Pictured above: (l-r) Roger Adey, Brendan O'Dea, Brett Sidaway and Stuart Marsh (all Plum Ideas)

One of the Black Country's leading marketing communications specialists is taking on the UK's biggest agencies and winning after celebrating its 12th birthday with a string of recent business wins.

Plum Ideas, which employs 12 people at its Wolverhampton Science Park offices, has seen demand for its creative-led direct brand and communication service reach new levels following successful projects in the independent retail and professional services sector.

Set up by industry experts Brendan O'Dea and Roger Adey, the company currently lists Beiersdorf, Bayer, Johnson and Johnson, Leaf and Jordan's Ryvita among its client base, working on well known brands such as Rennie, Chewits and Nivea.

This has been further strengthened by a heavy duty b2b direct mail campaign for Neopost and a re-branding exercise for independent financial advisers Lawrence Scoffield in Yorkshire.

"We've had a very promising start to 2011 and have had to take on an additional account manager in Brett Sidaway to help with the growth," explained Brendan, who has more than 20 years experience in the advertising industry.

"Both Roger and I had worked at some of the biggest agencies in the UK, but were disenfranchised with the way they operated, where a lot of the personal contact and knowledge were replaced with high fees and a lack of service." 

He continued: "From the feedback we were getting from clients, we knew there was an opening in the market and decided to set-up on our own but with the commitment that we would remain small and agile, yet still delivering the experience and results you would expect to get from the firms in Birmingham, Manchester and London." 

It is an approach that has paid dividends for Plum Ideas, who specialise in offering a full direct brand and communication service from planning and strategy development through to creative, production, response handling and analysis of databases.

Assisted by Creative Director Stuart Marsh, the agency carries out a wide range of activities in the business to business and business to consumer marketplaces, including direct mail, brand design, web design, sample fulfilment, telephone marketing and literature production.

Roger picked up the story: "It's all about getting the combination right between understanding the client's business, choosing the most relevant and effective communication techniques possible and delivering results that make them use us time and time again.

"It's the results element that sees us go up against agencies five times our size and come away with the business and why organisations like Elastoplast, Beiersdorf and Smoking Papers are long-term accounts."

Plum Ideas is continually looking at new innovations in the way it works and has joined forces with REL Field Marketing and telesales firm BCC to form Independent and Convenience Expertise (ICE).

The partnership aims to provide a one-stop solution for companies either looking to get their products into or maximise an existing presence in the convenience and independent retail market.

Brendan concluded: "It's all about doing things differently and the next step for us is to look at securing more clients in the West Midlands, who could benefit from our knowledge of the B2B and B2C sectors."

Plum Ideas has recently been chosen by students at Lancaster University Management School as the only West Midlands business to feature in its annual Consultancy Challenge. This resulted in some excellent rankings of 4 out of 5 for strategy development and 4.4 out of 5 for account management.

"It was very interesting to see how Plum Ideas is perceived from the outside, both from existing and prospective clients. The Challenge, as well as being an enjoyable and worthwhile process, has given us a real focus on taking the business forward for many years to come," concluded Roger.