[Startup Interview] Hans Veldhorst, Co-founder, 24AM

24AM is a mobile media and marketing agency that is employing technology to create positive brand associations therefore influencing consumer behaviour while meeting the digital ambitions of these brands.

We spoke to Hans Veldhorst,  the co-founder of the agency.

Tell us about 24AM?

24AM is a mobile-first creative & media agency. The name 24AM represents a time that hasn’t come yet, and the place we feel the digital advertising world is in right now. It’s getting increasingly harder to reach consumers: they’re more critical and ever savvier in avoiding ads altogether.

So, mobile and creative input are more important than ever before. Our goal is to employ digital media and mobile technology to create positive brand associations by seamlessly integrating creation and media.

By doing so, we’ll influence/affect both consumer behaviour and the development of the brand itself. Plus, we’ll transparently report on the effects on these various levels.

Why did you start 24AM?

We decided to get together because we share the same view on the current state of digital marketing: if it continues in the current dynamics , it will sinkhole itself. The market seems to solely focus on short term behavioural changes and the expectation to immediately see these changes reflect in their dashboard.

This short termism allows bad and irritating ads to swarm digital platforms. This in turn, causes digital platforms to only be able to serve digital marketers by offering not just as much advertising space as possible, but at the lowest possible prices as well.

Consumers, digital platforms and in the end, the brands are the victims of this/ the ones who/that pay for this. This may sound harsh/excessive/dramatic: but we strongly believe we need to save digital marketing from this short termism.

Who is 24AM?

It’s Diederick Ubels, also CEO of mobile media agency MobPro and me. We like to dub it the assembly/get-together of the Math and the Mad men.

Diederick, the Math man, is from the digital and mobile world dominated by data and dashboards. I’ve always been very passionate about developing brands in a sustainable way, which I did as Head of Strategy and Ogilvy & Mather and as a freelance strategist.

Right now we’re working as a team of four, with an ambition to expand quickly.

Where is your office located?

We’re located on a canal in Amsterdam. We share our office with MobPro: combining creation, media and mobile technology in one space/building.

Who are your clients?

Brands with a serious digital ambition. Marketing managers that share our vision of there being other possibilities in using digital media, besides short term behavioural change. And, the necessity of employing digital and mobile in order to grow their brands.

In short, brands that embrace digital developments and can see the potential of the medium. We’re currently working for Albert Heijn and Luzac.

What differentiates 24AM from other agencies?

We offer an integrated approach in creation and media, in which we achieve both brand- and performance focussed goals through campaigns. In the current market you’ll often see two separate ‘islands’: digital marketing agencies that solely aim to achieve short term behavioural change and creative agencies that only focus on the brand and the brand experience.

This is where we come in and bring together the best of both worlds, by making digital brand efforts just as measurable as online behaviour.

What do you need to grow?

Creativity and media are essential. But, a constantly improving insight into how advertising works exactly and how brands can grow in the digital domain as effectively as possible, is just as important.

This is why we focus on fine-tuning our methods to be able to offer an increasingly clear insight on this and to be able to actually apply this knowledge in the real world.

What are your ambitions?

Realising measurable brand performance is an international necessity and digital communication is not constrained by borders. We’re already speaking to brands that have European or worldwide plans. Our ambition is boundless!

What can we expect from 24AM in 2018? 

We’re going to save the digital market from the short term vision by showing impressive work that proves that it is possible to grow brands in digital media.

www.its24am.com

Are you also interested in a Startup Interview in this series, please send an email to Max Vlugt - max@nederlandsmedianetwerk.nl