IRS+ the centralised sales and marketing house that represents 15 radio stations around the country, has formed a new strategic partnership with Foe, the marketing solutions agency founded by Aaron Chalke.
While both businesses will remain independent, they will collaborate in a “media agnostic” manner to solving marketing and activation briefs when working with brands and agencies.
“From our perspective, this new development is a radical re-imagining of our business,” says Peter Smyth, CEO of IRS+.
“So, while radio naturally continues to be a very important part of our DNA, and will absolutely remain so, we’re planning on being medium agnostic for every new brief we receive – not every solution will be a radio one if it’s not a natural fit. We have a long-standing working relationship with Foe. so, combining their creative and ideation prowess with our network, media expertise and deep knowledge of the market allows both businesses to broaden our appeal to existing clients and attract a new spectrum of new clients with whom we have previously not worked,” he adds.
This decision to form a new partnership with Foe came after new research conducted by IRS+ identified a commercial opportunity for blending enhanced creativity and ideation with the provision of media solutions that are “fluid and not pre-ordained in favour of any one medium,” says Smyth.
“We took the results of our research on board and moved swiftly to make the findings a reality by forging this strategic partnership with Foe and positioning ourselves as a centre of excellence. Our recent promotion of Katie Boylan to the role of Client Service Director heightens our visibility and provides our agency and brand partners with an opportunity to work with a senior industry counterpart at IRS+ who will provide daily liaison and expert advice,” he adds.
“Striking this creative partnership with IRS+ is an extremely exciting evolution for Foe,” says Aaron Chalke. “It enables us to scale up our access to the wider marketing and media community, bringing Foe’s unique campaign ideation and media innovations to more brief responses than ever before. Through IRS+, these innovations have an immediate route to market via their high reach audio platforms, and any other media platform beyond audio that serves the brief response best,”.
