MADEBRAVE, the digital creative agency, has revealed it is on track to lift turnover by 15 per cent to £1.1 million in its current year – and maintain its profit-making run.
The Glasgow-based agency, founded by Andrew Dobbie, said its growth has been powered by a series of client wins. Beam Suntory, Abellio Event Connect, Magenta and Vets Now are among the latest to come on board, joining a roster of nearly 100 clients including IBM, Scottish Equity Partners, Clyde Gateway and Clintec.
The expansion has given the company the confidence to undertake a bold recruitment drive, and has just launched a campaign which will see it post “7 jobs across 7 days”.
The agency, which employs 24 at The Albus in Glasgow’s east end, is looking to take on further digital creative personnel and account managers to capitalise on the flood of inquiries now coming through its doors.
Mr Dobbie spent eight years with former Celtic footballer Paul McStay’s Midgi Byte Creations before launching Made Brave in 2012. He said the MadeBrave brand “only seems to be getting stronger and stronger.
“In the early days, it was probably about me and the story, but the brand seems to be taking over, which is good,” he said. “People seem to have some sort of affinity for the MadeBrave brand. From what I can tell, it seems to be when anyone talks about an agency, we seem to be on the tip of most people’s tongues. It keeps bringing more business really.”
Looking ahead, Mr Dobbie said the company’s recent move into hosting skills workshops is likely to “play out big” for the agency next year. It recently attracted 467 to an event it co-hosted with Google, as part of its partnership with the internet giant’s Digital Garage pop-up in Glasgow, “without trying too much”.
Mr Dobbie said the agency has been profitable every year since its inception, but declined to give any guidance on its expectations of profit levels this year.
He added: “The accounts we are attracting are essentially much larger now. I think that’s natural for this size of business – you start with smaller ones but once you’ve established the brand and a decent-sized team, the next thing that comes are the larger accounts. We are going to see the impact of those as we pull them on over this coming year.”
Mr Dobbie was recently invited to executives from the BBC and Channel 4 on the board of TRC Media, which runs training courses for the media industry.
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