Interview with two Kedgers, the founders of a communications consulting agency in Marseille!

INTERVIEW 💬

1️⃣ To begin, tell us about your educational background. What did you study, both before and at KEDGE?

We met in the classrooms of KEDGE! The typical prep school route for Nicolas, and the “Passerelle” exam for Virginie with an arrival in second year. 

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2️⃣ Were you a member of any student associations while you were at KEDGE?

We were both very close to the founders of the Arts Office, who we consider to be some of our closest friends! We’ve also been keeping up with the progress of the association for several years.

Nicolas: I also had the pleasure of being a member of the winning team of the 1995 “L’Express Grandes Écoles” Competition and the Commission Théâtre.

Virginie: For me, the Arts Office was a source of unforgettable times and meeting passionate people.

3️⃣ Tell us what you did after your studies were finished. What positions have you held? What did you learn in those positions?

Nicolas: 1997, it was just before the 1998 FIFA World Cup (which France won), and Marseille was one of the major game venues. My third-year internship was at the Tourist Office and Convention Bureau working on the CHR labelling, followed by a job that consisted of welcoming journalists at the Velodrome. After that, while working at the Communication Department of EPA Euroméditerranée, I saw the full potential of my adopted city which has held my heart to this day. I started working in the communications sector and 20 years later, I’ve never left. Manille, the small activation agency (marketing services) that I joined in 1999, gave me a taste for challenge, creativity, and customer service. Over the years it became an "outsourced" centre of expertise and merged into one of the largest agencies in the market - Havas Paris. I had the pleasure of managing it, along with the assistance of a great team, during the last five years I worked there. Virginie was already one of my closest employees there, and our trust in each other has strengthened over the years.

Virginie: I did my 3rd-year internship in 1997, at an advertising and events agency in Marseille. I met professionals who trusted me and took the time to teach me the ropes of the trade and managed both industrial clients, such as Eurocopter, and institutional clients, such as the Aix-en-Provence Tourist Office. I went from being an intern to an employee. However, Nicolas and I were destined to meet again! In 2000, I went to work with him at Manille as a Junior Advertising Manager. I “grew up” with the agency, which then merged with Havas Paris. I learned to challenge myself every day, gauge the importance of client service, defend my ideas, manage employees from different backgrounds, and, most of all, I learned to never take things for granted. As Sales Director, and later Associate Director, I’ve had the privilege of working with leading communications professionals who have proven to me that anything is possible with hard work, high standards, and self-discipline. 

4️⃣ What are you doing/what is your situation today? What gave you the idea and why do you want to do what you’re doing today?

Our experience was gained through working with leading communications professionals and serving blue-chip clients while at the Havas Group. But after twenty years in a large group, we wanted to give new meaning to our careers and embark on an adventure that was truly our own!

That's why we launched "IKI Activation” a year ago, whose very name - inspired by the Japanese "Ikigaï" - reflects the search for meaning that we find in our methodological tools for brands.

In concrete terms, our company has taken the form of a collective of talents dedicated to the know-how of the commercial activation of brands. We pilot the commercial relationship and strategy and surround ourselves with the best teams for each project - planners, salespeople, and free-lance creators. We select them from among our former employees, whose affinities and talents we know well. 

We are also fortunate to be able to count on a strong network of partners for specific services such as media, public relations, and even Crowdfunding (through our KissKissBankBank mentorship). We call on them for their expertise that is complementary to our own, and they do the same by entrusting us with certain assignments for their own clients.

On the advertisers' side, former clients such as the Cémoi Group and Evian have placed their trust in us from the beginning, which has been a real source of pride and validates the relevance of our innovative model – which is both expert and ultra-agile. This dynamic also gave us the ability to overcome this unprecedented health crisis and approach the future calmly.

IKI ACTIVATION

5️⃣ What are your development goals for the future?

Other than the consumer goods sector, which is at the core of our business, we’ve also made a point of making concrete contributions to more unusual projects that are both meaningful and positive.

Our customer portfolio includes companies such as the start-up TEMA (which we found out about through a KEDGE Alumni interview). As part of its pre-launch in France, we assisted it in its brand strategy and its crowdfunding campaign on KissKissBankBank, which has just been successfully completed.

We’re also members of the "1% for the Planet" network and have committed to donating at least 1% of our revenues to environmental associations. This membership let us set up a financial / skills sponsorship associative partnership with a Marseilles-based marine biologist divers association: Septentrion Environnement. 

We want to continue to work on these types of "hybridisations" - successful encounters between different sectors - which show us that, with our experience and our new structure, we can bring tangible and useful support to committed projects.

These encounters let us connect with our values and correspond to the search for meaning that is intrinsic to the IKI Activation project. They also allow us to take a critical (constructive!) look at certain briefs from major manufacturers, and to better help them confront the major challenges of the "world after". 

6️⃣ How did your education at KEDGE Business School help you become who you are today, and what was it about its teachings helped you develop your project?

We got a high-level general education at KEDGE, which lets us be adaptable throughout our career.

That training has given us the necessary foundations to face the complexity of a working agency, where know-how and interpersonal skills are equally important, and where planning must be reconciled with emergency management!

It also gave us the keys to put ourselves "in our clients' shoes" every day so that we can understand their real issues and build strong relationships over time.

Finally, KEDGE gave us confidence in our ability to move, in just a few weeks, from working for a large group to taking charge of our own entrepreneurial adventure!

7️⃣ If you had to give advice to any other KEDGE graduate who would like to do something similar, what would it be?

Of course, it’s a good idea, to start by working in the "agency sector" before setting up "your own agency".

It's a sector of that has many aspects, each of which ultimately requires a quite different profile. From the most expert agencies to the most integrated, there are real differences in terms of the job itself, as well as in terms of the corporate culture, not only from one agency to another, but from one group to another.

Right now, it’s also a rapidly changing sector, caught between the major consulting firms and the small businesses... and with a reputation often built on "coups" or creative awards, which themselves are developing in their turn.

So, it’s difficult for a young graduate to know in advance which type of agency will best suit his or her professional and personal development, but it is by definition an open world, especially on social networks. Behind the facade, a certain truth always emerges, which means that it’s essential to listen to the vision of the bosses of those agencies and to talk with members of their teams when possible (particularly via the Alumni network) so you can form your own opinion on what the corporate culture is really like on a daily basis.

The important thing is to get started, learn the good practices of the trade, and accept that you will make mistakes! Today, uniform careers and long-term company loyalty are rare. But loyalty remains the key: whether it's with your agency, your clients... or the honesty you have to have with yourself. It's a small world where "reputations" are sometimes made quickly and can fall apart even more quickly. On the other hand, hard work and loyalty are always rewarded in the end.

Once you feel that your expertise is solid enough, you’ve built up your own network, and if your need for autonomy has grown over the years, it’s also a sector where becoming self-employed can make sense, and can prove to be very fulfilling because you are inventing your own model, which even better meets the new needs of advertisers.

8️⃣ Anything you’d like to add? A message to pass on?

A warm message of congratulations to our friends from the TEMA project, who we supported on KissKissBankBank! We were pleased and proud to see TEMA designated as La Banque Postale's "Coup de Coeur" in a competition that rewards projects that have a positive social or environmental impact. This recognition, as well as the promising contacts made during the campaign, is a good sign for the future! Congratulations!

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