INTERNATIONAL expansion is fixed firmly on the horizon for Beattie, the integrated communications agency, as it seeks to roll out its partnership model.
That model was successfully launched in Canada last year and the company – who has one of its 12 offices in Glasgow –is looking to build on this for the year ahead..
It’s chief executive Laurna Woods is predicting that despite the Brexit backdrop, 2018 will be just as ground-breaking.
“Thanks to an ambitious expansion programme we now have robust businesses in the UK and Canada, an even stronger leadership team and a strategy to roll out our brands into English-speaking countries around the globe,” said Woods. “We have an extensive partner network around the world but we fully intend to expand the Beattie brand into other Anglosphere countries over the next decade.
“The partnership model is for us much more effective than buying other agencies. A partnership means everyone has skin in the game and that leads to better outcomes all round.”
Woods said that Beattie would continue to form joint ventures along the lines of Beattie Tartan and 11ten, its education marketing and student recruitment consultancy.
“Beattie Tartan and 11ten have been outstanding investments for us and we will happily look at doing deals with established PR, digital, creative, social and tech agencies in the UK and English-speaking countries around the globe,” she said. “The secrets of commercial partnerships are having a genuine rapport with your partners and sharing a common vision about where the business is heading.”
Beattie is already eyeing up the possibility of opening an office in the US, likely opting to avoid New York and looking instead for a city in which the brand can quickly become a major player.
Since venturing into Canada, Beattie has been swamped with new business opportunities, especially in British Columbia and Toronto, the fourth largest city in North America with a growing population of 6.4 million.
“Beattie Tartan seems to have caught the imagination of Canadian companies who like the fact the agency is headquartered in London, has strong Scottish roots and offices across Canada. Our aim in 2018 will be to reap the rewards of our investments this year by winning lots of new business, adding new services and continuing to grow,” said Woods.
During 2017, the London-headquartered agency established the Beattie Tartan brand in Canada and opened three offices across the territory. The group also recruited Kevin Roberts, the former global chairman and CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi and Alison Clarke, the former CEO of Grayling.
Towards the end of 2017 the group established a digital marketing team in Manchester which it plans to grow significantly in 2018.
Beattie has 12 offices in the UK and Ireland including Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, as well as Glasgow.
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