Peter Coish has nebulous ideas about the future of ad agencies, and is putting them into practice with his new digital agency venture Cloud Advertising Agents with support from The Hive.
Coish, the founder of online publishing company XY Media Ventures and former president of DraftFCB Toronto, drew his inspiration for the name and business model from the “cloud computing” concept. Just as cloud computing moves data processing away from one centralized computer to a “cloud” of online services, Coish’s employees operate from anywhere in the world, connected through laptops, cellphones and other mobile tech.
Cloud officially opened yesterday with a “node” or micro-office in Toronto that provides visibility for the brand and a meeting place for staff.
But the company is meant to operate without large brick-and-mortar offices. The benefit, Coish said, is a more nimble workforce. As specific skills are needed, they can be hired to work remotely from anywhere in the world.
“There’s lots of talk these days about what’s wrong with the agency model,” he said. “We think Cloud is truly different in the marketplace. It’s our intention to grow it internationally.”
Coish got the idea in 2008 while working with DDB in Qatar where “there’s very little local talent. I was getting work done by outsourcing various components of the development to people around the world. I was able to reach best-in-class people wherever they might be.”
Cloud has been in development since last March, eventually attracting the attention of executives at Toronto-based The Hive, which has now invested as an equity partner.
“We’ve been looking to get into the digital space for some time and looked at a range of models, from acquiring to merging with existing shops, and none of them really worked,” said Hive president Andy Krupski. “One of the fundamental things I realized was that if your people aren’t out looking for new solutions about half the time, you’re not on top of things. We’ve been looking for a way to build a flexible model that gave us global best practices.”
While Cloud will be Hive’s de facto digital and interactive division, it is free to pursue its own clients.
Sabaa Quao, Hive’s vice-president strategy, emerging platforms, will migrate to Cloud to serve as managing director for the Toronto team. Two project managers will also move to Cloud.
Coish envisions nodes in a number of international markets, each staffed with a small core team of creative directors, strategists and planners.
Quao believes innovation-starved marketers will be attracted to a company that can easily access new ideas from every global market.
“Even at international agencies that doesn’t necessarily happen,” Quao said. Within the non-competing micro-office network, “we have a looser structure to go find the best-in-breed in certain markets.”
No clients have publicly named.
