INTERVIEW INTERVIEW
INTELLIGENT DESIGN AND EVOLUTION
Managing parter of Erasmus, Marc Cave waxes digital about the new media circus and how he and his partners are pioneering a new type of industry
When did you set up Erasmus? And what were you doing before you started Erasmus?
My partners Ross Cairns and Graeme Dignan set up Erasmus in 2003. I came in as the third owner-manager in 2008 when they bought my firm, Drugstore. We are all from the creative industries, though from different parts: music, design and advertising respectively. We’d been drivers of brands like Red Bull, Burger King, Stella Artois and Tesco. We were all early adopters of digital technologies from the mid-90s onwards as tools to build brands, and ran web marketing agencies. Ross and Graeme had a firm called Black ID which they sold and before founding and selling Drugstore to Erasmus, I was President of Lowe Digital, the international agency network I set up in 15 countries for Sir Frank Lowe’s advertising firm, The Lowe Group.
Your model is quite unique, You don’t just take fees and sometimes you don’t take fees at all. What is your revenue model?
We’re great believers in the concept of partnership, sharing the risks and the rewards. Putting our balls on the line.
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Creating capital value, as opposed to playing agent or consultant with no skin in the game. So we look for collaborations where we can say, “what’s it worth if we put our expertise next to yours, and make 1+1 equal 3? We think this could be a brilliant brandable idea, so let’s invest in this together”. We build our revenue model around that. A combination of fees, results-related incentives, royalties and of course equity - each partnership is different. It’s less about jam today than truffles tomorrow.
Erasmus is very difficult to pigeonhole.– It’s not just a creative company and it’s not a private equity or venture capital outfit. What
would you say it is?
We don’t want to squash up inside anyone else’s stale little pigeonhole! What we DO is the important thing, not what we’re called.
We create, communicate and co-invest in brands. We incubate 21st Century brands and businesses through conception, delivery and nurture. Capital value creation is at the heart of it all, based on a solid central hub which gathers talent, generates world- class thinking and execution – which in turn, gives life to multiple new ventures with a combination of partners and investment. Each new venture is built around identified market opportunities or
PROFILE:
Marc is a creative agency entrepreneur. He has advised business, political and entertainment personalities from Sir Terry Leahy to Jamie Oliver. His Ò Every Little HelpsÓ relaunch of Tesco is a seminal example of company reinvention. He held a succession of management roles at global agency Lowe through the 90s. In 2001 he launched Drugstore. It gained a cutting-edge reputation for its pioneering working methods and innovative brand content for the likes of Napster, Amnesty and British Airways. Drugstore was acquired by Erasmus in 2008, where Marc is now the third owner-manager
THE -ELEVATOR.COM THE -ELEVATOR.COM
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