French data-driven marketing agency Artefact – which offers brand clients a genuine alternative to both the traditional agency networks and more recent entrants to the market – has announced its official launch in the UK.
“Bringing together 120 UK staff across consultancy, in-house data technology, and media activation, the company has aspirations to become the world’s largest independent marketing business. It offers brand clients a genuine alternative to both the traditional agency networks and more recent entrants to the market.
The company, which is listed on the Euronext stock exchange, expanded in scale earlier this year and reinvented itself as a fully integrated global marketing business in July 2017. It has enjoyed 50% year-on-year growth between the first half of 2017 and the first half of 2018 and is committed to a three-year plan to double its gross margin by €100m by 2020.
The agency’s UK office will be based in Whitechapel in London and has attracted some of the most respected senior people in the industry. Tom Cijffers will lead the UK business as CEO, while Frédéric Joseph is hired as the newly appointed global chief activation officer. Ashish Sidhra has been recruited to head the consulting and data division in London with the aim to develop Artefact’s data science and artificial intelligence consulting offering for UK and global clients.
We bring something new to a market that’s crying out for a fresh approach. While there are businesses emerging that are now starting to challenge conventions, we don’t think anyone else has cracked it as yet,” Joseph commented.
We describe ourselves as ‘marketing engineers’ because everything we do starts with technology underpinned by data and AI. In essence, we bring an engineering mindset combined with a management consultancy approach to digital marketing,” he added.
With consulting built into our DNA, we are an integrated team of activation channels experts, data scientists, technologists, management consultants and creatives working together on a daily basis. This approach gives us the flexibility to build teams tailored to the specific needs of each client. Artefact offers a disruptive new vision for how the sector can operate,” commented Ashish Sidhra.