New Beginnings for Tag as Global Production Company Overhauls Its EMEA Business Model

Tag, the global production and sourcing partner for the marketing industry, has relaunched its business in EMEA. The move is part of a drive to better meet the needs of its clients and prospects, who, accelerated by Covid-19, are increasingly assessing the efficiency and impact of their production output against a backdrop of an ever more complex multi-channel commercial environment.

From August, Tag will launch two new identities, Tag Collective Arts and Tag Sourcing Network, which will work closely together to fulfil a wider range of clients’ marketing content needs. Tag Collective Arts has united five of the businesses’ existing creative brands, including visual content production company Smoke & Mirrors and digital and social media content company THP, to form one creative brand – providing clients with a single point of entry to the broad creative production expertise under Tag’s roof.

Tag Sourcing Network will closely interact with Tag’s global sourcing infrastructure and client teams to share best practice, and to deliver value and innovation. There will also be a renewed focus on sustainable sourcing solutions reflecting its growing importance for brands worldwide. Tag’s sourcing business in EMEA will be headed up by Sue Tait under the new brand name.

As a dual service offering Tag will give clients globally scalable sourcing and an end-to-end service for marketing production that ensures consistency across brand identity from retail point of sale to digital.

The strengths of the company’s capabilities were recognised by GSK Consumer Healthcare this month. It was awarded the global production brief to reinvent GSK’s end-to-end marketing ecosystem with Publicis Production and ITG. Tag, Publicis and ITG will work together to create an internationally scalable operation that will enable GSK’s global, regional and local teams to improve the overall consumer shopping journey, deliver marketing content more effectively and minimise asset wastage.

Andria Vidler, CEO of Tag EMEA, said: “The Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated long-standing trends and has ushered in a new and more serious era for the marketing industry. Marketing creativity has to be married to commercial performance, and that is what Tag will deliver. The principles of great marketing haven’t changed – we need to provide the right message to the right consumer at the right time, what has changed is the many new ways we can go about doing it. 

Vidler continued: “New Tag offers new possibilities. We can connect the magic of creativity with the craft of production and create content with impact for global brands. Tag works across every point of the consumer journey, from retail activation to TVC to eCommerce. This gives us an understanding of how each channel works and how each piece fits together. This breadth of experience, across creative through to sourcing, means we have the insight to help our clients navigate today’s marketing complexities across channels and cultures to accelerate their business performance.”

The reorganisation is supported by several executive committee appointments. Gary Szabo, previously the CEO of Smoke & Mirrors, will take on the new role of chief creative officer of Tag EMEA. Helen Weisinger, formerly of Outdoor Plus and Brave, has been appointed chief marketing officer. Linda Smith, formerly chief operating officer of Centaur Media, has joined as transformation director. They complete a senior team that has been strengthened in recent months by the appointments of Andria Vidler; Kevan Thorn, the co-founder of Hogarth, as chief strategy officer; and Tamara Lover, formerly global managing director at Hogarth, as a client services managing director.

Tag Collective Arts will bring together:

- Big Buoy: high-end effects

- RockHound: visual content production

- Smoke & Mirrors: post-production and visual effects

- THP: digital and social media content

- World Writers: language services and transcreation

Taylor James, the visual content and CGI agency, will continue under its own brand.

The creation of Tag Collective Arts and Tag Sourcing Network is part of a wide-reaching reorganisation that has been accelerated with the impact of Covid-19 to make better use of the group’s global scale and local presence in 40 countries.