I founded It’s Pixel Perfect (IPP) because I believed that building a great marketing agency would improve businesses, people’s lives and, hopefully the world. In the two years – plus that has followed, my team and I have been constantly delighted by the ways in which we have impacted business while not shying away from our social responsibilities.
In the next decade, however, the competition for new revenues, new markets, new products and new services will continue to intensify. I know, that if we want to survive this period we have to operate in completely new ways, making sustainability integral to our innovation and performance.
Toward the end of 2013, I found guidance in the words of the late Nelson Mandela. He said, “there is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” It is this idea, that I used as a stepping stone toward the rebuilding of IPP. Last December, I began by reorganizing the management team around a core service to improve responsibility and accountability across IPP. We had a big clean up. We needed it! We had so many opportunities, and unless I made those hard choices, we may have ended up spreading ourselves too thin and not have had the impact that we would want. This left me with no choice but to focus on a core service, content marketing. This service would be cleaner, more consistent and would bring more value to our customers. It would allow all our services to work together seamlessly. It is still early days, and we have a long way to go, but this process will tremendously impact the we way we do business going forward.
Our dependency on technology for efficiency has single-handedly been our change maker since the start of the year. Our customers access to changes and information has been well streamlined by the use of several unique open source softwares and web applications. It is however futile to have the right resources and not have the right team members. That in itself was a roller coaster ride I won’t forget. Finding the right fit and the right balance to meet the required roles we needed in the company, certainly had its moments. We tried several interns with various skill sets and leadership capabilities. As talented as some were, we just couldn’t fit the pieces together seamlessly. I think we got the break-through when I recognized that we had to develop a team of A-Players who understood the philosophy of Performance with Purpose. After understanding that, I recreated a team with several unique roles and since then we have been on the road to sustainable growth. I know at this point that the mountains we climb will be steep, but we will climb them together.
There has been something slightly funny in the office that right now we may be known more for our philanthropic duties than the marketing ideas that we have executed for our clients. I wasn’t amused initially, because I thought our focus was being misjudged. After much thought, I realised that we were right down the path of what I had initially wanted. Social Responsibility is at the centre of our business and we won’t change that now or in the future. It is who we are. WE LOVE PEOPLE. We had our first successful charity activity in December “Give Where You Live: Christmas Treat” at the UWI Hospital. Since then, we have continued our philanthropic activities with our #LoveMore campaign and our “Give Where You Live: Toy Drive” which starts this month.
Relevant information and a lightning fast approach in delivering clients needs are key in our core service. We know if we keep our customers informed with information they NEED to know, it will help them to understand our business process and also potentially understand the changes in their industries. That is why I’m so excited about the relaunch of our blog. It allows us to execute projects for our clients, then write a blog post to explain how it works. We recognize that if we hold their hands during this time, they will hold our hands in the future.
We have observed that the financial situation of this country has placed businesses in a corner and thus they need excellent return on their investment (ROI) to meet their basic needs. They need results out of a hat like magic. Can we blame them? No we can’t. We have accepted the situation that we are in, what our customers are faced with and we are equipping ourselves with the skills, the patience, and the people to survive this period and help our clients to reach their goals.
I am proud of the progress we are making but is this the best we can do? I certainly do not think so but I know we can, must and we will do better.
– Conrad Mathison
It's Pixel Perfect 