LONDON — Tom Buttle, the former president and managing director of MikeWorldWide London, has started a new agency, Propellant, along with brand and digital specialist Stuart Lang.

Propellant is billed as a brand relations consultancy, blending Buttle’s strategic communications experience and Lang’s background in brand creation. The co-founders’ aim is to "build and maintain the relationship between consumer and B2B brands and their audiences, ensuring brands are expressed clearly and consistently through all marketing channels."

Buttle, who left MWW this summer, was previously the CEO of technology specialist agency Chameleon, which was bought by MWW in 2021. Former Chameleon chair Tom Berry was last month named as the new general manager of MWW London.

Lang, who founded brand and digital agency We Launch in 2010, becomes creative director of Propellant, while Buttle becomes strategy director. The agency is already working with a number of clients in different sectors.

Buttle (pictured, left) told PRovoke Media that Propellant was born from “Stu’s love of creating beautiful, soulful brands, but feeling they don’t get communicated well enough to the outside world, and from my passion for strategy, commerciality and purpose – to make sure the brand is standing in the right place when it shouts from the rooftops.”

He said: “The reality is that within so many businesses, brand is expressed differently across sales, marketing functions, product and leadership. When a brand lacks authenticity or soul – or just isn’t being kept front of mind – it’s hard to get internal teams aligned. This leads to inconsistent or even contradictory customer experiences, and that’s a big problem commercially. It makes it almost impossible to create differentiation in the market, so businesses are missing out on being on their customer’s shortlist, because they’re not liked, respected or understood.”

He added: “Our model is focused on ensuring that brand thinking is a springboard for what’s next, not just an ‘ivory towers’ piece of work. We use our own experience and our network to ensure the brand is being realised in everything from product marketing to digital, social and comms to sales enablement, so the brand isn’t an abstract thing that sits in a deck somewhere. It’s an end-to-end commitment, from discovery and strategy, through creation and implementation.”

Lang (pictured, right) said: “I’ve spent over 20 years shaping brands across all sectors. And one of my greatest frustrations has been watching brands that we’d spend months creating, get diluted and weakened when it was being implemented by internal teams or other external agencies. The best brands create consistency across every channel. And that consistency delivers clarity, and builds confidence in the minds of everyone. That’s exactly what we’re trying to achieve with Propellant."