Uncommon Creative Studio, the ad agency launched in 2017 by three former Grey executives “for a time when the world hates ads”, is targeting the data-driven marketing industry by setting up a dedicated customer experience division.
Led by ex-Lida chief executive Jonathan Goodman, the Uncommon CX Practice will offer a raft of services, from designing data-led customer experience to creating digital products and services, and the development of new CX-led brands.
This move is designed to allow Uncommon to apply its multidisciplinary approach to the world of CX and deliver further on its mission to create brands that people in the real world are glad exist.
The CX Practice has already started working with existing Uncommon brands, as well as a number of new clients. Piccadilly Lights appointed it earlier in the year to transform the huge billboard into a multiplatform digital experience with people and collaboration at its heart.
The first campaign of this new partnership launched last month with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn, inviting people to share their photos of London for 1.5 seconds of fame on the big screen.
The agency is also partnering with a fashion tech start-up with the ambition to disrupt the fashion ecommerce experience.
The CX Practice team reunites founding partners Goodman and David Yates, with managing partner Margaux Sloan, who have previously worked together across several data-driven and direct marketing agencies, including Wunderman, Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw and Lida.
Goodman first joined Lida as group account director in 2010 after spells at Wunderman and Kitcatt Nohr. He was promoted to managing partner and then managing director in 2014. He returned to London as CEO after a spell in New York but left soon after the agency was rebranded M&C Saatchi.
Yates joins from the Next 15 Group, where he was strategic managing partner across its Elvis and ODD agencies, working on clients Cadbury, Honda, Budweiser, Tesco and M&S. Prior to that he also worked at Kitcatt Nohr, CHI & Partners and TBWA/GGT.
Meanwhile, Sloan started her career at Harrison Troughton Wunderman before spending seven years at Kitcatt Nohr and then setting up her own retail company in 2012. She returned to the agency world in 2016 at Lida. Most recently Sloan was client partner at M&C Saatchi, running the O2 and Royal Mail business.
Goodman said: “Founding our Experience Practice is a once in a lifetime opportunity, at a once in a lifetime Studio. The over industrialisation of CX has turned it into an efficiency production line for too many brands — delivering formulaic, frictionless, forgettable experiences. We’re looking forward to going beyond bland best practice and creating Uncommon moments of impact for our clients.”
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