Octagon

Octagon is a creative marketing agency with a specialism in sport, entertainment and culture. We create work that ‘earns attention’ through three areas of focus: partnerships, campaigns and experiences.

2018 was the year we cemented our evolution from a sponsorship agency to a creative force.

We produced an unparalleled body of creative work including:

• Campaigns for five World Cup sponsors

• ‘Effort is Effort’; A global equality campaign for AIG, heroing the Black Ferns and the All Blacks

We also won major new clients including Expedia and Hotels.com (UCL).

All of this led to a fifth consecutive year of record growth, notably a 29% increase in revenue and 60% increase in profit.

2018 PERFORMANCE:

In 2018 Octagon delivered record growth for the fifth consecutive year. This was driven by organic growth across existing clients as well as significant new business wins.

Financial Highlights:

o Annual turnover (net revenue) grew to £8.9m in 2018.
o This was YOY growth of 29.3%, exceeding our target by 14.2%.
o The UK business exceeded its target margin, hitting 16.5%.
o Growth in the margin number was 60% YOY.

Our revenue figures represent net revenue, not gross. These figures do not contain any pass-through cost or commissions (we don’t sell rights). They are fees received from work with our clients in the UK.

New Business

Octagon succeeded in securing new briefs including:

• Expedia Group’s UCL work; an international through the line creative scope
• Chivas Regal, new global partner to Manchester United
• Splunk, technology partner to the Trek cycling team
• Hublot and Gazprom for the FIFA World Cup
• UPS’s sponsorship portfolio in golf including The Open
• Bud Light’s football and eSports assets

Client Roster

2018 saw the agency deliver its most ambitious body of work as well as client services teams winning business from all our major clients:

• For the World Cup, the UK team scaled up and re-located to Moscow delivering programmes for five FIFA World Cup partners
• Our investment in our creative firepower paid off, with TVC’s for Zurich, Delta Airlines and more
• Shell Advance and AIG Life, extensions of current clients, were both competitively won against incumbent agencies

Overall client retention was almost 100%. Though we said goodbye to two clients; Sony Experia and CA Technologies, whose sponsorships with UCL and Trek ended, their endorsement helped us on-board their replacements — Expedia Group and Splunk.

WORK:

2018 was our most diverse year of work ever. We created experiences at over 25 sporting events from May to August. Starting with the UCL final in May we were on-site at events including Roland Garros, the Tour de France, FIFA World Cup and World Surf League.

We pushed the boundaries of our creative ambition delivering a record number of campaigns including:

• AIG – Effort is Effort
• Delta – Keep Climbing
• Zurich – The Golf Guru
• Liverpool FC – This Means More
• Standard Chartered - Numbers
• Budweiser – Light Up the World
• CA Technologies - Who’s Behind You
• Shell – The Ultimate Stopover
• Sony Xperia – UCL Entertainers

There are two particular campaigns we would like to provide more detail on.

Budweiser

At the 2018 FIFA World Cup Budweiser ‘Lit up the World’ with a 360 campaign to achieve the brand’s ambition to become the most talked about brand during the tournament. The activation included:

• TV campaign reaching more than 50 countries

• Limited-edition packaging / designed aluminium bottles in the flags of participating nations

• Trade toolkit

• Red Light, sound-activated cups were the hero activation with over 8million cups produced across 50 countries

• Man of the Match fan vote programme via Social and FIFA.com. Winner was named in stadiums and content was immediately captured and shared globally across Budweiser and FIFA channels

• Bud Hotel, Bud Club and Bud Boat in Moscow and the Bud Boat in London created for fans to watch matches live and other public viewing parties hosted consumers in seven markets.

Results:

• Achieved 2bn+ impressions globally against a target of 900m

• Received more twitter mentions than any other brand to become the most talked about brand of the tournament

• Outsold Coca-Cola in stadia

• Drove 10.1% revenue growth outside the US, including 5%+ growth in Western Europe and 6.8% in China.

AIG

The objective of the Effort is Effort campaign was to support AIG’s commitment to driving equality internally, to consumers and future hires by:

• Reinforcing their sponsorship to drive perception of a diverse business

• Providing a sustainable theme to link the men’s and women’s game and start positive conversations around equal opportunities

• Engaging everyone at AIG to create a unifying voice around Diversity & Inclusion

• Create fame and advocacy targeting 550,000 video views and increasing engagement rates by 25%.

• Align with NZR’s commitment to driving equality and positive attitudes towards women in rugby.

The activation included:

• Campaign film: highlighting the effort both teams put into their performance with match-cuts transitioning between the men/women.
• Distribution:
o Digital: earned, owned and paid approach
o Social: 4-week campaign (including teaser content)
o Launch pack: for players, partners & influencers
• Employee engagement:
o Screened at HR events globally
o Toolkit and key visuals distributed
• Content Capture – all of this was produced with limited access to the players with just two hours for the Black Ferns and four hours for the All Blacks.

Headline Results

• Video Views (KPI 550,000) = Delivered 1,647,908
• CPV = $0.01 (industry standard benchmark $0.05p)
• Budget (Planned $31,075) = Delivered $24,418
• Twitter: Engagement rates +120% (vs 90-day benchmark)

THE EVOLUTION OF OUR AGENCY

Specialist Focus

Our UK office has invested and reorganised into five specialist areas: Client Services, Strategy, Creative, Production, and Business Development. In 2018, we boosted our specialist expertise:

• Increased our creative firepower with an additional creative director, two creative teams, a studio manager, two designers and 5 full-time creative producers for our in-house content production team
• A new head of client service to upskill our account teams / evolve agency processes to deliver against diverse briefs

The impact of these new hires was on full display as we won new briefs against traditional creative powerhouses Wieden + Kennedy (Delta Airlines), and Mars (AMV BBDO).

New Initiatives

We introduced ‘work from anywhere’ and ‘unlimited holiday’ policies for everyone, putting trust and work life balance back in employees hands.

We took on our own charity partner, The Renaissance Foundation, for which we have run a variety of pro bono projects and fundraising activities in 2018.

All of this was underpinned by strong staff retention coupled with headcount growth of 32%, with hires from diverse backgrounds.

Client Testimonials

Michael Robichaud, SVP, Global Sponsorships – Mastercard

“Mastercard and Octagon have worked together for almost 30 years and part of the reason for that longevity is that all along the way they have been able to meet all of our expectations in many different parts of the world.”

Eelco Van Der Noll, Head of Experiential Marketing – Anheuser-Busch Inbev

“Octagon really excels at delivering complex programmes. At the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia they supported us with teams on the ground in New York, London and Moscow. They delivered a wonderful, amazing World Cup and were instrumental to the great results our company achieved.”