Edition 29 of SportsBiz Spotlight sees us focus on AND THE NEW, the creative digital agency built to drive results for brands in sport, entertainment, and gaming. Co-founders, Ryan Tinslay and Dan Connor tell us more…
Tell us about the business? What does AND THE NEW do?
RT: AND THE NEW is a creative digital agency built to help brands and rights holders across sports, entertainment, and gaming to inspire, grow, and convert their target audience all while building brand and cultural equity for long-term growth.
DC: Put simply, we create, produce, and deliver kick-ass campaigns across digital and social that make a real impact for our clients (and their fans!) at every stage of the marketing funnel.
When was it founded?
RT: We’re just under one year old now (happy birthday us!) having opened our doors in late August 2021. Since then, we’ve moved into our new home in Central London, grown to a team of 11-strong and worked with some amazing clients across sports, esports, gaming and entertainment, including Aston Villa, Manchester City, TECNO Mobile, Samsung, Team Liquid, and SAP to name a few. It’s been quite the year!
What’s the main purpose of the organisation?
DC: The main reason for launching AND THE NEW was because we spotted a gap in the (overly saturated) agency landscape, especially in the sports, entertainment and gaming space. Firstly, these three industries are beginning to blur the lines between themselves more than ever before and we felt there was no single agency that was truly grasping this merge with understanding, experience and genuine interest across all these fields. Secondly, and more importantly, we felt there was a disconnect across the agency landscape and lack of crystal-clear focus in creating digital and social campaigns that both drive brand equity and trackable conversions off the back of this – whether that be product sales, data capture or genuine audience growth. To put that more simply, we want to set the standard of merging the art of creative with the science of digital to provide truly impactful campaigns for our clients.
If failure wasn’t a possibility, what would be your biggest ambition?
RT: Our vision, and everything we work towards, is clear. We want to become the go-to creative digital marketing agency in the industry for the creation of winning campaigns across sports, entertainment, and gaming. We want to create work that others wish they dreamt of. It’s pretty damn bold, we know!
What’s your USP?
DC: It’s our focus on creating campaigns and work that is not only scroll-stoppingly creative, but have the ability to combine the worlds of branding with marketing within our industry. It seems obvious, but branding is all about making your audience care. Marketing is making them act. The strategies and tactics we deliver for our clients are laser-focused on making sure we achieve both.
RT: We always start with the question “why” to get to the root of any brief. Why do you want a bigger audience? What will this unlock? Why do you want to refresh the brand? How will this affect sales? This, of course, isn’t some magic potion that only we have access to. But it does mean that we can make a real impact with our clients much quicker, and diving into the details also means we can be so much more creative – which is the most fun part anyway.
How many people work at AND THE NEW and what capacity? I.e. job roles etc.
DC: We’re now a team of 11, which is crazy to think considering it was only myself and Ryan this time last year. We have a great blend across creative and digital, and it’s only going to get bigger, with more people already on the way.
RT: Across the team, we’ve hired both on experience and raw talent. We’re very keen to grow talent in this industry, something that we feel is often overlooked in big agency spaces. We now have a team of brilliant people across client and account management, content production, creative strategy and campaign development. Keep an eye out for some open positions soon!
Who are your usual clients?
DC: As an agency working across the sports, entertainment and gaming industry, it means we’re open to working with any type of client, as long as they’re looking to engage people who are passionate about these topics first and foremost. Rather than just purely driving “hard marketing” or “hard sales”, our campaigns and activations first engage people’s passions to create a stronger connection, whether that’s football or League of Legends.
RT: With that, our clients are quite diverse. We’re fortunate to work with the likes of Coral Eyewear, a fully sustainable premium sunglasses brand whose products are made from recycled ocean plastics, across their partnerships in Formula 1, Formula E and with Richard Branson’s Virgin Voyages cruise liners. We’re also really proud to work with global B2B brands like SAP, and directly with sports and esports teams to help them build and engage their audience, such as Aston Villa and Ninjas In Pyjamas.
Who would be your dream client?
DC: We’re very fortunate to have clients across two of my three favorite sports in football and Formula 1. In my earlier career I did a lot of international rugby union, which would be great to get amongst again. Be it across its movies/series, one of its game titles or other properties, anything Star Wars would also send my excitement levels off the scale.
RT: Beyond the obvious answers of my beloved West Ham United, I would love to work with a games publisher or production company directly to launch a brand new game or movie/series. Whether it’s the next installment of Call of Duty or the latest series of Stranger Things. For me, these have been some of the most creative launches of recent years and it would be great to sink our teeth into. We may have some interesting plans in the works to look out for too…
How can people connect with AND THE NEW? What’s your website and socials?
Website – www.andthenew.agency
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/andthenewagency/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/AndTheNewAgency
And if any of this seemed of any interest and you want to put our creativity to the test, then let’s chat! ryan@andthenew.agency. Alternatively, sit in any coffee shop around Chancery Lane in London for long enough and you’ll find us!
Thank you to Ryan and Dan for sitting down with us to share the AND THE NEW story. If you would like to feature your sports based business or know of an organisation you would like to see feature on SportsBiz Spotlight, get in touch.
