News

Smyle Group acquires gaming events company NJ Live

The deal brings the specialist London-based events company into the Smyle Group of companies, offering growth opportunities and cross-pollination of ideas, skills and resources.

Today, four times agency of the year and leading creative agency Smyle Group announces that it has acquired gaming and esports-focused events company NJ Live for an undisclosed sum. The deal is effective immediately and will see both companies capitalise on each other’s strengths as part of an ambitious post-pandemic growth strategy.

NJ Live was founded by Nick Joyce in 2003 in Acton, West London, and has grown to become an expert in the fast-growing gaming and esports segment of the events industry. Its gaming launch platform ‘Ghost’ is considered to be a significant development, helping propel NJ Live into a leading position in the field. This segment is large and has strong growth prospects: in 2020 there were 2.8 billion gamers worldwide, helping fuel the £200 billion global video game industry. Gamification is becoming increasingly sought after in business events.

The deal includes the assets and intellectual property of NJ Live, as well as its 20 strong workforce. Nick Joyce will remain at the helm of NJ Live with the support of the Smyle and NJ leadership teams. Both Smyle and NJ Live will continue to operate as independent entities, but with shared services and programs. Being part of Smyle will open up opportunities for NJ Live to utilize the Smyle Group’s strengths in the areas of experiential, creative, technical, production and scenic.

‘Exceptional added value’

“We are thrilled that NJ Live is joining the Smyle family and are looking forward to doing great work and helping each other thrive for the benefit of both our clients and our people,” says Rick Stainton, Founder & Group Executive Director of Smyle Group. “NJ’s team has long demonstrated a commitment to exceptional client work. They do this through technical expertise, sector knowledge, dynamic innovation and diligence. Together we can develop best-in-class solutions for clients through and beyond this Covid disrupted environment, where more engaging, sustainable and measurable activations are being asked for.”

“We have been in contact with Smyle for over five years, and this is the natural next step in the relationship between the two brands,” says Nick Joyce, Founder of NJ Live. “Both Smyle and NJ Live have shown innovation and a confidence in the return to physical events. Adding gaming and esports to Smyle will expand its customer base, and Smyle’s scale and expertise will help open up new opportunities for NJ Live.”

Published: June 2021

News

From humble roots to Creative Experience Agency of the Year

Smyle launched in 2003 and has always been rooted in delivering activations based on powerful ideas and bold creativity.

From its humble roots as a production company, Smyle quickly evolved into an experience-focused creative agency, with a passion for innovation, developing additional in-house services to evolve its offering to clients.

Rick Stainton, group executive director, Matt Margetson, innovation director, Dominic Thomas-Smith, managing director, and Andrew Dawson-Wills, operations director, formed the launch team.

In 2018, co-founders Stainton and Margetson sold a majority stake to private equity firm Rockpool after growing overseas sales to £16m.

The affectionately titled “Fab four” remain actively working in the agency day to day and are hugely passionate about its long-term future.

Over the past few years, the agency has continued to focus on evolving, which has included further developing its strategic and creative resource, significant investment in digital and building out its content offering.

Keith O’Loughlin joined as chief executive in January 2019, with strategy director Dax Callner joining shortly after. Ambitions were high and the agency reported strong growth across 2019-20.

Smyle’s continued success in 2020 has centred on its innovative approach to the challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, which resulted in the majority of live events for 2020 being cancelled or postponed.

In response, the agency delivered several digital products. It fast-tracked the development of its “Beyond” platform, its approach to digital/hybrid experiences, which enabled the agency to help clients switch to highly creative digital experiences with ease and at speed.

It also launched “Metric”, an experience measurement tool, while the formation of its D-Lab team drove technical innovation and digital creativity. It has developed a plan to drive the agency and its clients to a more sustainable future.

The pandemic highlighted the responsibility Smyle has in creating a socially conscious agency and it is focusing on how it can play its part in various areas across sustainability, wellbeing, diversity and inclusion.

The Smyle team also reached out across the industry as founders of the One Industry One Voice coalition, leading the #wecreateexperiences campaign to raise a unified voice in response to challenging times.

Although the past 12 months has been an incredibly challenging time, Smyle also found the period to be one of great energy, innovation and opportunity. As a business, Smyle has dialled into its core creative strengths to innovate solutions for the new demand, developing new ways of working, creating imaginative content and delivering award-winning digital experiences for its global clients.

Smyle is the Campaign Experience Awards 2021: Creative Experience Agency of the Year.

Smyle caught up with Campaign following yesterday’s virtual ceremony to discuss the win. Check that out here.

Published: April 2021

News

Smyle named in Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200

Despite the extreme impact of the pandemic on the global events industry, one of its leading agencies – Smyle – has retained its position in the ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing international companies.

Thanks to a far-reaching program of product innovation that has brought digital experiences to the fore, leading experience agency Smyle has retained its position in the 2021 edition of the Sunday Times HSBC International Track 200. The listing ranks Britain’s mid-market private companies with the fastest-growing international sales, measured over the most recent two-year period. Given the almost total lack of physical events resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, this is no mean feat.

“Our being named again in this ranking is a testament to our ability to adapt our customer offering during a turbulent time for the industry,” says Keith O’Loughlin, CEO at Smyle. “Being a physical experience agency that couldn’t – due to travel and health restrictions – deliver physical experiences has led to a transformation in how we go to market. Necessity has fostered product innovation in our digital experience offerings, and we are now able to deliver at scale impactful digital experiences to international clients.”

Cultural shift

The transformation within Smyle has not been limited to product innovation, but also seen important aspects such as diversity & inclusion, sustainability and improved measurement of the effectiveness of events given higher prominence. The agency has also been a vocal proponent of the benefits to the industry of working closer together and collaborating better as co-founder of the One Industry One Voice initiative, and the positive messaging of the #wecreateexperiences campaign.

“The UK’s events industry is among the worst hit sectors of the economy,” says Rick Stainton, Group Executive Director at Smyle. “It employs over 1.5 million event professionals and contributes £84 billion annually. It is a significant part of national GDP and should be central to the recovery efforts for communities and businesses.”

Published: February 2021

News

Thriving at Work

Supporting our people

We have committed to Mind’s ‘Thriving at Work’ initiative. This was launched following an independent review of mental health in the workplace that outlines what employers can do to enhance the mental health of employees, allowing them to remain in, and thrive, at work.

Thriving at Work includes six core standards that structure how we support employees’ mental health.

At Smyle we recognise the importance of supporting mental health and are passionate about finding ways to achieve that.

With 6 out of 10 employees in the UK (ref Mind 2020), having experienced poor mental health, we know it can affect anyone at any time.

We want to play our part in removing the stigma around mental health and ensure we create an open, supportive culture at Smyle, one where employees feel comfortable opening up about any challenges they are facing, and for us to do what we can to support them.

News

INTRODUCING FLEX

FLEX - our approach to agile working

For Smylers work isn’t just work.

We’re a committed, passionate bunch who love what we do.

We also have busy, varied lives, and so we’re committed to finding ways to create space for our people to be able to do their work in more flexible ways that better suit them.

We believe that being together, in-person, and having a sense of community and collaboration is so important for our culture and for doing the work we do - planning fast paced projects, solving creative challenges or technical problems, and innovating for our clients. We want to hold onto that sense of community.

We are equally passionate about creating a more flexible way of working, one that creates balance, agility, and inclusion for our team.

We know that one policy to suit every role and individual need at Smyle won’t be possible, so, instead, we’ve focused on creating values our people commit to.

These values are underpinned by a framework on how we manage our time and working location.

FLEX TIME

Smylers make up their contracted hours across the week while committing to core hours of 10am – 4pm (outside those hours, it’s up to them!) so there’s more choice around the start and end of their day, creating agility and flexibility for busy lives.

FLEX LOCATION

We have a variety of roles at Smyle that span a number of specialist services. Our team works from the location that enables them to deliver in their role in the best way for them, their teammates and our clients.

Most Smylers aim for a 50:50 split between home and office. Anyone wanting to be in the office more than this, is completely A-OK with us too!

News

Powered by Humans

Powered by Humans is a new agency set to revolutionise the employee experience by applying best-in-class marketing and advertising practices to drive brand love and advocacy.

Created by The Smyle Group following a paradigm shift in internal culture during the pandemic, Powered by Humans works with businesses to deliver campaigns and experiences that unleash the power of the humans behind the brand by giving them the best experience of it.

The new agency targets a hugely often neglected area of business, despite research showing that investment in internal culture increases both productivity and profitability1.

With a focus on equitable experiences for all, Powered by Humans is guided by insight, strategy and ‘big idea’ creativity for positive human impact regardless of background.

Services include strategy and planning; talent acquisition, development and retention; communication; and change.

The launch of Powered by Humans is the newest addition to The Smyle Group, which has rapidly grown its presence in the experiential and creative industries.

I’m really excited to be part of the team launching our new agency and working with brands who genuinely care about a meaningful employee experience. Exceptional employee experience is at the heart of excellent customer experience.

Throughout my career, I’ve seen the disparity between the value brands place on customers versus colleagues. Thankfully many organisations recognise the value in investing in their people, especially during those moments that matter on their employment journey, and that’s exactly where we will be able to help.
Director of Powered by Humans, Lee Ashton