Digital's Clients

As a broad based digital consultancy, the projects range from market entry strategies and corporate due diligence, to training academy courses and staff development programmes. To understand how we can help you and your team, ask us about the current portfolio of services

• Find out how we can support you
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  TheTeam@DigitalStrategyConsulting.com
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  Admissions@DigitalTrainingAcademy.com
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• View client testimonials

"Combining training in classic marketing strategy, with training about the digital toolkits"

Leading international healthcare charity	450 clinics in 38 countries	Product development strategy

"Marie Stopes International is a world leader in healthcare provision with 450 sexual and reproductive health centres in 38 countries. As an NGO we have a complex mix of stakeholders because as well as talking to the clients who use our services – both in the UK and overseas, we also need to maintain relations with governments, donors, healthcare agencies, and a diverse group of journalists and audiences who could be interested in reporting news about us or referring in clients to us. It's a tough communications challenge, and our websites and online communications need to work extremely hard and be at the heart of all this activity.

We'd just completed a technology rebuild when we approached Digital's team to help develop our strategies for using these new tools. We're no strangers to the web, but we felt that email, blogs, websites and online content could be working much, much harder for us. With the technology platform in place, we wanted to know how we could use it to accelerate and expand awareness of the whole organisation.

That's where Digital Strategy Consulting and the Digital Training Academy came in. Their training team raised the awareness of the potential for online communications among stakeholders across our organisation. They then took a group of key players who would be involved in the projects moving forwards and drilled down on the needs we had to ensure our knowledge about the marketing communications models was at the level we needed. This meant combining training in classic marketing strategy, with training about the digital toolkits themselves. In particular we wanted to explore what was possible with blogs, page design, email, relationship marketing, online video content, tagging, search engines and page content. We also quickly realised that we needed to focus on building a larger database of key stakeholders so our email communications could be effective.

Some of our team were already strong on internet technologies, while others came from a marcoms background and were much stronger on how to communicate. What surprised us in Digital's team was the way they could deal with such a diverse group and bring us all to the same level. Their language was simple and their examples relevant. We were quickly working on really big picture issues of our future communications strategy, in a practical, hands-on, 'how-to' way. Their fusion of insight, strategy and training had us soon writing draft copy for new blogs, designing the content and templates for prototype email publications, writing the keywords and phrases for search engine marketing, and building out action plans for new sites and sections we could launch. They also made us rethink all of our communications through the lens of a dozen target segments we have to talk with, ensuring that we were not simply using the new tools, but that the content we were developing was on message for the specific needs of each audience. Rather than an off the shelf course that just talked about general principles, the Digital team used our own issues, materials and challenges to craft something that was just right for us. They also changed the topics and approach during the programme when we spotted new opportunities, and that flexibility meant we got more from the project. When the political situation deteriorated in Kenya (one of the countries where we have clinics and teams working) they worked on harnessing this as a live activity we could respond to.

When the project closed they worked through a debrief that ensured we had what was needed to take things forwards. They also followed through with action plans on the key issues and helped us coordinate ourselves to be able to plan effectively for how we'd take these things forwards. How did we feel at the end? More educated and confident as individuals, more aligned as a team, and with our thinking and theirs combined into clear practical plans for how we should move forwards."

Diana Thomas and Tony Kerridge: Marie Stopes International

Helping create the IAB in Poland	Congratulations to the first Search Academy graduates	Digital Search Academy from orientation to masterclass

Digital’s team helped in the creation of Poland’s Interactive Advertising Bureau, the trade association that would act as a focus for the region’s online advertising sector. Digital supported their directors through expansion and strategy development, wrestling with the critical issues of how you change the behaviour of a whole sector rather than just a few firms. When IAB Polska decided it needed a programme of advanced training to help its leading agencies and media owners maintain their edge and innovation, Digital was the natural choice.

Working with the new management team, the aim was to offer training provision to small groups of industry leaders. These individuals, through their agencies and their networks, could amplify Digital’s activities, changing the way very large numbers of firms behave. What sort of Digital Training Academies did we launch? We started by training the country’s leading Search Engine Agencies and Engine providers in how to deliver even smarter search campaigns, more robust search strategies, and more strategic results to clients. Then we worked with the top internet advertising sales teams from newspapers, portals and broadcast media to bolster their skills and techniques in digital media sales. As so often in Central and Eastern Europe, Digital’s clients want to leapfrog the intermediate thinking and go straight to the most advanced practices around. By the start of 2008 demand for the programme was rising and new courses in email marketing planning, social media and Web 2.0 were all being rolled out. As with the UK, Digital is the complete architect and provider of the training programme, with constantly evolving materials, new case studies, and advanced management coaching rolled into training provision that shifts the behaviour of a whole company.

The results? In the words of the participants: “this training changed the way I view digital marketing” … “it’s opened up completely new directions for our business” … “this isn’t just changing the way we work, it’s changing our company’s strategy” … “brilliant”

"Brilliant training and insights that transformed our team"

BBC - the world's largest news content brand	The new player	Digital Media Sales Academy	Digital strategy development

When the BBC began exploring the power of video delivery through the web, Digital's team were brought in as advisors on the commercial models for deployment. Long-term enthusiasts of online video programming, Digital's directors had worked with the BBC before, initially in Radio and then on the creation of BBC News 24, the rolling news network that would change the nature of news broadcasting in the UK. This time Digital's brief was to explore the structures and approaches for successful monetisation of video content and the advertising models that could deliver outside the UK. The solution was a blend of strategy and training with Digital Media Sales Academy programmes delivered around the world to boost the knowledge and skills of the whole global advertising sales teams, and a separate strand of strategy workshops for senior management and key stakeholders. Initial training waves took place in 2005, with the main global capability build following eighteen months later in the Spring and Summer of 2007.

The result? For the sales directors this was "brilliant training and insights that transformed our team" but for Digital's team the real pride was in watching one of the most successful video launches ever on the web.

The leading loyalty programme	Building customer relationships	Digital Community Academy

When Nectar's parent company were looking for additional input to give them the edge in online strategy and marketing, they chose Digital. The UK's market leading loyalty card programme has a reputation for cutting edge marketing, and a business model that has aligned leading high street brands behind a single transferable card scheme. Their understanding of personal data is second to none and their marketing skills are world class. That's the typical background of a firm who engages Digital's team, because together the Digital training Academy and Digital Strategy Consulting can give world leaders a commercial edge.

The brief was to help the organisation see new possibilities and models by engaging with consumers through the internet. This translated into a stream of activities that would seek to build enthusiasm among all team members, create goal alignment among the marketing strategists, build insights among the board of directors, and help the digital leads in the business develop product and content strategies for expanding the business activities. Waves of training activities were carried out from large scale breakfasts for over 100 people to an intensive Digital Community and Web 2.0 Academy for the product development team.

The results? A revitalised digital strategy, new web-centric product launches, and a roadmap of actions and plans for the next year.

Perspectives from the Loyalty Management team: “Digital’s training workshops raised many new issues for us. The rise of user generated content is something we wanted to understand in order to build communities around our products. When it comes to the challenges of building communities on the web we needed to understand what to take into consideration. We were also looking at how to manage the community and reward its most active contributors. Make people come back to web pages is a familiar challenge and we needed additional input in this area as well. Getting website marketing right involves covering many areas and we were interested to learn from Digital how we could tell others about the site”

Brand Republic	The leading site for marketers	Product Strategy Development

The UK's leading online resource for marketers needed a world class website. BrandRepublic.com is the online home for a dozen magazine titles including Media Week, Campaign and Revolution. Its news services are subscribed to by the whole UK media industry and whatever the group writes reflects the pulse of marketing and media in Britain. Their digital marketing reporting includes Revolution Magazine which has tracked the growth of the digital media sector in the UK for more than a decade, as well as dedicated sections in all of the media titles and an online television property. This is the definitive voice of British marketing and the home of the digital marketing community.

That's why Brand Republic selected Digital's team to develop their content and community strategy. The brief was to scope out all of the possibilities open to the group and to help the leadership and operational teams, their agencies and technology partners, to align around a single vision of what the site could become. Following an initial competition audit, Digital's team built management training and development activities that would help the leadership team discover new perspectives on the site and its content.

In a series of workshops, Digital led Brand Republic and their agencies through product development strategy workshops to discover the potential for the brand. Digital's management team added their own inputs and boiled down dozens of ideas into a core group of recommendations and a roadmap for how the business could progress. The result? New strategies and new models for BrandRepublic.com, ideas for new joint ventures and models for the parent company, a revitalised team with strong goal alignment and a step change in the culture.

"Remarkable quality of publishing management training"

Leading magazine and conference firm	Award winning business and consumer titles	Digital Publishing Strategy Academy	Management coaching

Haymarket Publishing was one of the largest privately held magazine and conference businesses in the world. Their history of innovation in print had led to a rich and successful formula that had been exported into dozens of sectors in dozens of countries. But when the media industry is changing so fast, the group realised that their leadership teams needed an acceleration in their knowledge and understanding of digital publishing business models. Inside the group were some of the UK's most successful online consumer titles, like www.whatcar.com and business titles like www.BrandRepublic.com, but to maintain their leadership role in so many markets would take a change in group strategy.

Digital's team were selected to create a programme of management training in digital publishing strategy. This was delivered in waves to the board of directors, the business unit directors and the lead publishers in six waves across eighteen months. Follow-up coaching was provided to key members of the leadership team, and training needs analysis and performance monitoring were put in place to allow independent assessment. Project activities fed into annual business planning, and key issue reports provided additional consultancy input just where the firm needed it most.

The results? A massive wave of investment into new digital operations, a series of acquisitions, a major increase in headcount for online divisions, greater focus on strategy and planning, and a name change in the company to Haymarket Media.

Head of HR & Training: "I just want to thank you personally again for the remarkable quality of publishing management training you have offered to Haymarket. You've allowed us to see through the maze of new technology and commercial distractions."

Publishing directors: "I wish I’d done it 6 months ago" ... "Hugely useful for me and very timely with business plans" … "Very much enjoyed" ... "Lots of thinking, questions and research to be done!" ... "Thank for an excellent couple of days, looking into the business transformation needed at our magazine group" ... "Thanks again for enlightenment Danny, your Digital Publishing Strategy Academy was excellent" ... "It’s much easier to visualise what the opportunities might be now" ... "The biggest thing I took away from this is being able to ask the right questions"

Find out more about the Digital Publishing Strategy Academy
More about Haymarket's award-winning titles: http://www.haymarket.com/

"Digital's team helped us learn about things we'd never thought about before. They really helped us to learn about how things can be done." - Bianca Loew, CEO, IAB Mexico

The fastest growing IAB association	Coaching the management team in Mexico	The largest digital conference in Central America

Challenges don't come bigger than this, but in 2005 this is exactly what Digital were invited to do. The use of internet marketing in Mexico was tiny, confined to a handful of marketers and just a few international agencies. Audiences were climbing steadily, but the culture was almost a decade behind its North American neighbour; a big change was needed. MSN and Yahoo approached us to explore how the Mexican market could be accelerated. They'd seen how Digital's team had helped push the UK to become the highest adopting internet advertising market in the world through our work to create and then accelerate the IAB trade association (which our team ran for almost five years). They also knew our directors had supported the launch of more than 20 other digital trade associations and initiatives around the world and by tapping into that expertise they might achieve in three years, what the market by itself may take six or more to deliver.

Working with key stakeholders, Digital sent a team to Mexico to develop the strategy for a new trade association and the acceleration of Mexican marketing, developing a mission and vision that would align key stakeholders, and an operational plan for its activities in marketing, research and standards. Digital's challenge was how to focus the association and its stakeholders so that their energies could be targeted at exactly the right points in the market to achieve a step-change in the sector. Once the plan was in place it was supported with two years of distance coaching for the directors, and a series of support projects that included the strategy for events, research and marketing initiatives. The results? One of the fastest switches to digital marketing of any country, the fastest industry advertising spend research study to be implemented and the largest conferences and conventions in the shortest space of time. Digital's team read the landscape, devised the plan and followed through to ensure the market changed, supporting the operational team with the right advice at the right time.

Find out more:

• Mexico hits its tipping point
• The day it all began: Los anos en internet pasan increiblemente rapido
• Progress today: http://www.iabmexico.com/

The world's business newspaper	Digital Media Sales Academy in London and Paris	Management coaching in New York

The International Herald Tribune (IHT) is one of the world’s leading newspapers, and its long established award-winning websites are among the best digital services of any newspaper in the world. However, as advertisers migrate their spend from classic channels to online environments, there are new pressures on media groups and new skills their internet teams need.

That’s why the IHT selected Digital as its training and strategy partner. The brief was to quickly build the sales capabilities, advise on key issues, and accelerate the skills of the whole team, with strands of activities in both London and Paris. The IHT opted for a Digital Media Sales Academy programme that would orientate all of the sales force to internet advertising, while helping the digital leads explore advanced issues in greater depth. Digital provided additional management coaching modules for members of the leadership team, and worked with editorial staff as well as commercial groups to ensure the organisation was even better prepared for creating online products that could be effectively monetised. As with all Digital training Academies, the training programme was customised to the specific requirements of each centre, and supported with tailoring to individual learner needs. Strategy exercises were delivered, along with a key issues plan and learner feedback.

Find out more:

• Digital Media Sales Academy
• International Herald Tribune
• Digital Insight Report: Tips from the Digital Media Sales Classroom

The ground-breaking trade association	Developing the entire strategy	Coaching member teams from 20 countries

Following Digital's success in accelerating the UK online advertising trade association, directors of the leading portals and agencies across Europe invited Digital's team to apply some of those models and lessons to the European federation of Interactive Advertising Bureau organisations. Digital's founder helped create the original IAB Europe, and then supported it through the market contraction of 2000 and 2001. At the start of 2005, the key stakeholders funding the European IAB approached Digital to ask for support in boosting the resources, infrastructure and operations of this young trade association, looking for a way to fast-track the development of the organisation to create a strong and robust focus for the industry.

The IAB's directors had already appointed Digital's team to key roles as Chief Executive and research manager, and invited Digital to create a membership programme and recruit junior project managers to act on its behalf. By the end of 2006 Digital had quadrupled the funding of the organisation, built a customer database and ERM programme, and set up its first London office presence. They led the next wave of acceleration with new funding models, and intensive marketing programmes including the first European Leadership Councils and a series of Task Forces to engage stakeholders at different levels. Against the context of tight funding, Digital also built the group's first websites and email newsletters. The two year acceleration programme concluded in mid 2007 with the handover to a new President and the formalisation of a knowledge transfer programme that would include Digital's team running the complex area of standards and best practice activities as well as developing education programmes for teams across Europe.

The results: During Digital's tenure the association was turned around, quadrupling in size and developing its own strand of direct company membership. Six national IABs were launched with Digital's support and the organisation provided a focus for the sector's pan-European activities.

The ground-breaking trade association	Developing the entire strategy	Coaching member teams from 100 companies

Digital's founder, Danny Meadows-Klue is often best known for his work in the creation and management of the UK's first online media trade association, the IAB. Back in the mid 90s Digital's founder helped draw together competing media groups and agencies to align their goals behind the creation of a trade association that could grow the market. The IAB in the UK was the second in the world, and Danny then went on to help other teams create more than 20 digital trade associations and initiatives as far afield as Mexico and New Zealand.

In 2000, the portals funding the UK IAB approached Digital to ask for support in turning the fledgling trade association that had previously been run by volunteers into an authoritative body, looking for a way to fast-track the development of the organisation to create a strong and robust focus for the industry. In 2001 the IAB's directors appointed Digital's team to key roles as Chief Executive, research executive and administration manager. By 2002 Digital had trebled the funding of the organisation, built a customer database and ERM programme, and set up its first offices. In 2003 they led the next wave of acceleration with new funding models, and intensive marketing programmes including the first national and regional conferences in Search Engine Marketing, Motoring and FMCG online marketing. By 2004 Digital had established the association's first publications, advertising campaigns and PR strategy. They had had trebled funding and membership again, building out a model that would give the association over €1.5m of funding in the next full year. The five year acceleration programme concluded at the start of 2005 with the formalisation of full time contracts for all staff and the handover to a new CEO. Digital were asked to provide support as non-executive directors and to oversee some of the more complex strategic issues in public affairs and industry standards.

The results: During Digital's tenure the industry increased in size from being smaller than the cinema industry to larger than the magazine industry, moving faster as a sector than any other country to record a higher share of spend going into online media than anywhere in the world. Digital's team are credited with directly transforming the UK marketing industry through the intensity of activities and the success of the association they created and ran.

Media owners

These are a few of the many media brands we've enjoyed working with. Some media owners use us to healthcheck elements of their strategy, while others invite us to redevelop their whole service. We run in-company training courses to ensure managers and junior staff have the skills they need, and we can in-source senior directors to bridge the skills gap.

Consumer brands

These are a few of the consumer brands we've helped with their strategy, vision or training. We can review your marketing mix and look for opportunities to enhance your communications by using digital channels. Our training services will help your team unlock their potential, and our practical workshops will help you discover the best strategy for your brand.

Trade Associations

These are a few of the trade associations we've helped accelerate. Our services range from management coaching and event keynote speeches, to outsourcing the organization's entire operations. We're best known for accelerating the UK's Internet Advertising Bureau - our third client when we launched in 2000 - and have helped launch or accelerate twenty more digital trade associations and initiatives. We also provide practical support, including newswires, website editorial and management, database management, staff training and strategy.

Finance

Our work with corporate finance, private equity and venture capital firms includes market due diligence, acquisition research and providing opinion on the value and strategy of target companies. Ask us about how we can help you make informed investment decisions

Government

Our work with government departments includes policy advice and strategy for directives, laws and regulations that impact the digital networked society. Like all our client relationships, we are subject to strict non-disclosure agreements, although we are able to work with commercial lobby organizations providing there are no conflicts of interest.