Some of the minds behind branding shop Cundari SFP and its predecessor Spencer Francey Peters have formed a new independent branding agency called Trajectory.
Peter Francey, Clark Spencer and Paul Hodgson, who formed Spencer Francey Peters in 1977 and sold it to Cundari in 2004, left Cundari in November.
They’ve been joined by Jeannette Hanna, former Cundari SFP vice-president, brand strategy and the co-author of Ikonica: A Field Guide to Canada’s Brandscape, to soft-launch Trajectory in January.
The partners are now officially putting out their shingle in downtown Toronto after landing projects with Spokane, Wash.-based pharmaceutical company HollisterStier, the Canadian Partnership Against Cancer, The Centre Ltd. in Bermuda and the Toronto City Summit Alliance.
Hanna, Trajectory’s vice-president of strategy, said that many large-scale agencies aren’t meeting needs of marketers.
New social technology creates an “interdependence of commerce, internal culture and community building,” said Hanna. “Traditional [agency] practice has not been good about linking those things… Part of [the reason for staring Trajectory] is to redesign the function of brand strategy and focus on those interdependencies.”
Organizations now “live in glass houses” thanks to vigilant online consumer communities–loyal and otherwise, Hanna said, claiming companies are better served by specialty shops like Trajectory that focus on the new “interdependence,” not traditional agencies.
“When we sold to Cundari, there was a lot of pressure at that point to be a larger agency, a one-stop shop,” said Francey, the new agency’s president. “Clients were looking for a lot of diverse services and we didn’t have it all in-house. If you’re an entrepreneur and you get into a big organization, it’s tough to feel like you’re still in control of things… You’ve got to go through a lot of channels.
“I think what Cundari is doing is fine. They’ve got a very strong offering that takes into account a lot of different disciplines.”
“If you’re in an advertising-centric organization, that’s the starting point of the conversation,” said Hanna. “What we want to do is start the conversation at a different point.”
The group has tapped former Canada Post chief marketing officer Daniel Sawaya to assume the chairman’s post.
“I’m excited to be part of the new breed of agency,” said Sawaya, in a statement. “The way we’re redefining brand fundamentals for companies who want to integrate business purpose with being socially responsible global citizens is very timely.”
