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Welcome Miyagi, Integrating Strategy and Production Across the Customer Journey

Welcome Miyagi, Integrating Strategy and Production Across the Customer Journey

3 min read
Profile picture for user mediamonks

Written by
Monks

Media.Monks and Miyagi logo with a disco ball

Today, we’re excited to announce that Milan-based creative and marketing agency Miyagi has joined the Media.Monks team! Miyagi’s expertise ranges from data-driven planning to the ideation and execution of multi-language, multi-format content and experiences, both online and in-person.

Miyagi was founded in 2013 by by five partners Francesco Bragonzi, Francesco Menichini, Tommaso Marucchi,  Felice Arborea and Giuseppe Azzone. Originally a video production company, Miyagi has evolved into a full-fledged end-to-end partner that combines strategy and production under one roof. Notable clients include Danone, Luxottica, Red Bull, Xiaomi and more.

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Accelerating Growth in Europe and Beyond

Miyagi’s ability to transform itself to reflect market needs has helped it achieve incredible growth in recent years. In 2020—a difficult year for the industry in general—Miyagi placed on Il Sole 24 Ore’s 100 Leaders of Growth list as well as the FT 1000, Financial Times’ list of Europe’s fastest growing companies. These wins complement our own recent placement on Adweek’s Fastest Growing Agencies feature, and we’re incredibly excited to grow alongside a team that has achieved so much success for itself and its clients in an era of intense digital disruption.

With Miyagi on the team, we’re able to further our growth to expand our base in Italy, Europe’s fourth largest advertising market. “With close to 100 Monks in the Italian market and a clear focus on digital creative craft, I believe we will accomplish great things together,’’ says Victor Knaap, CEO Media.Monks EMEA, and S4Capital Executive Director.

Building End-to-End Efficiencies

Miyagi’s integrated offering eliminates brands’ need to work across several partners (creative agencies, production partners, media agencies and more) and enables new efficiencies—what Miyagi affectionately calls “the Miyagi flow.” By cutting out the added time and overhead of the traditional process, brands are empowered to nurture relevant, meaningful connections with audiences at the speed of digital.

The very same ambition has inspired our own integration, making Miyagi good bedfellows to our unitary approach to the brand-partner relationship. Our data-driven model combines content, data&digital media and technology services to deliver personalized content at scale, attributed through digital media in an iterative loop. But this does more than allow brands to act more efficiently; creative decision-making fueled by data and media also enables teams to look beyond assumptions and identify stronger ideas that enhance possibilities for Miyagi’s existing clients.

Monk Thoughts Miyagi’s work and management team looks a lot like Media.Monks a few years back, and we got along since the first moment we met.
Victor Knapp

Enhancing Our Multilocal Approach

As a multilocal organization, we aim to bring together an understanding of multiple markets to inspire action around the world. A standout example of this in action is our work with Mondelēz, a relationship that spans not only a wide breadth of capabilities but also extends across the globe. A multilocal mindset is crucial to help brands keep up with the fluidity of cultural change and adapt to shifts in social consciousness—especially for those working across different markets.

Miyagi augments our multilocal approach by bringing to our team a deep understanding of Italy’s unique, fast-growing consumer culture. Miyagi’s existing clients, meanwhile, gain access to a global team of multiskilled, multicultural digital experts to help them achieve even more across integrated campaigns and experiences.

No matter where they operate, brands face unprecedented challenges in delivering emotionally resonant experiences to audiences across the customer decision journey. Miyagi has helped numerous brands shortcut to value by eliminating the barriers that are typical in legacy networks and holding companies, bridging together strategic insights and executional expertise to turn winning ideas into incredible experiences. Now working hand-in-hand with the team, we’re excited to strengthen our new age/new era approach for world-leading, modern brands in Italy and beyond.

Media.Monks welcomes Milan-based Miyagi to the team, expanding our offering in EMEA and beyond. Media.Monks welcomes Milan-based Miyagi to the team, expanding our offering in EMEA and beyond. merger content production content strategy production efficiency

Prepare to Be Jelly: Jam3 Joins MediaMonks

Prepare to Be Jelly: Jam3 Joins MediaMonks

3 min read
Profile picture for user mediamonks

Written by
Monks

Prepare to Be Jelly: Jam3 Joins MediaMonks

We’ve got some news that will sweeten the deal for any brand that wants to elevate digital experiences: Jam3 is joining MediaMonks! Based in Toronto and servicing forward-thinking brands around the world, the highly decorated experience agency shares our maker’s mindset—and reinforces an end-to-end approach that combines cultural insights with creativity and technology to connect people to brands, to each other and to the world.

Founded in 2004 by Mark McQuillan, Pablo Vio and Adrian Belin above a Toronto garage, Jam3 started from humble beginnings—and has since grown to Los Angeles, Amsterdam and Montevideo, expanding our presence into Uruguay and bringing S4Capital to a total of 31 countries. Shared clients include Google, Facebook, Spotify, Netflix and more.

As Jam3 gained ground around the world, the team has also joined us in claiming space on the digital craft award leaderboards. They became Campaign’s US Digital Agency of the Year (Gold), adding to our recent EMEA Agency of the Year (Gold) award and other Campaign wins, and were named alongside MediaMonks in Forrester’s “10 Digital Agencies to Supercharge Your Marketing.” Finally, they join us in the FWA Club 100—an achievement shared by only 10 teams.

“The work that Jam3 and our team does is some of the most iconic digital work over the last decade,” MediaMonks Founder Wesley ter Haar told Ad Age. “This makes it easier for our clients. Rather than putting us in competitive spaces, clients can put us into combined efforts.”

Scaling Up Innovation Together

By joining forces, Jam3 and MediaMonks blend together two teams of cross-border, multidisciplinary talent—making us better equipped to scale up innovation and best in class customer experiences (CX) around the world. With our unitary structure in place, brands will have seamless access to the world’s leading talent in creativity and technology.

Monk Thoughts The work that Jam3 and our team does is some of the most iconic digital work over the last decade.
black and white photo of Wesley ter Haar

In fact, this model has been key to both of our growth over the decades. Like us, Jam3 has maintained a single P&L model that embraces friction and brings together diverse disciplines, which lay the foundation for groundbreaking work that resonates on both a cultural and individual level. In that sense, you could say our teams were made for each other like peanut butter and jelly.

“When we’re talking about being unitary or one P&L, we don’t turn up to the pitch with the same T-shirt,” says Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and Executive Director at S4Capital. “We are bringing companies together as one. Clients want us executing on the creation, production, and distribution of content. MediaMonks and Jam3 are two competitors who have had great respect for one another, and it’s been interesting from my point of view to bring the two together.”

Trailblazing a Shortcut to Transform at Speed

Perhaps more urgently for brands, our unitary approach is key to unlocking transformation at speed. When faced with social distancing and the need to serve audiences at home, many brands were ill-prepared to show up within a digital-first landscape. They had long placed their faith in consultancies who burned their hours consulting rather than doing—an approach that was never sustainable and failed brands when they needed to compress years’ worth of innovation into just weeks or months.

Monk Thoughts We were seeking a superpower partner who understands the value we bring to the table and allows us to excel at what we do best.

A longtime Jam3 mantra encapsulates this thinking: “Never trust an idea from anyone who doesn’t make the end project.” By cross-pollinating learnings across a vast global network of talent, we’re better able to pinpoint the fastest path to transformation while pushing technology to its creative limits, a process that has become essential for brands as consumer behaviors continually evolve.

We achieve this by zeroing our focus on building impactful, individual experiences—a purpose Jam3 is ideally suited for, as validated in its work and accolades. “When we looked into Jam3’s future, we were seeking a superpower partner of our own who understands the value we bring to the table and allows us to really excel at what we do best, which is the CX work, this high digital work,” says Mark McQuillan, President and Founder of Jam3.

Once rivals on the digital craft leaderboards, MediaMonks and Jam3 are now better together—and soon, our clients will be, too. “S4Capital is an amazing platform with lots of relationships, and we’re already seeing opportunities with our clients,” says McQuillan.

Two creative rivals come together to elevate digital consumer experiences for a new era of connectivity. Prepare to Be Jelly: Jam3 Joins MediaMonks Getting brands out of a jam—and preparing them for tomorrow.
customer experience digital experience jam3 merger s4capital

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The website has been translated to English with the help of Humans and AI

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