Better Brand emerges after failed MBO bid

Feb 5 2009 by Andrew Mernin, The Journal

A FAILED management buy-out has led to the creation of a new digitally- focused brand agency in the region.

Mark Easby, Declan Metcalfe and Peter Jones established Better Brand Agency in Stokesley, North Yorkshire, after the trio’s bid to buy out their former employer, Middlesbrough agency Calm Asylum, foundered.

Now the new company, which specialises in brand, marketing and digital services, is looking to employ extra staff and achieve revenues of around £500,000 in two years.

Managing director Mark Easby said Tees Valley’s reputation as a creative and digital hub would provide the ideal basis for expansion.

He said: “We’re Tees Valley people through and through and we don’t want to move [from the area].

“The DigitalCity and Codeworks projects are changing perceptions in the area. People are realising the capabilities we have here.”

Better Brand aims to offer clients a higher return on their marketing strategies by developing their brands across web and digital channels, including social networking sites.

“In difficult times the businesses that will survive keep their customers close and spend marketing budget wisely,” said Mr Easby.

“The three of us bring very different skill sets to the company – Declan brand and marketing, Peter design and myself web technology.”

Since its launch, the agency has delivered brand and marketing campaigns for Teesside and Northumbria Universities and is developing social media strategies for some of the region’s key visitor attractions.

The agency is one of the latest additions to a burgeoning digital sector in the North East.

Creative industries are already worth £1.1bn to the region’s economy and employ 35,000 people, while creative businesses in Tees Valley are expected to generate more than 9,000 jobs in the next five years.

The sector is being underpinned by DigitalCity’s 25-year game plan to position Tees Valley as a genuine rival to other creative and digital hubs across the globe.

This vision is attracting the next generation of local talent, including Craig Forrester, a final year University of Teesside computer games science student, who makes games as a hobby and may stay in the area to start his own business.

Craig, who is originally from Staffordshire, said: “The other day I was talking on MSM to someone from another country who’d been doing some research on the digital industry. He said he was impressed with what Teesside had to offer.”

One of Mr Forrester’s creations, Johnny Platform’s Biscuit Romp, where evil robots are defeated in a hungry quest for biscuits, recently became the number one best-selling game in the Xbox360 community charts.

Also available on the Nintendo DS, the game took him only two weeks to make and was born when he “found some biscuits lying around”.

As part of his studies, Mr Forrester spent 12 months at Middlesbrough studio Atomic Planet Entertainment, which has developed video games including Stealth Force 2 and Bob The Builder Festival of Fun for the Sony PlayStation 2.