Industry veteran Julie Petch has founded Grass Skirts, a shop dedicated to creating harmony within the agency/client relationship.
Julie Petch
Grass Skirts focuses on marketing communications consulting, mentoring and client/agency relationship optimization which, according to Petch, can be encompassed in four words; discover, share, reco and repair.
“We do a deep dive with both the agency and the client and offer unbiased, strategic solutions and recommendations to both organizations to help repair, rebuild or prevent future problems and also learn to be more proactive to deliver more value and better results,” Petch said. “I just knew with my all experience and background I have found a niche in the marketplace where I could add a ton of value and make a difference.”
Petch has more than 20 years of industry experience, and most recently served as vice-president of accounts at TraffikGroup. She said she left the agency in April to launch Grass Skirts after watching the way the digital revolution has corroded the client/agency relationship.
“It’s kind of what I’ve always done throughout my career and that’s the part I want to focus on. I also want to help the brands connect and build relationships with their consumers just as much,” Petch said. “But to get to that good work, you have to have an amazing working relationship with your agency and I just see that eroding.”
“My goal is to help agencies and clients bridge the gaps in their relationship that are proving to be barriers to getting to great work. This is one of the biggest problems that I saw over the years. Clients are looking for value and effective spending of their marketing dollars, but they really want a partner and a company to invest with them in things that drive their business. They want the folks working on their business to feel the same passion and commitment that they do. It was an ongoing complaint that I heard time and time again…I really want to help agencies and clients alike evolve the dynamics of their relationships.”
Petch is the sole employee at Grass Skirts, and works out of her Toronto home office. She relies on a group of trusted colleagues to assist on a project-by-project basis, and hasn’t ruled out the idea of hiring staffers and finding office space, but is determined to keep as little overhead as possible to “drive value, not costs.”
The next order of business for Grass Skirts is to create a site, and get a presence on social media, Petch said. Although she has no clients for her relationship optimization services yet, she’s busy doing project work and working to build a client base.
Before joining TraffikGroup in 2011, Petch was president of experiential and engagement shop JetStar, and has also served as group account director at Capital C.
