Maja Pawinska Sims 10 Sep 2020 // 11:58AM GMT
LONDON — Former Freuds director Mark Schmid has co-founded a new marketing communications agency, Simmons and Schmid, with B2B technology specialist Tim Simmons.
Schmid (pictured, right) had been a Freuds director since January 2018 and has been a managing partner at Ogilvy and a managing director of Halpern, as well senior roles at Good Relations and Citigate Dewe Rogerson. He has also spent time in-house, as communications director at TalkTalk and AOL Broadband.
Simmons (left) has run Wordworks, a creative business with a focus on B2B technology, since 2008 , after leaving WeberShandwick’s tech division where he was head of strategy for three years.
The duo met at Bournemouth University 25 years ago while studying for their public relations degrees, and mooted starting a business together then; they finally committed to the plan just before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Schmid told PRovoke Media: “I handed in my notice at the end of 2019 and I don’t know if we would have had the chops to do it if we’d known what was coming. But I’m so glad we did. Even though Tim has been more creative and I’ve been more in traditional PR, we have actually done a lot of the same things for clients.
“We’re bringing Tim’s experience in content and understanding how B2B brands can sell and succeed – with a commercial lens on much of his work – with my experience in reputation management, brand positioning and storytelling. And I’m really enjoying getting back to being so close to the craft of the work again.”
The agency has been set up as a hybrid model, with a core team of five so far, and a network of senior specialist consultants. As well as the founders, three hires have been made in lockdown: former Lawn Tennis Association digital and brand marketing manager Sam Fabisz; social media manager Sharon Chan, who spent three years at Ovo Energy; and graphic designer Rosemary Nicholas.
Schmid said industry redundancies due to the pandemic had given the agency a bigger pool of talent: “Due to the circumstances, there are so many great people available now who previously you wouldn’t have been able to get near. We’re having conversations with people from big agencies who can add brainpower and are perhaps not looking to throw themselves back into a full-time London role. Now is a really good time for a new business to make the most of their availability.”
Simmons added: “We’ve both been senior management in big agencies, asking clients what they loved, or didn’t, about the service they received. Now we’ve taken the opportunity to do things differently. Each client will have a core senior team that will know the client’s business inside and out plus access to our network of fabulously talented thinkers and creators. This means we can create bespoke teams for every brief and that we can flex to meet changing needs.”
Simmons and Schmid’s founding clients are in the B2B technology, retail, logistics and public safety sectors, with initial campaigns including animation and film for a retail customer marketing programme and an editorial series for a technology service provider.
As part of its community commitments, the agency is funding the Knock Out Knife Crime initiative (co-founded by Schmid), which uses boxing – a passion of the founders – to inspire young men and women to make positive changes in their lives. Simmons is also a mentor for Bridge Builders, a charity that aims to improve the social mobility and employability of young men and women from disadvantaged backgrounds.