Originally starting life over two decades ago as direct response agency Mike Colling & Company (MC&C), The Kite Factory is an independent media planning and buying agency that positions “Ideas that Deliver” at its core. What they mean by this is that measuring the work’s performance is just as important as the quality of the creative ideas. All this is executed with care that you only get when both client and agency share a sense of purpose.
Now at a “sweet spot of around 100 staff”, delivering integrated and digital media services across diverse client sectors, including DTC skincare like Skin & Me, wellbeing like David Lloyd and Love Honey, and FMCG such as White Claw, and the charity sector that remains its foundation – The Kite Factory believes a culture of trust and accountability has been key to its success. CEO James Smith speaks to DCA about some of the key pillars behind the agency’s unique approach.
Charity effectiveness applied to commercial clients
In the charity sector, the pressure to prove performance is heightened, as is the pressure to be responsible with budget. But this rigour is what has attracted clients from broader industries too, explains Smith. “We have to prove back every pound [charities] spend because they ultimately have to prove value to their trustees. So applying the same principles to more commercial clients was very appealing.”
This approach came into its own during COVID, which was The Kite Factory’s largest period of growth. They attribute that to the increased need for proof points and measurement in the context of scaled back budgets and an increased scrutiny on spend.
“We've got really good people that can help deliver the ideas; sat in the middle, you've got really solid planning and buying – which is competitive as proven by lots of audits – and then we've got the measurement that means we can prove back the effectiveness of client spend, which helps them have the confidence to reinvest at the top of the funnel.”
Accountability
The Kite Factory doesn't cling to clients solely as an income source, “That's not good for either party, really. It never ends well. We want to work with them because there’s a shared ambition and common goal,” says Smith, who implements a regular 360 feedback loop to encourage genuine accountability and evaluate and optimise the quality of working relationships.
The biannual exercise completed by both client and agency provides talking points around what is and what isn’t working. It includes performance, creativity and financials. “If it's not profitable for us, we'll be open and honest about that,” says Smith. “And on the other hand, "in the rare instance some element of the relationship was going unintentionally awry, we can quickly identify and resolve that issue. We find this builds healthier long-term relationships”. Longest standing client, WaterAid has been with the company for 20+years, and 40 per cent of the rest of their clients have been with them for 4+ years.
They like to be challenged at The Kite Factory. “We want clients that are going to be collaborative, going to be asking challenging questions; that really want to get under the skin of what we do, what we can do for them, and then make the most of it. If they just want a buying point for media, ‘Give me a media plan, I'll see you in four weeks when you present it’ type of thing, it's probably not quite up our street.”
A business collaborator
But the numbers don’t have to immediately make or break a business relationship. Sometimes, there is a longer lead and a more embedded business collaboration opportunity, which can really bear fruit. “We see the opportunity in their product or their business and then we put our neck on the line and say, ‘Actually, we know in the first instance this isn't going to be profitable for us, but we believe in you and your product, and if we can grow you, then you'll spend more, we'll grow’,” explains Smith.
A perfect illustration of this is online dermatology brand Skin+Me, which, in three years, The Kite Factory has grown from a modest out-of-home spender to now spending significantly more on TV. “Part of our ethos is investing in a sector that we think is growing, where we think there is an opportunity,” says Smith. “And by over-investing in the first instance, we've now got a really good relationship because we're seen as a business partner to them.” The additional value they’ve been able to provide on retention has also boosted subscriptions for the monthly subscriber skincare line.
Meaningful motivation
As well as happy clients, employee satisfaction is vital to The Kite Factory’s success, argues Smith. In addition to offering one of the most flexible hybrid working arrangements (eight days a month in the office coordinated within teams, using a desk booking system), and a culture of promoting from within (40 per cent of staff were promoted in the past year), Smith says that it's the type of clients and the ethos they represent that gives employees a sense of purpose.
“We get people coming to work for us because they like that, and that's why we've got to be really careful, because if we put clients into the business that people don't like, then we'll lose them.”
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