Two Newton Aycliiffe media firms have merged to form one digital powerhouse.
Branding and design specialists Echo Graphics has joined forces with Au Fait Business and Marketing Services to form thrive, a talented nine-man team at The HUB Workspace.
Echo and Au Fait, based within Enterprise House at The HUB, have been working closely together over recent years and, gradually, their projects increasingly involved the same clients.
Directors Rachel Townsend Green (Au Fait) and Johnny Woods (Echo Graphics) are now on a mission after creating their powerful team.
They’ve secured nine jobs with the merger and are looking to recruit web developers.
thrive – so called because it’s their aim to enable their clients to do just that – say they want to replace “interruptive and annoying marketing with brands and marketing that people love”.
“Audiences have evolved, becoming more mobile and digital centric than ever before,” says Rachel.
“This is why thrive combines a passionate, personable approach with fresh, in-depth knowledge and advice that evolves with the times.
“We’re now here to help businesses gain traction and brand presence across the cluttered landscape.
“In business, challenges arise, but so do opportunities! We want to help businesses to prosper.”
The new team consists of directors Rachel and Johnny, along with designers Tom Mather and Sean Ford, developers Sam Stonehouse and Simon Copeland, multimedia journalist Sarah Burns and marketing apprentices Briany Hodgson and Caitlin Sharkey.
Now an integrated and experienced team of business and marketing strategists, brand specialists and creative thinkers, thrive looks at everything from the perspective of innovation and creativity coupled with deliverable, business outcomes, measurability and ROI.
Rachel said: “We decided that because we’ve worked together for so long over the years, on and off, our businesses have become very much inter-twined, it made sense to join the two.
“We had to completely remodel Echo Graphics, with an emphasis on present digital solutions.
“My business has become more involved in social media strategy and digital content, so for a number of reasons it made sense to put it all together.
“We’re really close, there’s nothing we don’t know about each other, and now we’ve got two great teams working as one.”
Johnny adds: “Our central focus is having a positive impact on our clients’ businesses, through the foundations of creative strategic communication – that’s clever ideas, measurable results and savvy marketing.
“We’re all about providing solutions that help to improve businesses – brand solutions, web solutions, creative content and strategic communication, and all under the one roof.”
There’s no real secret behind the branding of thrive’s own new look.
Purple was chosen because it creates a “friendly, approachable image”, while the name is fairly self-explanatory.
“Thrive is just a really positive word,” adds Johnny.
“We looked at all kinds of different colours and fonts and, as we do with all our clients, we take a democratic view with who makes the final decision and decide as a team.
“It’s imperative that all employees buy into the brand and that’s what we say to all our clients, so it was important we had a new identity that we all embraced.”
thrive is now offering all firms on Aycliffe Business Park a free marketing review using their very own in-house system that measures the effectiveness of their marketing.
Rachel explains: “One of the first things we do with our clients is measure their business by what we call the Thriveability Index.
“We look at what they’re doing, what their market is, who they’re communicating to and how they’re doing that, and give them a score out of 100.
“This is just the beginning of the “thriveability” process. Once you know your score and what you need to do to improve your strategic communication, all our principles come together to work on that.”
Find out more about thrive at www.thriveability.co.uk, or give them a call on 0845 838 7517.
