After It’s Friday announced its move to full-service media, B&T caught up with Pete Bosilkovski, It’s Friday CEO, to chat more about the announcement.
The introduction of a specialist media division marks the next chapter in the independent agency’s growth two-and-a-half years post-launch and follows a soon-to-be-announced significant new business win. Seasoned media and creative connections strategist Michelle Miroforidis was hired to lead its connections media strategy.
Bosilkovski explained to B&T what led to the move, as well as the purpose-driven goals underlying the move, and the improved efficiency expected to come out of it.
B&T: What prompted the move to full-service media?
Pete Bosilkovski: The idea all started with some of our clients asking whether we’d ever consider offering a full-service solution. We knew eventually that was the path we would take but things accelerated with the discussions we were having with our current and prospective clients. We found that there is more interest from clients in doing things differently to deliver more effective communication experiences. Connecting creative ideas with media channels effectively and targeting desired audiences smarter has been the driver.
No matter the category, the market is highly competitive. And throw in today’s economic climate with costs pressures mounting, the need to do more with less, and get smarter with how we cut through, it made complete sense for It’s Friday to offer a connected experience model. It means the creative process isn’t being developed in isolation or in silos. The creative and media process work hand in hand and most importantly from the beginning of the communication planning process.
The benefit to our clients is that they get more bang for their buck and the effectiveness of our creative thinking is significantly improved.
B&T: How will this new media division continue adding to the rapid growth we’ve seen for It’s Friday since its launch 2.5 years ago?
PB: The thing we are quite excited about is the addition of new and diverse thinkers like Michelle. Michelle brings a completely new mindset to the way we curate communication solutions. Our company, our culture, and our ideas are better for it. Our style of thinking will appeal to clients who seek a greater connection with their creative and media process and desire communication outcomes that out-think, not out-spend.
B&T: What else can we expect to see from It’s Friday in the future, and what are your goals for the agency?
PB: We are really focused on delivering on our ethos of building brands that are impossible to ignore. This doesn’t just mean creating ads; we have clients that we create no ads for. Over the past 12 months, we’ve built out our brand design consultancy business delivering new Brand IDs for Elmo, Colonial First State, and Suntory. We’ve invested quite heavily in our customer experience/CX and digital offering from delivering more effective one-to-one customer experiences, content strategies, and redesigning website and CRM CX experiences.
We’ve also been winning upstream brand and company strategic consulting projects against some of the big brand consultancy companies. We’re really proud of these wins. To be involved in developing a brand positioning or employee value proposition with the C-Suite of an organisation is extremely rewarding. The benefit to a client is that we can always see the light at the end of the tunnel and develop a positioning that we know can be executed with content in the future. We’ve seen many a strategy where it sounds great on paper, but very tough to bring to life.
Our focus for the second half of 2024 is to keep investing in areas that enable us to offer greater value to our clients’ brands. As an indie, we have the agility to invest and bring in specialist thinkers. If we think, it will give our clients the edge and we can do it by outthinking not outspending, we are all in. There is a huge benefit to clients when you have an agency thinking about the total experience for a consumer. Siloed thinking doesn’t always equal better outcomes.
This is the holy grail for clients when both sides not only talk to each other but solutions are created together. Not only does it save money, but it also leads to more effective ROI and importantly brand experiences that are impossible to ignore.
