2023: A year-in-review

Once Thanksgiving and those (in)famous Black Friday sales are out of the way, it’s on to the holidays! And what a year it has been for EKCS. 

We’re A Great Place to Work® 

Earlier this year, EKCS became Great Place to Work® in India. Great Place to Work® is the global authority on building great workplaces.

They have surveyed more than 100 million global employees. Its Trust Index Survey™ and Great Place to Work Trust Model™ produce insights to define what makes a great workplace.

Our offshore team is vital to EKCS and the award is based on the experience and opinions of colleagues working at EKCS.

New Starters

In April, Jennifer Kisser joined the US onshore team at EKCS as a strategic solutions consultant. She brought with her a wealth of experience from American publishing company McClatchy. Jennifer works with North American clients. Learn more about Jennifer: Meet Jennifer here.

In the summer, we had another new starter, Michael Storey, senior consultant at EKCS. Michael Storey knows a thing or two about in-house agency challenges and building big brands. After all, he was head of creative and branding at Ocado, the world’s largest pure-play online grocery retailer. Meet Michael here.

Digital Marketing and AI

In 2023, we enhanced our digital marketing solutions. EKCS now provides 24/7 support for campaign orchestration across all digital and social channels including website design and dev, hosting and maintenance, social media management, search engine optimization, media buying, and paid advertising.

We also embarked on an exciting new endeavor by integrating GenAI technologies such as ChatGPT into our operations, aimed at enhancing efficiency for our clients. The possibilities are endless, and we anticipate even more exciting developments in the coming year.

Chat with us to see how we can help you execute your digital marketing strategy in 2024.

Award Winning Team

We won awards too, in the form of two platinum awards for B2B categories in the TITAN Awards. EKCS won the "Best Business Support Team" award at the Penna SummerFest Awards 2023. EKCS has worked with Penna since 2012. Winning "Best Business Support Team" demonstrates how EKCS has supported Penna on ad-hoc projects and one-off marketing campaigns over the year.

Conference Creativity

Conferences were a big part of the fall. It was great to escape the English winter, albeit for a few days! It’s been great to meet so many industry people at the events we have attended and sponsored this year. The most recent being Creative Operations in LA last month. As Gold sponsor, Michael Storey and I took to the stage to speak about  “Breaking the Cycle of Overworked Creative Teams”. It seemed to resonate; what do you think?

A couple of days before, we were in Boston for the IHAF conference. I must confess that addressing the whole IHAF community, just before their awards is one of the highlights of my professional year! This time I took the opportunity to underscore my observation that while AI interpolates ideas, it takes creative people to extrapolate them.

Christmas Creativity On A Budget

Did you know that advertising magic can be created for £700 ($885), as a pub in Northern Ireland demonstrates? This viral ad has achieved over 7.1 million views on X. Featuring an elderly man and a friendly dog, it’s giving John Lewis a run for its money. It’s not on TV, but you can watch it here on YouTube. A warning. Watch with tissues at the ready! 

Resources For You 

Throughout the year, our team has been busy working on creating some interesting content. With the holiday season in full swing, sometimes we have a bit of extra time.

EKCS Blogs - Grab a cinnamon latte and have a read of our collection of insights and blogs covering creative production and marketing.

Free Guides - With the holiday season in full swing, use the extra time for reading.

Inside Jobs podcast - Hosted in collaboration with IHAF, these podcasts are a popular way of hearing how your peers get to where they’ve got and how they face the challenges that so many in-house agency leaders face daily. 

As we wrap up the year, we simply want to extend our warmest wishes to you for a joyous holiday season and a prosperous New Year ahead.