Saatchi & Saatchi London Launches New BUY Division

Saatchi & Saatchi London announced today the launch of BUY; a new division designed to close the purchase cycle and help clients achieve better sales.

The unit will introduce a new set of services, built from within and outside the agency network, to better service the channels that create measurable actions from strategy through to creative, implementation and tracking. It will be led by Sam Hawkey, who has been promoted to Managing Partner, Saatchi & Saatchi London.

As part of the launch, Saatchi & Saatchi will bring two of its network-owned agencies to London: Synergize, the search specialist based in South Africa and Interactive Solutions, the e-commerce agency acquired in Poland.

BUY will include staff from both agencies, based in London with the ability to tap into the scale, expertise and cost-effective solutions provided by the central agency hubs. The first to join is Robin Fishley, formerly head of digital strategy and search at Saatchi Synergize and now search director at Saatchi & Saatchi London.

Saatchi & Saatchi X, the network’s shopper marketing agency, will also work into BUY as part of its suite of services. In addition, BUY will also offer data analytics, mobile online display, CRM and website build.

Magnus Djaba, the Saatchi & Saatchi Fallon UK group CEO, said: “Advertising agencies are often great at getting people to love a brand, and to consider it, conversion is where we need to work harder for our clients. In a digital world, the path from consideration to purchase is clearer to identify, easier to track and more logical to pursue.”

Sam Hawkey added: “The division will bring together the human understanding of brand planners with the analytical rigour of data scientists. This combination will help us directly influence and target the point of consumer decision making, meaning we can more effectively deliver the right messages, to the right people, in the right place, at the right time and in the right way.”

Sam Hawkey has worked at Saatchi & Saatchi since 2012 on both global and local clients including EE, Guinness, Kerry Foods, T-Mobile and Weight Watchers. Before joining the agency, he worked at Glue Isobar and Dial Media Group.