IT’S TIME TO TRY SOMETHING NEW
When you’re living in the middle of a global pandemic, watching Ben Fogle’s ‘Lives in the Wild’ takes on new meaning. Seeing Fogle travel the world experiencing the lives and lifestyles of brave souls who’ve unplugged from ‘normal’ life to live a completed change, self-sufficient and often isolated existence gets you thinking. It isn’t just glorious escapism, it is a fascinating insight into people motivated by a new, better way of life ‘off the grid’.
2020 was our ‘off grid’ moment. But, instead of living in a tent made of beans in the Outer Hebrides we stayed closer to home - normally at a kitchen table or in a spare bedroom - with a plan for a new agency model motivated by a better way of doing things. Nothing about 2020 made decision-making easy. In many respects our freedom to choose was, and continues to be, compromised. But one thing it afforded was the time and space to reflect.
Space
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist, psychologist and Holocaust survivor said, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
2020 was our stimulus. The world was reaching out and giving us a great big shove. It was our time to question, and in that space we challenged the industry and the careers that we are so passionate about, and we chose our response - to challenge agency convention.
Time for change
The Space Between is our blueprint for the future of Sports & Entertainment marketing. We’ve seen it all and feel blessed to have worked with brilliant people in award-winning agencies. But the agency model must evolve to meet the changing needs of brands. We’ve created a hybrid agency that operates in the space between networked agencies and consultants. We’re a specialist core team working with a vast network of highly-skilled, diverse thinkers and creatives across all disciplines and sectors. This gives our clients big agency experience with greater speed, flexibility, and value. Our model means we’ll only sell you what you need and can plug in sector or discipline expertise for each project. No inefficient standing armies of staff. No keeping it all in-house. No square peg in round holes. And clients will have us, the co-founders, working on their business, not swallowed up in our own.
People first
There is no doubting the importance of sport and entertainment as powerful platforms for brand marketing - only this month we started working with a new business that sees no other option than to launch their brand straight into the heart of an audience and community through sponsorship. And they’re right. Sponsorship is statistically the most effective channel for altering brand perception. In a world where brands need to be multi-dimensional and consumers are no longer passive observers, sponsorship is just the platform to engage emotionally, physically, and intellectually.
We’re in an industry that sells itself on big audiences and yet we’re continually dumbfounded by how little the industry knows about who they are. As far as we’re concerned all great marketing starts with a deep understanding of people, which is why we put them at the heart of everything we do – from understanding human emotion and behaviour better to the way we work and the people we work with.
Our values
Viktor Frankl’s philosophy inspired us to respond thoughtfully to the challenging economic conditions, but also to create a culture that supports personal growth and freedom - where we choose our behaviours to create a healthy and happy place of work. This is a mindset and way of behaving to which we hold ourselves to account. Our passion for the sports and entertainment industry goes without saying and goes beyond the commercial. Right now, our industry is hurting, which is why we start our new business with a genuine desire to give a platform to the diverse talent in the industry and return value back where it needs it most.
The last words of this first blog should be reserved for our clients and team. Thank you to our founding clients Vitality, Mitsubishi Motors and Principality Building Society for coming on this journey, showing such faith and giving us a gigantic boost in confidence. We owe a huge debt of gratitude. And to our team who stand alongside us…thank you.
The Space Between is officially open for business and we’ve got big plans. Watch this space.
Tom, Lisa & Adam