Lawton Communications Group

LCG embracing Digital Britain with open arms

In a move to cement LCG’s position as a thought leader in the marketing arena, Steve Sponder, former MD of Five by Five, has been appointed Chief Digital Officer for parent company LCG.

Steve’s role is to champion digital innovation for the Group and its clients. The focus will be to identify emerging opportunities in technology, in different industries and markets locally and globally.

Steve, who has been at LCG for 22 years and has worked with clients including Activision, B&Q, Red Funnel, IBM and THQ comments on his new role: “With the vast digital knowledge we hold across the Group, we are able to help companies put the right strategies in place, allowing them to put digital at the heart of their plans and achieve a better return on their marketing investments.

These are exciting times and we can see a dramatic shift from brands talking at consumers to brands engaging with consumers. This can be achieved by providing useful and entertaining content or open authentic conversations, all of which is made possible by communicating digitally. In my new role I will be able to keep abreast of how the marketing communications marketplace is evolving, allowing us to advise our HR and marketing clients and prospects on the best strategy during these changing times.”

Group MD, Nick Lawton, said: “Currently eight per cent of the UK’s GDP is generated through creative and internet business, and according to the Government’s Digital Britain initiative, this is set to increase to 12 per cent by 2012, a difference of over £85bn.

“We’ve created the role of Chief Digital Officer to allow Steve to fully focus on what’s on the horizon, to ensure that we keep our clients ahead of the game. He will champion innovation in our business and exploit a first mover advantage, creating opportunities for us and our clients.”

LCG - working for a better future

Lawton Communications Group (LCG) has been working closely with a number of schools, colleges and universities in Hampshire to help students get a better start to their working lives.

Teams from LCG are currently involved in a number of projects, all of which are part of the company’s community engagement programme, overseen by dedicated engagement manager, Kate Beardmore. ‘It’s so important for local businesses to do their bit. Ultimately it’s for their own benefit, as students will be more confident and better skilled when they start their chosen career’, comments Beardmore.

LCG employees are working with students on Solent University’s Agency Simulation project, part of the Marketing course. Each student group acts as a mini-agency and is given a real life client brief to work on. On the 14th May, the groups will be at LCG to pitch to a panel of experts. The students will receive feedback and advice on their presentations, before finding out how LCG responded to the briefs and the results of the real campaigns.

At Winchester School of Art, LawtonWare’s creative director Martin Flavin has been working with third year design students. The students were briefed on a project for East Sussex County Council (ESCC) in November last year with the best ideas later developed and soon to be presented by the students to ESCC in May.

The University of Southampton recently enjoyed a session with LCG’s social media strategist Tom Chapman. Tom was fresh from London Business School where he had presented alongside Google, Sky, YouTube, BBC and Facebook on the same topic.

There are lots of initiatives in progress and LCG believes it all helps to make a difference to the future workforce. Group MD Nick Lawton said, ‘The city of Southampton has been good to us for the last 30 years and this allows us to give something back to the community. We’ve already committed, and will continue to commit lots of time and resource and I’m really proud that our people have embraced these initiatives’.

Five By Five Expands Offering By Integrating Offline Expertise

Southampton based digital agency Five by Five has combined its digital teams with offline marketing specialists from its sister marketing communications agency, Lawton, to create a 100 strong ideas led agency for the digital age.

Five by Five now incorporates a full service digital agency offering brand development, communications planning, reputation management, media, CRM and campaign development. As well as online PR specialist agency, Headstream, and full service media agency, Five by Five Media.

Nick Lawton, MD of parent organisation Lawton Communications Group, comments: "Given the current economic climate and the explosion of digital communications, we're putting the group at the sharpest end of the marketing communications industry by leading with our digital expertise.

Brands are having to reconsider how and where they find their audience in this digital age. Skills in brand, digital and media need to be combined with technical know-how to create inspirational content that goes beyond a TV screen.

The agencies of the future need to create concepts and content that build dialogue with consumers, by maximising opportunities to gain insight to exceed performance expectations. They need to produce more for less through a better understanding of the audience, and do it in more spaces than ever before. Agencies need to think of an idea that is created in digital, then be in the position to amplify it across other channels".