It’s pretty difficult to launch a successful business without public relations and marketing.
And as much as you may think you can do it yourself, you really should leave it to the experts.
After all, you may only get one shot.
With a unique new agency model, the newly launched Market Collective has you covered on all fronts when it comes to marketing. We caught up with the team to hear more about it.
Whose idea was The Market Collective?
It’s hard to remember who thought of it first; it seems to have happened naturally. We met and worked together over the course of an intense six months promoting and staging the inaugural Toronto Men’s Fashion Week (TOM*). We were collectively faced with the challenge of doing so with no budget; armed only with the strength of a good idea and a passion to see it through. Without hesitation, we threw our all into this event and in the end we knew we had killed it — it was a huge success. Through it all, we became friends who, as business owners, quickly realized that our collective energy could be harnessed and used toward becoming a new agency model.
What is your elevator pitch?
We are a tri-agency house comprised of three unique agencies that work together to offer the integral marketing components required for any business to succeed. Made up of the brand developers, Superfish Brands; the digital media strategists, Grilled Cheese Affairs, and the public relations experts, ANPR, we offer a powerhouse range of complementary services that work successfully together to promote new and existing businesses’ brands and presence both on and offline. From short-term, high-impact, campaigning to a long-term full branding experience followed up by ongoing digital media and press strategies, The Market Collective tailors its services to ensure the perfect fit every time.
What type of business fits best with the services you offer?
Toronto is experiencing a new business renaissance. In the years that have followed the economic crash, we have seen a spike in entrepreneurism in this city, and this excites us. We work with business owners who dare to take the necessary risk needed to become notable. We thrive on passion, love hard workers and seek out the city’s game-changers. We do our homework and study hard; it’s what allows us to work within any industry. After all, our approach isn’t an imposition of style and strategy, it is an invitation to an open conversation where each Market Collective company listens to your needs and offers only the services needed for each client. We’re always open to meeting new collaborators.
Would you say you specifically target new business endeavours, or companies wishing to refresh and revamp their brand identity?
Our door is open to any business, whether new or established. We won’t lie; we are always excited at the prospect of creating something new — but we are equally strong when working with established businesses. We work the constraints of established brand to our creative advantage and can always generate new ways for them to reach new audiences while staying true to their already loyal customers.
How long is a typical program with the Market Collective?
The beauty of The Market Collective’s business model is that it is inherently a collection of partnership agreements between agencies. Each agency brings their own clients into the collective partnership and customizes their services in tandem. No contract is ever the same, and we create timelines and rates based on each client’s needs and goals.
Why is B2B as important now as ever?
Globalization and the digital age have changed how consumers interact with businesses, but also how businesses deal with each other. The B2B experience has become more human, and as a result, much more compelling. At the consumer level, brand-love is at an all-time high, where people identify themselves by the brands they consume. We feel that businesses themselves are thinking in these terms as well. Rather than casting big nets and working in generalist terms, specialized businesses are collaborating with like-minded ones to reach a like-minded audience. Well-developed branding, online presence, and PR are essential to these connections because, when done properly, they effectively and memorably communicate a company’s values in way that is easily relatable by businesses with similar goals.
What are the challenges in uniting forces with other businesses and how did you manage these?
The most common challenge with partnering different businesses is natural competitiveness; who can outsell whom? Instead of working against each other, The Market Collective has partnered up and elevated the level of service offerings and capabilities in order to take on a much wider variety of clientele. Although The Market Collective offers an all-inclusive combination of marketing-related services, it is not an all or nothing partnership. We address your needs and goals first. You work with one contract and one point of contact. The services of our partnership companies are offered on a per-project, per-need basis, which may not necessarily involve all companies. At The Market Collective, we passionately believe in our clients and all share the same collective end goal: Success.
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