Brand new thinking
Expert says city needs to shout to the world about its own opportunities and abilities
‘BRAND Manchester’ should focus on promoting itself across the world instead of relying on Whitehall to shout about the region’s successes, according to one of the city’s leading business figures.
Christian James has been the owner and managing director of the IF Agency in Altrincham for about 15 years and chairman of the Manchester Publicity Association (MPA) for the last three.
In a wide-ranging interview with BusinessLive, Mr James also had his say on the effects the Covid pandemic and Brexit are having on Manchester as well as the current state of the digital industry in the city and where it will be in the next five years.
“In the past we have been guilty of relying too much on Whitehall to promote our region and to help us”, Mr James said.
“I think that once the dust has settled on Brexit, and once the pandemic is over, we will see the city look further afield for help and to expansion.
“We will see ‘Brand Manchester’ promoted across the world by ourselves.”
While a successful company, the IF Agency has not been immune to the effects of the pandemic.
Established in the last decade, the creative agency has completed projects for the likes of Greene King, Knowsley Safari Park and Pitcher & Piano.
Mr James said: “The hardest thing we have found is bringing people in during the pandemic.
“With everyone working remotely, it’s hard to get the training and culture right with new starters.
“That is the same across our industry and is one of the biggest challenges it is facing.
“Keeping up the style of the business that you have joined is very important and a lot harder if everyone is working away from each other.”
Mr James added that while a side effect of the pandemic is the earlier introduction of remote and flexible working, it is still important that an agency has a presence in Manchester, which he described as a hub for the creative and digital sector.
“Because of the pandemic, the exact location of an agency in Manchester does not matter as much as it did beforehand”, he said.
“It still matters of course, but just not quite as much as it did as people can work more flexibly and remotely so companies do not feel that they need to be in one particular place anymore.
“Manchester has been very strong in the creative and digital sector for many years though so it will still mean a lot that a firm is based in and around the city.”
The mission statement of the MPA is to support the media and digital businesses in Greater Manchester and to do everything in its power to help them thrive.
It arguably has its toughest assignment yet following the departure of the UK from the EU and the on-going effects of the Covid pandemic.
“The effects of Brexit have been overshadowed by the Covid pandemic,” Mr James said. “When the health crisis is over we could see companies being presented with a raft of new challenges which have been hidden from view because of the situation since last spring. “Manchester is nothing if not resilient, however, and I see no reason why firms can’t continue to rise to meet any challenge.
“If you go into the DNA of the city, you can see that at key points of its development.
“There seems to be a natural graft and willingness to do that in the people of Manchester.
“We have adapted superbly to the challenge that the pandemic has provided.
“There is an ‘in this together’ attitude that will help.”
Turning to the future of the creative and digital sector in Manchester, Mr James points to the recent acquisition of Mosquito by web development and digital marketing agency CTI Digital as a sign that the future could be firms combining to offer a more specialised set of services for clients.
“Companies will become more specialist in the next five years, offering more unique services that clients can’t get anywhere else,” he said.
“It will be all about doing something that no one else does and that the client has no way of doing themselves.
“Businesses are going to become less general and more specialised the further we go into this decade which may result in more merging together.”
The effects of Brexit have been overshadowed by the Covid pandemic
Christian James