Carat Creates New Team For Increased Customer Focus
Carat has created a new customer communications planning team, claiming to be the first agency to help clients understand existing customers and better target their campaigns.
The new division has been created in response to client demand and will be lead by Shona Forster, previously head of planning at Proximity London, during its launch phase, a process which will take a minimum of nine months.
Under Forster’s direction the CCP team will follow a remit to “increase the potential of clients’ communications strategies by making them more relevant, compelling and effective to their existing customers.” Carat claims that several key clients to have already signed-up for the new service, including global drinks giant Diageo.
Commenting on the new division, Colin Mills, managing director of Carat, said: “Shona is a great talent and the right person to develop this new, important area of our business. Thanks to our independence from creative and below-the-line networks, we can offer our clients an integrated planning service under one roof which is unmatched within the UK marketplace.”
The team is comprised of customer planning experts, each with a wealth of specialist experience, including Brett McKibbin, formerly of KLP Euro RSCG and Osprey, Heidi Awford from Lida, Clare Robinson joining from the Leaflet Company, Rebecca Flynn, formerly of Cramm Francis Woolf and Louise Bowden who joins with experience from Brann and Experian.
The team will work closely with Carat’s Communication Planning and Data Planning teams to provide an integrated planning offering across all communications channels.
Explaining the need for the new division, Forster said: “As a passionate believer in media-neutral planning, I am constantly troubled by the lack of customer communications knowledge amongst its protagonists. Its incredibly exciting to have the opportunity to help Carat put that right!”
Carat recently launched a long-term research project designed to provide advertisers with a complete picture of the UK consumer landscape. Over the next few years the agency plans to invest a six-figure sum in its Project Britain initiative, which aims to provide clients with a composite understanding of modern British life via a series of individual micro studies called ‘pixels’ (see Carat Launches Project Britain Research Study).
Carat: 020 7430 6000 www.carat.com
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