Uncommon Invests in New Customer Experience Practice

(Left to right): Haider Muhdi, Natalie Graeme, David Yates, Jonathan Goodman, Kuba Bennette, Nils Leonard, Kieran Mistry, Lucy Jameson, Margaux Sloan, Joel Goodhall

Led by ex-LIDA CEO Jonathan Goodman, the Practice will amplify the studio’s ability to deliver across the entire customer journey: from designing data led customer experience to creating digital products & services, and the development of entirely new CX led brands.

This move will allow Uncommon to apply their multidisciplinary studio model to the world of CX and deliver further on their ultimate mission: to create brands that people in the real world are glad exist.

The founding team of the Practice reunites Jonathan Goodman (founding partner), David Yates (founding partner) and Margaux Sloan (managing partner) — who have previously worked together across several agencies in the past, including Wunderman, Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw and LIDA.

Jonathan is the ex-CEO of LIDA. During his time there the agency was crowned Campaign’s customer engagement agency of the year twice, and won clients including IKEA, Land Rover and Virgin, and he spent two years setting up LIDA New York.

David joins from the Next 15 Group where he was Strategic Managing Partner leading award-winning work across their ELVIS and ODD agencies, including Cadbury, Honda, Budweiser, Tesco and M&S.

Margaux has spent the past 20 years in some of London’s best Customer and Integrated agencies leading engagement focussed accounts for brands such as Nectar and WWF. She was most recently the Client Partner at M&C Saatchi running the O2 and Royal Mail business.

Natalie Graeme, co-founder, Uncommon said: “Experience is the truth of a brand. We’ve always known that. This is a natural next step for the Studio, as every interaction is a chance to matter.”

Jonathan Goodman, founding partner, Uncommon CX Practice added: “Founding our Experience Practice is a once in a lifetime opportunity, at a once in a lifetime Studio. The over industrialisation of CX has turned it into an efficiency production line for too many brands — delivering formulaic, frictionless, forgettable experiences. We’re looking forward to going beyond bland best practice and creating Uncommon moments of impact for our clients.”

The Practice has already started working with existing Uncommon brands, as well as a number of new clients. Piccadilly Lights appointed them earlier in the year to transform the world’s most iconic billboard into a multiplatform digital experience with people and collaboration at its heart. The first campaign of this new partnership launched last month with the Mayor of London, Sadiq Kahn, inviting people to share their photos of London for 1.5 seconds of fame on the big screen. The Practice is also partnering with a fashion tech start up with the ambition to disrupt the fashion ecommerce experience.