Agency profile: Klick X
Interview

Agency profile: Klick X

Telum is looking to highlight the diverse and vibrant agencies in the Australian and NZ PR agency landscape in upcoming editions of our PR Alert. We are looking to encourage networking, business opportunities, and to celebrate the great initiatives being worked on. If you'd like your agency to feature, get in touch.

What services does the agency offer?
At Klick X, we regard ourselves as the Creative Solutions Company. Our vision is to create exceptional growth for brands with strategy-based, real-time solutions to clients’ business issues, over traditional integrated service delivery. Influence is no longer about having the most column inches, it’s about changing the way people think and behave. At Klick X we know that a list of services can’t solve your brand challenges, so instead of asking how to address the problem, we ask why there is one. Then we build a bespoke creative solution that’ll stimulate growth.

What size is the agency?
The future of the agency is different, and so are we. At Klick X we have six employees supported by a panel of senior marketing communications specialists that we can draw on to bring their strategic insights when needed. Our curated panel of Klick X ‘experts’ currently includes marketing veteran Cameron Crowley, brand and business consultant Claire Hobson and former global head of social and content at Tourism Australia and consultant Jesse Desjardins, among others. We find this collaborative, agile approach makes for improved strategic thinking for Klick X clients, and lets us react more swiftly to changing category dynamics and complex consumer behaviour.

Where does your agency have an office?
Klick X did away with its Sydney and Los Angeles offices in July 2019 to embrace the future of work and position us as more than an implementation only, location-dependent agency. Klick X team members have the flexibility to choose where they work (#WFA), which includes being based at client locations around the world if they wish. Not only is this good for employees, but it also enables us to offer our existing and potential clients the best thinking wherever in the world that may be. To facilitate this, our creative thinking is powered via a powerful AI cloud-based tool that delivers cutting edge emerging consumer trends and gathers leading insights to inform strategy, in addition to other communication tools to facilitate remote working, collaboration and efficiency.

Do you have a particular area of focus?
Klick X specialises in travel, with strong skills in entertainment, retail, property and luxury brands. But really, we take on creative challenges in any industry that enriches the lives of its consumers.

Who is the founder and why did they start the agency?
Founder and Director, Kim McKay started the company in 2008 as a communications collective that would harness the unexpected to boost a brand’s influence. After building a successful agency over 13 years in Australia and the US with a strong reputation around culture, innovation and expertise in the travel and lifestyle industries, the agency rebranded to Klick X two years ago, introducing a new model, working practices and brand identity. The consumer communications business essentially repositioned to drive strategy-based solutions to clients’ business issues, over traditional integrated service delivery. The name change and addition of the X was made to recognise the variables that exist in any situation that can have the most significant impact on outcomes.

What is next for your agency? What is the five-year goal?
The future of ‘agencies’ as we know them is different, and continues to change, and therefore so do we. In fact the ‘X’ in Klick X highlights our agency’s preparedness to continually evolve our model to reflect the changing business and consumer landscape, which is very apt given the past 12 months and pandemic era we’re working through. Ultimately, our success is measured by the value we provide, be it now or in five-years' time, so we’ve made creative solutions and collaboration our superpower and focus. After researching influential brands for more than a decade, we believe we have created a winning formula and take a ‘3i’ approach to our work - Impact, Interaction and Innovation. Our goal remains helping clients bring new and meaningful products and services into the world in innovative and effective ways.

In a sentence, describe your ideal relationship with a journalist.
The X in Klick X means collaboration, so we constantly seek out opportunities to interact and engage with journalists and other content creators for partnerships that create true impact.

Tell us about a campaign you are currently working on or are particularly proud of.
From a client perspective, we’re also about to launch a really fun campaign with Stayz based around the importance of play for families. We have some really insightful research and expert commentary we’re looking forward to sharing around why taking family holidays is more important than ever before.

As an agency, we’re really proud to have rolled out our own campaign to play our part in reducing the inequality issues for BIPOC people in our country and our industry. We are committed to working with and highlighting the voices of underrepresented communities, not only in our professional endeavours but personally. Some of our commitments are around nurturing black talent, inclusive influencer marketing and working with clients to better educate them around marginalised communities and how they should be served by brands and represented in marketing.

Those who have non-European and Indigenous backgrounds make up an estimated 24 per cent of the Australian population, therefore Klick X have introduced the 24 rule. Ensuring all the business’ efforts, from social media imagery to the causes we support, collectively represent that percentage of Australians at least.

Any key PR trends your agency is keeping an eye on?
We’re currently obsessed with the renewed importance around campaign timings. It’s easy to become obsessed with the ‘what’ when it comes to talking about brands and products or experiences, but from a consumer PR perspective we think at getting the ‘when’ right when executing a campaign has never been more important, particularly in the lifestyle and travel space that we regularly work in. In the post-pandemic future, ‘reading the room’ and knowing when the right time to drop something into the market to best leverage the memory structures we’ve worked hard to build for our brands will count more than ever.

What skillsets do you look for in new hires?
We aren’t a geographic-centric agency, so for us recruiting and retaining people isn’t determined on where a person lives, especially given the amazing technology available to keep us connected, but rather the expertise they bring to a project. We want to harness the best talent worldwide, not the best talent available to travel to an office in Sydney every day. Indeed, our desire to tap great talent was one of the biggest drivers for Klick X to move to a completely virtual model back in 2019.

At Klick X we have a big focus on how people fit and work together within the team - we look for recruits that will collaborate, not compete, with each other. We seek out forward-thinkers who are strategic, innovative and ultimately problem solvers. Work life integration is also really important at Klick X and people are at the centre of every decision we make.

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