5/26/2009

a letter from partners of Laundry

Dear Friends,

As you may have read from the news, Laundry is now N2 Laundry.
When we started Laundry two years ago, we challenged a number of stone-carved conventions of the marketing communications business. We thought that majority of agencies were doing things that were fundamentally wrong – in this time and age. Some of our assumptions were wrong (like the now-defunct no-accounts-policy and total communications blackout), but in many things we were right, too (combining traditional and modern marketing channels, use of social media,etc.).

The recession has accelerated the need for changes in marketing communications. Both what is bought by clients and what is created by the agencies. There’s still a need to address the masses with great stories, but we also need to be able to nurture ongoing conversations – and find new tools and solutions for effective and engaging marketing.

I started discussions with Jussi Nurmio last autumn about how the world was changing. Not just marketing communications, but business, art, creativity, innovation, technology – and how things that before didn’t seem to have much in common were, in fact, growing closer than ever before. Design is a big factor when we buy technology. Marketing is part of everything – even product ideation. In the times of rapid changes, creativity is much needed for business success.

Outcome of those early discussions were later crafted into N2’s vision of the world and mission for our business. Now we have started a journey to form a new kind of creative professional services company. A company that is made of the hardest working, intelligent and passionate people in technology, design
and business – for our clients benefit.

Laundry was a great foundation to start from, as it is already doing the right kind of things in the field of marketing. Having Jussi onboard N2 gives also Laundry a massive new resource in insight and understanding client needs. Other than that very little changes. Alex continues as the managing director, Kimmo Tupala continues as sales director. The same goes for our creatives. Although we are expecting to hire some new faces to Laundry during this year.

N2 Internet is lead by Antti Leino, a online business veteran and founder of Interweb Design and later Satama Interactive. The offering of the company is – simply – to help businesses go online. Sometimes this means e-commerce, sometimes some other kind of service development. We are building this offering around consultants, programmers, usability experts and creative geniuses. Like in marketing communications, there’s need for new ways of working and thinking in that field too. Instead of two-year projects that end up in massive costs, we aim to employ new technologies and creative concept thinking to create game-changing offerings for our clients. The staff we have joining us, is simply amazing.

N2 Design is an entity that we see helping clients in brand development, corporate identity and packaging. Also packaging goods that aren’t packageable. We have few interesting candidates with whom we are currently negotiating about leadership position in the agency. We will inform the world in the next few months about our decision.

The big deal about N2 -setup is that we work seamlessly together in the same office, regardless of who is employed by which company - according to project and client needs. Should you need help in both marketing and planning your online business, we’re the people. Then again, should you just need help with advertising/marketing you can work with Laundry, as before.


- Alex, Jani, Jari, Jussi, Pauliina & Jussi & everybody at N2.

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