WORDS : GRAEME ANDERSON PICTURES : DAVID WOOD
Fantastic journey
Growing Sunderland marketing agency shares its own success story
Teamwork - managing director Chris Kean ( right ) with his wife , fellow director Senga .
F or a company specialising in telling the stories of others , the dynamic Sunderlandbased marketing agency dodio has an interesting story to tell itself .
Founded by Chris Kean , dodio has been providing regional and national businesses with tailored marketing support for more than 10 years .
Having started as a one-man band , the key to dodio ’ s growth was developing a core team with Senga ( director ) and Jameson ( head of design ), who Chris met in his previous role at the North East Business and Innovation Centre ( BIC ).
Chris joined the BIC - universally recognised for helping people startup in business - in 1999 and , after originally arriving as IT support , he quickly developed his twin passions of web design and photography , which he used to support the marketing department , and where he met director , and his wife , Senga .
From there , the idea for what would become dodio started to take root .
“ After working together for several years , we had a vision of creating a full-service marketing agency that shared our values , where the right things were done for the right reasons ," said Chris . “ We wanted to build close , long-term relationships based on honesty and transparency and work with clients as partners , where we could act as an extension of their team to showcase demonstrable results .”
In 2011 , Chris had an opportunity to start up on his own with support from the BIC itself and the agency was born and based on site . Since then , the quality of dodio ’ s work has proven to be its own calling card and Chris admits that growth is now high on the company ’ s agenda for 2022 .
“ We ’ ve grown steadily and organically over time , a lot of it by word of mouth and recommendations from delighted clients ,” he acknowledged .
“ But we ’ re focused now on getting our story out there and communicating how dodio can support organisations to achieve and even surpass their marketing objectives .” dodio continues to serve regional and national clients with a variety of one-off commissions but it ' s when working as a marketing partner - an extension of a client ’ s organisation and a part of their team - that they really shine .
“ A key example of a close marketing partnership can be seen with our client Meridian Parks , who came to us as a startup in 2018 ,” said Chris .
“ We ’ ve worked with them since inception , from establishing their values and selecting their name to developing a brand identity
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