Front row left to right: Simon Hambley, Strata CEO, Max Lee and Oliver Duval Co-founders of Element London
Strata, the award-winning brand experience agency, has acquired Element London and raised significant investment to fund further acquisitions and international expansion.
Element is a market-leading prize, reward and incentive specialist with more than 15 years’ experience in delivering promotions, activations and reward programmes for leading global brands in FMCG, entertainment, finance, technology and telecoms. The company – founded by Max Lee and Oliver Duval – creates and fulfils bespoke promotional prizes for competitions and reward programmes to drive brand awareness and customer loyalty.
Element is also established within corporate incentive travel. It creates trips to all corners of the globe for high-performing teams, influencers, industry groups and media delegations. These range from luxury travel for small groups to trips for hundreds of sales staff, and when coupled with consumer travel prizes for brand promotion, a large proportion of Element’s delivery is in planning and sourcing travel, accommodation and group activities.
Strata’s acquisition of Element – specifically its experience in consumer brand promotions – bolsters the agency’s ability to work with an increasing number of clients who want to source a broad range of skills and capabilities through one touchpoint. Furthermore, the purchase enables Strata to tap into Element’s strong international client base across Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific providing access to new global networks and audiences.
Simon Hambley, Group CEO of Strata, said: “Partnering with Element and adding them to the growing Strata Group is another important step in our journey to reach our destination as the leading brand experience agency in the global events industry.
“Element has an incredibly talented team who are leaders in their field, so to bring them within the Strata family – at such an important juncture – is incredibly exciting.”
Element’s teams and clients will have access to the Strata Group’s broad spectrum of skills and capabilities. Similarly, Strata will be able to offer its clients access to Element’s complementary and bespoke prize and group travel expertise.
Max Lee and Oliver Duval, co-founders of Element, said: “In Strata, we have found an ideal partner for the next stage of our growth plans. We were looking for a team that could not only introduce us to new clients and sectors but also complement the expertise we have in-house. When we started talking with Strata, it soon became apparent that the group valued the skillset we had established and wished to form a true partnership. But what’s more, Strata is currently innovating in the performance management and incentive space, too, which makes us so excited for the future.”
Hambley continued: “Our incorporation of Element within the Strata Group is also important because it signals our intention to play a key part in an ever-changing and fast-growing brand experience sector. Every year, over the last five years, we have shown dynamic growth that is above the industry average of 20 per cent. This is why we have recently attracted multi-million-pound investment from growth investor Ethos Partners. It understands our strategic ambitions, and its support will allow us to continue our growth trajectory, which includes an accelerated acquisition strategy. Now, our newly expanded team and I will get on with executing this long-term plan, inspiring our growing client portfolio to come on this journey with us. We want to establish a global offering with a presence in each key market. Securing the funding we’ve now achieved allows us to proactively put in place the building blocks to make that happen over the coming year,” Hambley concluded.