Brandfuel

When Covid-19 stopped the events world in its tracks, Brandfuel was brimming with business and anticipating its best results in its 15-year history. Three weeks later, all that had changed. As with many businesses, the past 15 months have been hugely challenging for Brandfuel, forcing us to reconsider everything we do. But, as a creative agency, we always embrace change. After the initial shock, the CEO, David Ball, and his team quickly regrouped to address the challenges posed by the new virtual events world and to take care of our staff and wider Brandfuel community. The creation of Fuelstudios provided staff with the opportunity to learn essential skills, both to bolster communication and morale among colleagues who were furloughed or working remotely and to pitch for commissions from new clients. The research carried out by the nine FuelCells also helped our team to grow, experiment and innovate. As more staff gained broadcasting skills, we began our Plus One training scheme to help our long-serving freelancers keep up with the world of virtual work. And the Doughballs baking sessions with our founder, David Ball, helped to keep our family of staff, freelancers, clients, and suppliers connected as we adjusted to life in a pandemic. The team’s new broadcasting skills also meant that Brandfuel were able to convert existing commissions for well-established clients such as BGC Partners from physical to virtual as the Covid-19 constraints dictated. Brandfuel’s new commissions from the Advertising Association, UKAEG, IPA, Unisys, Barclays, Slack, and the BSA underline how well the agency’s tenacity has paid off. The fact that we’ve now produced over 50 virtual events across 18 platforms, onboarding more than 1,000 speakers remotely, globally, fills us with confidence that we are well-placed to grasp new challenges in the post-pandemic world.