Dash Agency is on a roll. Since mid-March the Winnipeg-based shop has picked up eight new clients.
Chief among the agency’s new accounts is the home shopping television channel Thane Direct, a new agency of record relationship. Thane Direct, which has its international headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, is the largest account Dash has won to date outside of its home market of Manitoba.
Dash co-founders David Bell and Christian Lunny were named two of Marketing’s 30 Under 30 in 2015.
Thane Direct president and CEO Anthony Booth told Marketing Dash emerged as the clear leader from an RFP that saw eight agencies pitch for the account. Dash was the only agency pitching from outside Ontario.
“Dash was by far the best company that we saw who was able to break through clutter and get a new business noticed in the digital/social world,” Booth said. “It is clear that Dash ‘gets it’.”
Thane Direct is currently looking to test the waters of digital marketing. The infomercial model has taken a hit as audiences migrate from TV to other media. According to the CRTC, informercial revenues fell 19.3% in 2015.
As it looks for new revenue streams, the company has tasked Dash with helping it translate its brand online and connect with millennial shoppers who aren’t familiar with its informercial broadcasts.
Thane Direct is just one of a string of wins for Dash. This spring the agency was named agency of record for the Manitoba Pork Council and selected to work on social media projects for Manitoba Hydro, Bockstael Construction, the University of Manitoba and Stella’s Café, a chain of eight restaurants.
In addition to wins for social media work, Dash recently started working on both digital and brand marketing for Travel Professionals International.
Last month the agency also started working with Tourism Winnipeg as part of a new venture from Bell and Lunny called Cake. Cake is a new spinoff company designed to broker deals between social media influencers and brands.
Bell told Marketing he and Lunny saw an opening in the Winnipeg marketplace for influencer marketing and signed a handful of popular social media users earlier this year. Cake’s work with Tourism Winnipeg will be one of its first official projects.
Dash is now staffing up as a result of the string of wins. Bell said the agency has hired four new staffers in the past month and expects to bring five more onboard in the coming weeks.
