Next Fifteen Launches Beyond, A New Type of Digital Consultancy

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Next Fifteen Communications Group, a $115 million PR Services Group, today unveiled Beyond http://www.bynd.com, its new digital media consultancy. This coincides with the announcement of its most recent investment, the acquisition of Type3, a 20 person digital agency with offices in San Francisco and London.

Type3 is being merged with the research and analytics capabilities of Context-Analytics, a specialist content analysis business, which has more than 12 years experience in media analysis. The newly formed consultancy, Beyond, has over 30 staff, a client base which includes Google, Genentech, Hilton Group and Virgin America, and has offices in San Francisco and London.  Beyond will also be opening an office in New York within weeks. Beyond was previously codenamed Project Metal.

Beyond's mission is to rethink the traditional digital agency approach and use a combination of earned, owned and paid media to maximize relevant traffic to brand properties and experiences. It combines the capabilities of a traditional digital agency, but with an emphasis on the disciplines of listening and influence more often associated with PR agencies.

Tim Dyson, CEO of Next Fifteen Communications Group, says, "Traditional digital agencies emerged in an era where the web was a one-way publishing channel and marketing was all about one-way communication. Beyond has been created from the ground up to create a digital consultancy grounded in the disciplines of influence and listening to maximize traffic to branded content."

Conversation Analytics is at the heart of Beyond's offerings. Using Conversation Analytics, Beyond is able to predict the type of content people are most likely to engage with and the most effective means of spreading that content to the right audience, regardless of whether it is through owned media, paid media or earned media.

According to David Hargreaves, CEO of Beyond, "We believe the very nature of digital communications campaigns has changed. Many digital agencies come from the advertising world and rely on building an expensive digital property and then investing in a large media spend to drive the audience to it. Beyond believes today's successful campaigns require an additional skill set and mindset from those of a traditional digital agency."

The key ingredients for today's successful campaigns are as follows:

• Campaigns should leverage the power of the influencer, not just paid media to achieve reach
• Campaigns and conversations need to be created and managed in real time
• Campaigns are built around ongoing conversations not just marketing campaign windows

Beyond is able to deliver campaigns that capture the maximum amount of relevant organic and paid traffic by combining the skills of: digital media monitoring specialists; conversation analysts; creatives; developers; statisticians; account planners; PR consultants; search experts and community managers,

According to Matt Iliffe, Creative director and founder of Type3, "The days of Web strategy are gone. It is now about creating a content strategy grounded in what people want to talk about and then making sure that that content is available anywhere, on any platform. In some cases that could be an owned property, but in other cases it might be a third-party community or media destination.

"Just because we are a digital consultancy doesn't mean we will recommend you spend thousands on building something. We all know if you build it, they don't always come," concluded Iliffe.

For more about Beyond go to www.bynd.com

SOURCE Next Fifteen Communications Group