"We're in a real golden age of events" - Strata's 10-year vision
Paul Harvey catches up with Strata CEO Simon Hambley to find out why he's so excited about what the next decade holds for the sector...
“We're in a real golden age of events,” says Simon Hambley, CEO of brand experience agency Strata. “Post-pandemic, we’re suddenly recognised as being a really valuable piece of humanity, bringing people together to share an experience.”
Strata has come a long way since forming from the merger of Crown and Communique at the end of 2018 with the ambition of becoming “the number one challenger agency in the UK”.
“We wanted to offer something different to the established agencies and look at doing things a different way,” says Hambley. “I think we're there now. But our ambition doesn't stop there. We want to continue to grow the business, build the strata, and continue to make that offering to clients stronger and stronger.”
The launch of a specialist automotive division and high profile hires such as Caroline Lumgair Wiseman as group head of strategic meeting solutions and Endellion King as head of incentives have shown the scale of Strata’s ambitions.
“We had this ambition to create a company that had a broad offering,” says Hambley. “Everything from developing creative strategies through to the execution of conferences or incentives or consumer events. We wanted to be bold and challenge the more established businesses in the market, and then grow off the back of that.”
The arrival of the pandemic 12 months after Strata’s formation was an undoubted spanner in the works – but one that Strata was able to find positives in.
“I don't think anybody in our industry would want to go through the pandemic again, but there were a couple of things that ended up being beneficial,” says Hambley.
“One; it made us incredibly disciplined running the business. If you've been through it and you're still here, then you did a good job.
“Secondly, it was very disruptive. A lot of clients used that opportunity to look at other agencies and other ways of doing things. We benefited from that by winning more new customers. We were skilled at virtual already, we pivoted to that really easily, so that helped us win new customers - and then they came back to being customers in real life.
“The third thing is that the post-pandemic bounce has longevity, because I think it's renewed in people this need to be together and come together. Having had it taken away, we’ve recognised that just meeting face-to-face is really important. The industry was suffering from people looking at it as just money being spent rather than value being added. I think that’s changed, I think it's renewed the value of what we do.”
And Hambley can see a route through the next decade in the new events landscape.
“It’s given us a good runway to go out for the next 10 years,” he says. “We're the experts in a growing market. It's exciting. That's where the new products and the acquisitions come in.”
“Nobody ever says, ‘Next year, we're gonna have more budget and we want to do less’. They always need to make sure they're driving as much value as possible.”
Simon Hambley, Strata
Strata has been boosted by a series of acquisitions, the latest of which saw it acquire venue procurement and event management agency Trinity Event Solutions in June.
“Our acquisition model is all about coexistence and collaboration”, says Hambley. “We're not buying companies to subsume them into a big brand. Done in the right way, they accelerate growth and add scale.
“Trinity is a brilliant group of people with a real specialism within what we do. They are the experts. They have the discipline, the processes, the knowledge of the market, the knowledge of venues. And now we have that within the group as well.
“Trinity is still going to be Trinity and they will continue to service their own clients - and we can also then collaborate.”
With the acquisition of Smyle Group by Identity, there are a number of high-profile acquisitions in the air, I suggest.
“There seems to be a little bit of a trend for that moment,” says Hambley. “In our sector there'll always be room for independent agencies who do a great job for clients. But I think you'll see more businesses grow to a scale and become more global and more connected, ours being one of them. And we'll see what develops out of that.
“There is a definite trend with corporate brands to reduce their supply base. They want to work with less people if they can. They're always under pressure to do more with the money that they've got. It’s about being as efficient as you can be, adding more value.
“Nobody ever says, ‘Next year, we're gonna have more budget and we want to do less’. They always need to make sure they're driving as much value as possible.”
The changing face of meetings and incentives in general is also changing how agencies work, says Hambley.
“They’re much more focused on the experience and not just the execution of it. Brands are investing more money in what they do, whether that's incentives, events, conferences, because they recognise that it’s a really important part of building their connection with their people, which is harder in a post-pandemic world.”
Earlier this year Strata unveiled its bespoke rewards and recognition platform – Sherbet
“We took a risk with Sherbet,” reveals Hambley. “Mike Parrott (MD of Sherbet) has a long background in incentives, 25 years ago he was right there at the beginning of the industry. He made a case to us and said if we really want to compete, there's an opportunity to do something different in the actual rewards and recognition programme management. It's running the incentive programmes that drives the events business. It makes you sticky and gives you an ongoing revenue stream and repeatability.
“Mike had this idea to build something that would challenge the market, because a lot of incentive platforms are quite old. Technology has moved on. In Sherbet, for example, you can earn points and bank points like you can with a lot of incentive platforms, but they’re portable so you can take them from one employer to another. Ultimately, we have an ambition to build out the platform so that when you're earning a reward at a consumer level, you can also bank that into your points as well. Our ambition is to create something very different.
“It's a big project, it's taken two years to build it and we're just launching with our first client, who’s in the automotive sector. We've got another in the pipeline - that's going to be a really exciting journey over the next couple of years.”
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