Octagon to launch CRM arm

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Octagon Marketing, the sports and events marketing group, is to launch a cause-related marketing service.

The company, which has a global network of offices, says the initiative will form part of the company’s consulting division within Octagon Marketing.

Marjorie Thompson will jointly head the venture with Jill Anderson. They were both poached from Cause Connection, formerly part of Saatchi & Saatchi.

Several clients, including Procter & Gamble, have followed the pair to Octagon, where they will develop national and global programmes for corporate clients, as well as athletes, including popular tennis player Anna Kournikova, and the events they represent.

Octagon president and chief executive Alasdair Ritchie says: “With the addition of the new team we can now offer our clients another dimension to their brand-building programmes.”

Thompson is co-author of Brand Spirit: How Cause Related Marketing Builds Brands. She was previously head of communications for the Commission for Racial Equality.

In November 1999 Octagon launched a research tool, The Sponsorship Effect, claiming it was the first research tool to accurately measure the complete effectiveness of sponsorship.

Octagon will quantify the results in conjunction with Millward Brown and Sponsorship Science (SSI).

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