Plymouth-headquartered brands communications agency Fuel has seen revenues soar during lockdown as e-commerce clients experienced a surge in demand.
The company, which , also saw its affiliate marketing clients do well, and pitched in to help the construction and hospitality businesses it works for as they faced a lockdown challenge.
Fuel, which started life in a University of Plymouth business incubator, saw year-on-year revenue, calculated from lockdown, at 24% higher compared with the same period in 2019.
And its e-commerce department is up 61% at the Plymouth city centre agency. Figures were taken from lockdown to July 31 in comparison to 2019.
Managing director Martyn King said: 鈥淎s a full-service marketing agency, we鈥檝e seen some of our clients in the construction and hospitality industries face huge challenges given they were unable to trade or work at reduced capacity.
鈥淲e helped them with those challenges by putting their contracts on hold or reducing our fees whilst still offering our support.
鈥淎t the same time, our e-commerce clients saw a surge in demand so we鈥檝e been working flat out to support their growth whilst significantly investing in campaigns to attract new clients in that space.
鈥淲e developed a unique offer for affiliate marketing that involves no upfront fees for clients which has been really popular. It has seen us sign over 20 new clients across the 海角视频 and kick off new campaigns in Europe and North America.
鈥淎s a result, income from e-commerce and affiliate marketing is up 61% year on year with overall income up 24%鈥
Fuel started life in the University of Plymouth鈥檚 award-winning Formation Zone incubation facility and moved into a new larger premises at The Crescent at the end of November 2019.
Fuel, which also has satellite offices in Bristol and London, was previously based at Crownhill Fort, while One Polygon was in Mutley Plain.
In early 2020, Fuel merged with another Ocean City digital agency and expanded by opening a branch in Birmingham鈥檚 new 拢22million enterprise facility.
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The merger with Ruckus Marketing, based in the University of Plymouth鈥檚 Marine Building, was the product of three years of close collaboration between the companies.
It also followed hot on the heels of, in late 2019.
Fuel and Rukus had been working together driving 鈥渟ignificant growth鈥 for clients in the e-commerce, leisure, education, health, and hospitality sectors, and have decided to fully tie the knot.
The merger saw Ruckus鈥 Ed Watson become creative director and Alem Al-Khamiri become digital director.
Ruckus, founded in 2016, and Fuel planned to scale up their new Birmingham office where Mr Al-Khamiri will be based. It opened the office in March 2020, at Millennium Point鈥檚 STEAMhouse, Birmingham City University鈥檚 new 拢22.2million enterprise and collaboration facility.
