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In the 16+ years since eight&four was founded as a content agency, their remit over what ‘content’ covers has evolved from digital website content and editorial to social and now AI-informed social-first content – but always led by digital strategy and culture.
Now 80-people strong, working alongside – and often collaboratively with – sister agencies Inkling (PR and experiential) and Feed (video production), eight&four works across sectors, from travel, FMCG, mobile gaming, fintech, and the third sector, to offer strategic content direction, content production, and audience and analysis work. They’re also business consultants who can support with bigger picture strategic thinking, rooted in culture and content analysis.
They are led by their talent and supported by a robust technology offering, straddling creative content and the cutting edge of generative AI. Here, Managing Partner Alex Engert speaks to DCA about how the content-led agency drives innovation with AI, alongside social content as they plug perfectly into large complex companies.
Technology & Talent
As AI has shaken up the creative industries, eight&four have developed their own AI tool Platform12, which encapsulates their AI offering in one place in response to client challenges. Used by some of the world’s biggest bands in automotive and finance, for example, it supports in ideation and generating creative, as well as analysis and performance elevation – all serving to increase productivity and efficiency.
Coach and Scholar are their two flagship generative AI tools, with Coach generating images and video, and Scholar focussed on writing and tone of voice governance. Both come into their own as brand guardrails for large companies which need multiple workers or suppliers to keep aligned on their output. It's also handy for keeping an analytic eye on competitors. “It can be very brand specific,” explains Engert, “It’s built for individual clients so we set up a customised dashboard for each of our clients as part of our offering.”
Your specialists in social
“Social is the glue,” says Engert. “Teams have all come from a social and content background. So we don't just think of an idea and think ‘Where could this live?’ We think channel first: What's going to be right for the specific audiences? That's really crucial to how we think and how we work.”
Something else to note for clients is that all the teams are client-facing, meaning you get to speak to specialists on channels, paid or content directly. Further client-agency collaboration comes in the form of an annual L+D conference, Onwards, where staff present trends, insights and the latest thinking, sharing crucial knowledge with clients, allowing them to think bigger about strategic or behavioural change, as well as considering how technology might best be applied to their business.
Reactive and responsive
In order to create social content that responds and reacts to culture as it happens, eight&four have set up CultureLab, a team and process that works at the speed of social and expertly navigates trends and insights to build meaningful connections with online communities. Culture Lab provides a set of guardrails that protects the brand but allows for fast-turnaround content that hits culture at the pace it needs to by setting up a process where ideas can be communicated efficiently and approved quickly.
During the summer of sport, Culture Lab enabled some quick-turnaround reactive social content for client Screwfix within two hours, which led to some content gaining over two million views organically. “We can’t always spend five days getting content approved because sometimes the trend would have passed. It’s not necessarily right for every client but when it is well matched it works very well. We have many clients who utilise Culture Lab and collaborate with us to get trend-led content out there quickly,” says Engert.
A Plug-in Partner
eight&four is a perfect fit for ‘large and complex’ organisations. Clients include travel brand Sandals, retailers Sofology, Smyths and Screwfix, and automotive brand Genesis, the luxury arm of Hyundai; as well as long-standing charities like Marie Curie,The British Heart Foundation and Cancer Research UK. In more recent years they’ve become involved in financial services, with the likes of HSBC, Aviva, First Central, and JP Morgan Chase. If there is a common thread running through these varied clients its they are all big and complex organisiations, that are highly compliant.
“We’re very good at connecting the dots across different departments, getting everyone to align,” explains Engert, on where eight&four do their greatest work. Usually working on a retainer basis, eight&four walk the talk when it comes to being a true partner to their clients, basing staff in client offices and prioritising in-person facetime in the businesses they are supporting.
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