madcreative, the Maidstone-based creative agency offering services that include graphic design, video production, website design, search engine optimisation, photography, and social media account management has been purchased by Ward Holdings Ltd, the company that owns Ward Security, one of the UK’s leading suppliers of security services, and which has its administration centre in Rochester.
Founded in 2013 in collaboration with MidKent College, madcreative’s remit was to capture commercial projects and present them as work experience opportunities to the creative and media students at the College. Two years on, and with thousands of hours of student engagement and thousands of pounds of reward money paid to student collaborators, madcreative now finds itself with the backing of a nationwide company and in a strong position to push ahead with growth.
madcreative came to the attention of David Ward, Managing Director of Ward Security when the agency provided creative services for his wife’s business Abigail’s Brides in Headcorn. “Jo and I were both very impressed,” explained David Ward. “Not only by the quality of the work and the service, but also by the agency’s focus on encouraging and developing new talent from within the college. This fits very well with our approach to career development.
“As I’ve learned over my years in business, there is a great deal of variation between the quality of work supplied by creative agencies, and it is often very hard for the better agencies to stand out. However, I believe I can recognise talent when I see it, and madcreative is certainly one of the most professional and talented agencies I have encountered. By purchasing the agency we will be able to give madcreative the heavyweight backing it needs to truly establish itself, while supporting the further development opportunities of young and aspiring creatives.”
Steve Cole of madcreative explained “The agency is led by seasoned and experienced creative professionals, and has a strong team of designers, photographers, videographers, animators, content producers, copywriters, stylists, IT and business admin experts that we collaborate with on our projects. The agency has built its reputation and success through a crowd-sourced approach to design projects, taking advantage of the value and wide-ranging creativity of young designers in training.
“We look to collaborate with as large a selection of college and university students as possible, from as many different disciplines as we can, and our clients benefit handsomely from this way of working, receiving a huge selection of ideas and options throughout their projects. Meanwhile, the young people we work with benefit from gaining absolutely priceless and very hard to come by paid work-experience in their chosen field.
“We are delighted to join the Ward family of businesses. Their business acumen and support will certainly be instrumental in helping the agency develop to the next level. That this business arrangement should stem from a project we delivered for Jo Ward speaks volumes about our quality of work, and while it would appear we have no obvious synergies with a nationwide security company, we certainly share Ward Holdings’ approach to developing talent.”