparalled understanding of these markets and the clients that we work with. Our experience, focus and specialism extends outside of these core markets, working also with the non-endemic brands involved within sport such as INEOS, Land Rover & RNLI. We tend to find these brands really value a partner agency who’s ‘in it’ and ‘gets it’.

 

What challenges have you overcome?

2020 will be remembered for many reasons! Like many who work in marketing both brand and agency side, we’ve never had to be so agile. Our clients marketing plans and our usual way of working were turned upside down overnight. As a process driven agency, it took some getting used to! I think we’re a stronger, more versatile business because of it though.

In addition to rolling out the usual campaigns, creative & brand consultancy during lockdown, we also delivered our first digital NetworkB event and conceptualised our own mini event series called the ‘Brandwave Coffee Bar’. We felt it was important more than ever before to help facilitate conversations and bring the sports, outdoor and fitness industries together whilst everyone was working remotely.

It’s been challenging but exciting at the same time. Keeps you on your toes for sure.

 

 

What are your plans for growth?

People often ask what we do, and our answer is constantly changing. We never lose sight of our ‘why’ and belief in sport as a catalyst for positive change but we evolve our services naturally; we listen and see how the market is changing.

Naturally, we’ve seen and experienced seismic shifts towards our digital services over the last 6 months. A lot of clients have used time in lockdown to take stock and re-evaluate their websites.

Building on our own digital events, we’re also further realising and harnessing the potential of using digital platforms to activate our clients events, product launches and to help them keep up their own dialogue with their audience.

Plans are well underway to deliver our first post-covid event later this year which has been a learning curve but certainly an interesting one for the team involved! Our feeling is the ramifications of restrictions will be felt for months to come but people are becoming more accepting, understanding and we simply need to adapt to accommodate this.

We’ve worked extensively in the bike world in the past but more recently, we’re seeing and experiencing the current boom in cycling first-hand. If the stats, facts and growth forecasts come to fruition, I expect our bike clients will be keeping us very busy rolling into 2021.

If 2020 has taught us anything, it’s how quickly trends can be accelerated when there is a genuine need to adapt. Market behaviours and marketing trends not expected for at least another 3-5 years have come to fruition in a matter of months.

All change brings opportunity and we’re looking forward to embracing the ups & downs of what’s to come next.

 

Find out more on Brandwave via: https://brandwavemarketing.com/

Contact Ollie on: [email protected]