Look for a good support network, do lots of research in order to be successful
Jenny Stanley
Founder and MD, Appetite Creative Solutions
Jenny Stanley is the Founder and Managing Director of Appetite Creative Solutions and Women’s networking group, FemmeNiche. Since starting the multi-award-winning company Appetite Creative in 2014, it’s been her mission to advance creative technology in advertising. Jenny has held senior roles at Microsoft, Oddcast, Eyewonder and has been responsible for launching Adform Brand Solutions’ business globally. In her role at Appetite Creative, Jenny has won over clients including Best Western, Chanel and Armani hotels.
The innovative creative formats and solutions have seen Appetite Creative successfully win awards for work with Nokia, Walkers and Dubai Glow Park. Jenny is also an experienced judge for numerous leading awards including the IAB Creative Awards, Stevie’s Women in Business, MENA Effies and the #DoDifferent Awards.
She is also a popular and well respected authority on creative and brand solutions and leads seminars and lectures at industry events such as Women in technology, Dubai Lynx and IAB. Jenny also runs workshops and training sessions on Creative technology and creative effectiveness…all this while jet-setting between Appetite’s offices in Madrid, London, and Dubai!
Your journey so far
We were established in the UK but we had a strong client base in Spain and so I lived out here. It was a crazy start with many plane journeys which of course brought with it additional challenges on top of those of a usual business start up.
Thankfully, with a lot of tech tools to keep us all on track and connected, we managed to overcome those hurdles and now we have three strong hubs in London, Madrid and Dubai.
How do you help your clients grow and achieve their goals?
We focus on people. Whether it’s B2B, B2C or DTC it’s all about influencing people’s behaviour. It’s about understanding that target audience and the factors that are important to them and their decision to buy into or purchase a product.
Once we really understand that, we can look to see how our client can bring out the benefits in their product or service to match those needs. It sounds really simple but these are the first two crucial steps to success. The real cherry on the cake is that once we have steps 1 and 2 covered, we then turn to our talented innovation and tech experts and see what new technologies we can use to help bring these messages to life for their target audience.
It could be Whatsapp or instant purchase that is required, or maybe a new hybrid type of website that we can build as a real lead generating responsive portal. Perhaps it’s some augmented reality that allows users to really emerge themselves and engage with the brand…Whatever the best way is for them to communicate with our clients’ target audience, we have the tech intelligence to really bring it to life.
Normally, strategy, tech and creative are siloed, but we understand that the two need to work seamlessly together to get the best results.
Experience from 0 to first 10 clients and further growth
It’s been a roller coaster journey with many highs and client wins. Our first 10 clients were all roughly gained in the first 1.5 years. We are lucky as our ability to bring new creative innovation and actually deliver it with our own tech stack sets us apart from anyone else in the market. We are able to be flexible, move with and be ahead of trends, so not only can we dream up new ideas, but we can deliver and produce them. This is what keeps clients interested in us and the new projects that we bring them.
Keeping pace with changing technology and remain competitive?
We are a creative company and so our success depends heavily on our creative innovations and ability to bring new creative technology to the market. We subsequently invest heavily in innovation and monitor the success of our creatives and customer engagement, in order to adapt and build on our achievements. Our team are experts in offering innovative creative, website and advertising solutions and have a mutual focal point in identifying new digital media trends. It’s all about being proactive rather than reactive.
Top hurdles faced for business growth
One of the main challenges we currently face is lack of funding to grow the sales team and to expand the business: I feel if we were able to cover more ground, we would be able to generate more revenue which we could then use to grow and further develop the business.
Additionally, the marketplace is incredibly competitive and ever-changing which requires planning ahead, constant creative innovation and continuous monitoring of customer behaviour in order to maintain customer loyalty: It’s fast-paced transitional nature requires all hands on deck to ensure that we stay relevant to our market, and with ‘limited hands’ so to speak, this is a hurdle we are seeking to overcome.
Core specialties and offerings to your clients
We are our clients digital intelligence. We offer a 360 digital marketing service from brand creation to delivery: Our services include logo creation, re-branding, website design and build, animation, video production and much more.
In addition, we create liquid skins, liquid dashboards and other dynamic creatives to drive users to the websites and promote our clients’ brands. Our primary clients are B2B tech brands such as Fospha for whom we created a highly functional, updated website and re-branding, along with an easy CMS update and B2C clients such as Lego, Pandora, Disney, Cocacola, TetraPak.
Our USP is our ability to bring creative and tech together. Our market leading technical knowledge and our innovative and agile nature…along with our accommodating customer service. We are fast-paced, honest and straightforward and provide simple solutions to complex problems, making the process as easy as possible for our clients.
Key to motivation
Reading books, subscribing to motivational podcasts and Facebook feeds. Recently taken back up horse riding which is a welcome distraction to have a hobby and allows me to disconnect and then reconnect refreshed.
Some of my favorite books are
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – by Stephen Covey
- The mindset of Success: Accelerate Your Career From Good Manager to Great Leader – by Jo Owen
Advice to Product Makers
I’d say to look for a good support network, do lots of research and seek out courses that will support you in the first few years of business development. There are plenty of groups on slack and linkedin and webinars that are easy to access which give really great insights and advice.
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