Today we have selected Andre Kempe To to take his Interview. He is The Founder & CEO Of Admiral Media.
First of all, how are you and your team doing in these COVID-19 times?
Great, thank you. I guess in a business context most of us had enough time to adapt to remote work. Our team consists of 10 employees, and I believe they also cope with the situation very well. Of course, we needed to adopt new ways of collaborating to work productively 100% from home.
Tell us about you, your career, how you founded or joined this company?
I started my career when ringtones became popular and finally discovered app marketing will be the next big thing when the first smartphone was available. So I decided to join a fresh startup called Trademob in Berlin and began building up entire marketing teams for various startups. I had the chance to work as Head of Marketing & CMO of several fast-growing companies like LOVOO, fleek by Zalando, and Free2Move. In 2019 I founded Admiral Media, an award-winning performance marketing agency based in Spain.
How does your company innovate?
For more than 10 years I consulted mobile publishers and helped them to grow their user base. In Admiral Media, we successfully manage their global performance marketing campaigns across all digital marketing channels. We grow together with our clients by understanding their needs, possible limitations, and challenges which are often complex and involve a lot of technical groundwork, eg. understanding the way data flows through our ecosystem of apps and ad platforms and how to use all of that. We always keep an eye on the latest trends, new solutions, so basically, all our clients can benefit from a holistic experience and modern marketing approach that fits their needs.
How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?
Well, Admiral Media was founded 2 years ago and was 3 people when Covid happened. I had to close the office and quickly decided I will never reopen an office again. Now we have a 100% remote team, and 90% of the team is located in Spain at the same time zone. Apart from that our business is as usual and Admiral Media grew extremely well last year. We just miss that we don’t meet face to face. I think two-thirds of my team never met in real life.
Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?
As an entrepreneur, you have to make a lot of decisions. Luckily Admiral Media was growing during Covid, not because of it. So I had to make a lot of good decisions and sign several employment contracts which is always a great feeling for a founder. The most difficult decision I had to make last year was to refuse to help a large gaming company launch a new, globally released game. This decision was driven by the fact that we were overloaded with other projects and couldn’t take such a massive responsibility on top. We always try to deliver the best possible results and quality. So I rather refuse to take a job sometimes but that’s a difficult decision in a different way.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?
Besides providing the right and easy-to-use tools, it’s more important than ever to communicate regularly and often, so everyone can stay connected and updated. We always use video conferencing if possible to provide some face-to-face time that you would otherwise lose. Also, we focus a lot on the right reporting methods, as we have less direct control over remote teams. For projects-tracking and -briefing we use Asana and for daily communication Slack, with dedicated channels for each client. Apart from that, we prefer the GSuite to work on documents or media plans, sharing files, etc. Nothing special from what I have seen in other companies. It’s all about how you structure and enforce the usage of such tools.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Besides our current client portfolio, we are constantly looking for new business opportunities to grow further. For example, we discovered influencer management to be a part of our revenue stream last year. Apart from that, I believe you have to stay top of mind in terms of new technologies and I always challenge myself to stay young in my head. I watched many digital CMOs becoming lazy testing or simply clicking things, downloading new apps, experimenting with new technologies and those CMOs tend to end up with “we always did it like this” which is the biggest threat when you are working in digital. I want to stay a kid and just randomly click and try things. If something breaks I can still learn from it and use this failure for our client’s benefit and stay ahead of our competitors.
Your Final Thoughts
Even during these hard times, it is very important to celebrate any inspiring news, positive client feedback, or a new business win. Good news always creates a better environment, helps workers’ mental health, which is likely compromised right now.
- Spokesperson: Andre Kempe
- Company: Admiral Media
- Website: https://www.admiral.media/