International branding agency Landor has acquired innovation agency NorthandSouth to directly address the lack of leadership and vision for innovation in Australia and to take on other innovation agencies in the Asia Pacific region.
With a Landor study showing that 80% of business leaders believe lack of leadership and vision are blocking innovation in the Australian marketplace, Landor believe there is no better time to introduce an end to end innovations capability in this market.
“Australian businesses are crying out for breakthrough innovations that drive business growth. Landor’s acquisition of NorthandSouth provides the market with a unique end to end innovations capability,” said Dominic Walsh, managing director of Landor Australia.
The partnership of Landor and NorthandSouth will be a seamless process culminating in commercial advantage and financial success for its clients. The process is designed to go from blank page to fully fledged concepts in as little as 10 weeks. To create bigger and better ideas, custom tools are used to gain empathy and insights to test creative hypotheses with real people.
“The team will be focusing on idea-led innovation that uses design thinking to apply creativity to business problems and create breakthrough ideas,” said Giles Day, founding partner of NorthandSouth.
Landor and NorthandSouth first worked together on the Jameson ready-to-drink launch in 2013, leading to successful collaborations on breakthrough innovation for Pernod Ricard Winemakers, Nestlé, Simplot and KFC amongst others.
Recent innovation projects include Pernod Ricard Winemakers’ Double Barrel, a red wine aged in whisky barrels that has exceeded all sales targets.
“We’re really looking forward to unleashing the tried and trusted NorthandSouth way of doing things to more clients and more ambitious projects whether it be here in Sydney or internationally,” concluded Day.
