Tech Startup Globality Wants to Connect Marketers With Small Agencies
January 11 2017 - 12:47PM
Dow Jones News
By Alexandra Bruell
For a marketer, finding an ad agency in another geographic
market -- especially to handle a one-off project -- can be
expensive, tedious and time-consuming.
The startup Globality wants to change that with an algorithm
that connects brands with small and midsize local agencies around
the world.
Globality, which also wants to help large companies search for
energy, legal, environment and social impact services firms, is the
brainchild of former Current TV CEO Joel Hyatt. The Silicon Valley
startup has raised $37.5 million in funding from investors that
include former Vice President Al Gore; Yahoo Chief Financial
Officer Ken Goldman; and John Emerson, the U.S. ambassador to
Germany; among others.
Marketing was an obvious fit as one of the initial service
verticals, said Deborah Conrad, chief marketing and revenue officer
at Globality and former marketing chief at Intel.
"It's one of those areas where we felt we could make a very
strong impact really early on," she said. "It's not legislated like
accounting or other service areas where there's a degree of
difficulty." The idea, she said, is to help small global firms and
fix an "antiquated process."
Globality, which thus far has vetted and invited 350 ad agencies
across the globe to join its platform, only supports searches for
projects budgeted over $100,000. Agency head count is capped at
around 500.
"Our mission is to make globalization work for more businesses
and people around the world," said Mr. Hyatt, Globality's
co-founder and CEO, in a statement. "We will bring buyers and
sellers unprecedented access to new business opportunities."
Unlike other search consultancies, Globality doesn't charge the
marketing client directly. Rather, it charges the winning agency a
15% fee of the total project budget. For most traditional
consultants, that compensation requirement would be problematic,
since not all clients pay their agencies on time. With Globality,
the client is obligated to place the project funds into an escrow
account when both sides have a signed contract.
More marketers are moving away from awarding long-term retainer
accounts in favor of one-off projects, making Globality's approach
ripe for success, said Ms. Conrad.
Typically, a client with an international project assignment for
a campaign or product launch might just tap into a large global
network they already work with at home, rather than consider a
smaller and more specialized independent shop that might be a
better choice for the project.
Globality, which has 75 full-time employees, is now trying to
convince a number of large companies that they have choices. For
example, a Scandinavian company that makes jet engines tapped
Globality to help with brand strategy and social media in South
Korea. "That's just hard," said Ms. Conrad.
The process starts with the creation of a client brief.
Globality's system prompts the client to answer a number of
questions about its objective. With each question that gets
answered, the system then offers more specific follow-up questions,
and ultimately refines its recommendations for which agencies the
client should select from. Globality executives then vet the
selections and work closely with the brands throughout the agency
review.
Porter Gale, senior vice president of partnerships at Globality
and former vice president of marketing at Virgin America, is among
the senior marketing executives supporting the business.
"The vision is very much the marrying of the technology with the
human curation," said Ms. Conrad.
Globality doesn't want to limit its technology or approach to
specific service industries like marketing and law. Ultimately, the
goal is to work with a company across multiple services and be
"part of a procurement solution," said Ms. Conrad.
Write to Alexandra Bruell at alexandra.bruell@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 11, 2017 12:32 ET (17:32 GMT)
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