RPM FRI Facts

RPM was founded in 1993, after we identified the growing importance of the experience economy and the opportunity for brands to create experiences that increase engagement with consumers and win with shoppers.

30+ years on, our vision for an independent creative agency, with a passion for how people experience brands at our core, has developed into an award-winning business, including The Sunday Times Best Companies to Work For. RPM’s purpose is to grow businesses through better brand experiences and believes that it’s the experience of a brand that truly defines it.

Working globally from our HQ in Shepherds Bush, RPM employs 65 ‘creative, strategic, doers’, delivering multi- channel global campaigns for clients including Diageo, Mondelez and New Balance. We opened our office in Amsterdam in 2018, to support our growing global clients based in the city and in 2020, we were proud to become a certified B Corp, the first creative experience and activation agency to do so.

We have offices in London and Amsterdam BV. Operating globally, primarily in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australasia

Our core competencies in retail, culture, innovation and branding are underpinned by strong capabilities in strategy, creative and production. Below are some of the specialist skills, tools and experience that enable our teams to work effectively.

We have a full-time team of strategists who have a varied background, from retail to social media, who take a holistic approach to planning but are also able to tap into more specialist media and channel experience. We have GB and global insight tools and proprietary models, like our Behavioural Decision Journey, which helps us with connected planning for activation. Our strategists and client service teams are commercially-minded understanding the commercial drivers of brands and the businesses they work on.

Creatively, we have strong campaign and channel communications and design skills, including best in class 3D capabilities and a render farm that enables our teams to work more efficiently. Across the studio we have a blend of creatives who have experience of comms, retail, experiential, digital and branding.

Our production capabilities are reflective of our diverse output, with teams capable of producing complex events and experiences, and experience in film and content production. We also have a photo studio within our offices, enabling us to cost efficiently create still and moving content.

It is our passionate belief that one size does not fit all when it comes to agency operating models. With this is mind, and to ensure we can deliver best in class work on a project-by-project basis, we have successfully operated a ‘Fixed & Flex’ model across most major clients, including (but not limited to) Diageo, Mondelez, Kellogg’s, New Balance and Reddit.

Our principle is to retain consistent senior team members to provide strong leadership and expertise, and to be in-agency brand champions. We then support these key leaders with a flexible team of skilled staff that can be scaled up or down depending on type, quantity or location of work.

There are 2 principal benefits to this approach. The first is that we can continuously develop and maintain brilliant leaders. The second is that we can create our teams in a truly efficient and effective manner no matter the scale / volume of work.

Within our fixed teams, we operate Client, Brand and Project Trios, small 3-person squads, typically comprising of Strategy, Client Service and Creative Leads (but often Production leads too), whose consistent exposure to Brand Worlds, category dynamics and strategic challenges can establish them as invaluable centres of excellence for each of the businesses we work with. This core team oversee each brief we work on for a given client, retaining and building on our knowledge and expertise of each business and brand.

This core team can be supplemented by a team of experts as a project grows, engaging efficient and effective talent based on the requirements of each brief.

Each business that we work with has a dedicated Account Lead, who forms both part of our leadership ‘Trio’ and acts as a single, senior point of contact for each client, overseeing each project and ensuring high standards of both service and output. This Account Lead will be supported by a flexible team of Account and Project Managers, put in place to co-ordinate the day-to-day management of each project and scaled up or down depending on the volume of work. We also flex the seniority of the day-to-day lead depending on the complexity of each project to ensure cost efficiency.

We are strong believers in measurement and evaluation and that this needs to be done in partnership with our clients to ensure continual learning and improvement. As such, at the offset of each project we create M&E dashboards specific to that projects KPI’s, these cover the Output (have we as an agency delivered the requirements of the brief effectively), Out-take (what measurable consumer and customer results have we collectively delivered) and Outcome (what awareness, sales and behavioural change has this project delivered). Once complete we host project evaluation sessions to ensure the results are shared and learnings agreed and implemented.

In a broader sense we also host annual agency review sessions, supported by a survey, to give our clients the opportunity to feedback on all aspects of our partnership so that we can continually hone and improve our ways of working.

As an agency we are very used to working on a project by project basis, working within a given budget and flexing our approach accordingly. We always provide clients with different levels of investment options for discussion at each project kick off, so that our clients can decide which direction to take and which investment option to approve based on the deliverables required.

We do have a competitive rate card, however we believe in output-based pricing; agreeing a fixed price with our clients when projects commence, based on an agreed set of deliverables. We will then work within that budget so there are no nasty surprises!

We do not mark up any 3rd party costs and, unless our clients require us to work with a specific / existing partners, we procure quotes from three companies / suppliers / partners for each requirement, to ensure we select the most fit for purpose and competitive.

RPM is committed to being a leading agency in delivering improved sustainability performance across all our business activities and services. We work in line with ISO 20121(International Standard for Event Sustainability) and ISO 14001 (International Standard for Environmental Management) to ensure we do this correctly.

As a responsible organisation that works with worldwide brands, we are fully committed to our principles of sustainable development; operating with integrity and being inclusive, transparent, caring and collaborative in all that we do. To this end, we recognise the importance of identifying those aspects of our business operations that result in social, cultural, environmental and economic impacts. We minimise negative impacts and maximise opportunities for legacy wherever and whenever we can. Operating a comprehensive Event Sustainability Action Plan means that we continue to meet best practice and deliver credibility to brand promises through the creation of tangible, positive brand behaviour.

In support of this policy, we have developed Agency objectives, targets, KPI’s and plans that are measured and monitored regularly to ensure continual improvement against our principles of sustainable development.

RPM also secured a B Corp Certification in 2020.

Certifying as a B Corporation goes beyond a product or service certification. It is the only certification that measures a company’s entire social and environmental performance.

The B Impact Assessment is rigorous. It will evaluate how RPM’s operations and business model impact it’s workers, community, environment, and customers. From the agency’s supply chain and input materials to it’s charitable giving and employee benefits, B Corp Certification will ensure that the RPM business is meeting the highest standards of verified performance.

Positive impact is supported by transparency and accountability requirements. B Corp Certification won’t just prove where RPM excels now—it commits the agency to consider it’s impact on stakeholders now and in the future by building it into your company’s legal structure.

In order to comply with the transparency requirement of certification, a public profile with RPM’s B Corp score, and the agency’s impact report, will go live on www.bcorporation.net.