The Story
In 2008 Return on Digital was established with the sole purpose of creating a strong Return On Investment for every client we worked on. As a team of digital savvy but most importantly, commercial marketers, we knew what we had to do. Turn every pound our clients spent with us into a greater sum. Much greater. And that is where our brand came from.
Conceived at our local Starbucks in Manchester, Return On Digital became a combination of saying what we did on the tin, a play on Return On Investment and had the www address available to purchase. We believe we were one of the first agencies to focus so heavily on the commercial aspect of digital. While technically we had, and still do have, some of the greatest minds in the industry, the problems we were solving were business issues, with digital as a solution. How to grow a brand from zero to market leader. How to increase sales of a brand which sells in supermarkets. How to increase average order values in an ecommerce store and how to achieve number one rankings on Google for fiercely competitive terms. This was how we built our reputation, grew our team and won awards.
8 years later, and although our commercial ethos hasn’t changed, the digital landscape has shifted dramatically. The Platforms available, increase in digital knowledge and the rise of mobile. Digital is no longer the thing you do because your competitors are doing it. Digital is just how you do it now. It won’t be long before companies don’t hire people with Digital in their title, it will just be Marketing. Digital knowledge will be a given. And that is where we started to feel uncomfortable with our brand.
We are now involved in far more than just digital campaigns, we work Omni channel, write digital strategies, work with whole marketing teams on strategies which link influencers, TV and even experimental advertising, it’s not just Digital now. Our team is evolving as well. Data people, PR people, Strategy people, Content people. In fact, it was no longer Digital that united us, it was an understanding of people, what they want, how they behave and how to influence them. Just like the old days, digital is our tool and not the whole tool box. We wanted our brand to reflect that.
The final straw was when vanity kicked in. At an awards ceremony (where we won), our logo and brand just looked old fashioned as it flashed on the big screen. It was time to evolve. We dropped the Digital.
We are now just Return.