The Marketing Agencies Association today announced that it will be supporting the government backed Start Up Loans initiative, by offering creative directors and planning directors as mentors from its 80-plus strong agency membership. A number of agencies have already offered to provide mentors including WDMP, Pulse, The Marketing Store, RPM and Iris.
The Start Up Loans project, developed in partnership with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills,aims to help people under 25 years old launch their own businesses through £2,500 of funding and access to advice via mentors. Applications for the funding and advice will open in September.
Lord Young, Enterprise advisor to the Prime Minister and driving force behind the scheme said “Mentors are very important for people starting businesses, but in specific areas like marketing it’s even more important. For marketing you need a specialist mentor who knows what they are talking about, who knows how to use Twitter and Facebook effectively and who knows how to market”.
Speaking at an MAA event, Marketing 4 StartUp Britain, Lord Young said the initiative was looking for more than 2,000 mentors across all areas of business in order to have “a bank of specialist mentors at the end of the phone”.
He described his experience mentoring via Skype and talked of the three types of mentors; the first being those that “are there for the long run”, helping to shape the business plan and enthuse; the second being a mentor to bring “a spark and build self confidence”; and finally specialist advice mentors such as this in marketing and finance.
Ian Millner, Chairman of the MAA and CEO of agency iris said, “To start up in business you don’t necessarily need a lot of money, but what you must have is access to advice. Through the collective of agencies at the MAA we can provide young people with specialist guidance when it comes to the marketing of their businesses. Having worked with a young start up over the past year I know just how fulfilling it can be to see that business blossom”.
“Stimulating the British economy is everyone’s responsibility. Marketing is one of the big British success stories; we have world-class agencies here in the UK that can help to breed a culture of positivity and long-term success” he continued.
According to Lord Young there has never been a better time to start up in business, especially for young people, given the high rates of unemployment.
The MAA also announced that its competition to ‘Win a marketing agency for a year’ will now offer more opportunities for start ups to connect with an MAA member agency and receive marketing support for a year, following the high number of agencies wanting to get involved. RPM, Pulse and iris are amongst those that will take on a start up business.
The online competition officially opens this week where budding businesses less that 2 years old will be askedto fill in an initial form explaining their company and why it should win in no more than 300 words. The closing date is 16th August, after which a panel of marketing experts will read all of the submissions and shortlist a group to be invited to pitch their business at a “Dragon’s Den” style pitch event. Winners will be selected and introduced to their marketing agency for the year.
Last years winners were Safetray, which worked with iris and runner-up Rocktails which won the services of Pulse.