Building a successful marketing technology startup is no easy task.

But Richard Kelly, who identified gaping holes on how Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies market themselves online, felt compelled to make the leap from employee to entrepreneur to solve the problem. This decision led Richard to found Adimo in 2013.

Adimo makes marketing shoppable by embedding ecommerce functionality directly into marketing campaigns and content on any digital platform (social media or otherwise) and has since worked with some of the biggest names in FMCG and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), including Nestle, P&G, and PepsiCo, among others. 

Noting that marketing increasingly focussed on ever more ingenious ways to target people, rather than simply making it easier for them to buy, Kelly believes that the market for such a service is actually much larger still.

This unwavering belief spurred Kelly and Adimo to double down on the platform's early success, launching a successful £1 million funding round in early 2017. 

As far as exactly what this million-pound funding round means for Adimo and it's future, only Richard Kelly Knows for sure.

We sat down to speak with him in their London office to get some answers.

Richard Kelly: Fact Sheet

Name: Richard Kelly
Title: CEO and Founder, Adimo
Favourite colour: Red (Rosso Corsa, to be precise)
Sunday lunch preference: Desperate Dan-level steak pie after attempting to relive my youth on a mountain bike.
Last song listened to: When I was done dying, Dan Deacon
Favourite tech Gadget: Honest answer? iPhone. One of the rare truly indispensable things. Also increasingly excited by the things Colin is doing with Raspberry Pi and all the ecosystem opportunities it creates. Other than that, my Guinness surger. Lovely.
Pet peeves: Hypocrisy. Short-termism. Courgette.
Top holiday destination: Anywhere with mountains.
Last film watched in the cinema: Star Wars: Rogue One
Rating of said film: 8/10

Richard Kelly Speaks:

What was your goal when you took the decision to launch this latest funding round for Adimo?

The goal of the round was to light the touch paper on Adimo’s growth. We’ve established fantastic relationships with some huge FMCG groups and delivered some great results for them. But despite this, we still see even larger numbers of brands still getting the basics wrong when trying to make their marketing shoppable, usually for no other reason than they don’t know how (and have a million other pressing things to think about).

As such, this round will let us take the Adimo message to more brands, in more places. As pioneers in FMCG eCommerce we’ve learned a lot on our journey so far. We look forward to sharing this knowledge with more brands so they can give their customers enjoyable, frictionless shopping experiences.

Which basics are brands getting wrong?

A continually surprising amount, in my opinion.

Worst are absent or poorly functioning calls to action. Then there’s display ads which are completely inconsistent with the website or landing page to which the ad is sending traffic in the first place. In our space, we see “buy now” CTAs directing users to something there is literally no way to buy. This inconsistency loses user interest immediately, costs companies lost revenue in the process, and worst of all, is really just wasting people’s time. It’s actually creating a negative brand experience. Creative marketing teams are great at making consumers want the products on offer, but not at helping them buy those same products.

So you are talking about moving on from the traditional marketing/branding model of planting seeds in the mind of consumers and then hoping that these seeds will cause them to make a purchase later on?

Yes. That approach worked fine in the 20th century, but is much less effective on digital channels with modern audiences which are inundated with these messages so frequently.

When I was working in digital agencies, I found myself consistently frustrated when working with FMCG clients due to the fact I had no option but to send prospective customers to company websites that couldn’t deliver and meet those customers’ needs. Relying on the person remembering later and hoping they make a purchase seemed criminally inefficient in comparison to the eCommerce benefits enjoyed by other sectors. In turn, this meant there was no actual purchase data to optimise campaigns against. This is a fundamental problem within the FMCG sector. Most brands are not measuring outcomes through analytics. It’s still all about quantity of reach rather than quality of engagement.

So as most other sectors swear by, without looking at data related to actual purchase engagement, brands can’t optimise marketing effectively. I truly believe this, more than anything else, explains why most FMCG companies are not seeing the ROI of their online marketing efforts trend positively in the long term. Compounding the problem is the fact that they’re competing for media space and audience attention with other sectors who are, and consequently can pay more because they know what works. So it’s a double edged sword with some pretty significant long-term consequences. The majority of FMCG brands aren’t measuring purchase data and focusing their future efforts on what works for both them and – more importantly – their customers.

What is the message that Adimo wants to get out into the FMCG sphere?

Modern marketing is arms race for data and efficiency. And in the quest for this, marketers are forgetting about the people at the other side, utilising practices which ultimately feel invasive, spammy, or meaningless.

So  Which, if they’re engaging with their content, is to be able to easily get the actual product.

So our aim is to improve the relationships consumers have with brands again. We’re trying to go back to marketing basics and help brands give people what they want. We do that by making advertising more useful and shopping more convenient and rewarding. The brands who work with us get the credit for that benefit.

What really excites me about our product is the fact our technology can drive an action, which in turn can change awareness messaging from broadcast to something more meaningful. Not in the social media way of “let’s have a conversation” – but to something that lets brands create experiences that can help answer a need, solve a problem or achieve a goal.

Can the products be part of a healthy diet? Put them at the heart of a healthy meal plan you can get in one click.

Cosmetics made without harming animal welfare? Vegetarian friendly beauty bundle (or even just pages well optimised for search).

Products people need a lot of? Cost-effective ways to buy in bulk.

There is an infinite number of ways that with a bit of creative thought you can turn something from an ad telling someone how great something is, to a piece of content that actually helps someone a little bit. And which of those two experiences do you think is going to create the most brand value?

Commerce as convenience. It’s the future.

What approaches/platforms will you be using to spread the word?

A soapbox and a megaphone. Maybe a Rapmaster 2000.

No, of course it goes without saying that we’ll be making use of anything that gives us a good foundation from which to amplify our message. We want to show the world that we practice what we preach, and share some of the discoveries we’ve made on our journey in pioneering FMCG eCommerce. To this end – and one of the things I’m really excited about – is our own events program that we’re currently cooking up. The idea is that we basically get a load of other savvy marketing tech businesses we like together with brands and agencies to focus on solving a particular problem, the output being something that can be picked up and run with that ultimately, in some way, make people’s lives a bit better, easier or smoother.

Which kinds of companies will Adimo be targeting in it’s new marketing efforts?

We’re focused 100% on the FMCG sector, a lot of which still operates in the digital dark ages. So we believe that all FMCG and CPG companies can benefit from what Adimo has to offer. But in particular, I think food and drink marketing and beauty marketing, while aesthetically pleasing and well conceived, generally falls at the final hurdle when it is time to make a sale.

These are products that people care about on a deep personal level. There is an opportunity to make marketing as engaging as the products themselves.

What is your vision for Adimo’s role in the FMCG and CPG world?

Adimo is a tool that brands can use not just to sell, or optimise, but to make life easier for consumers as well. We believe that Adimo can optimise the digital marketing ecosystem in three ways:

First, by enabling existing marketing to allow a smooth online purchase journey which doesn’t disrupt user experience.

Second, by collecting and analysing data to determine the most effective forms of marketing.

Third, by working with brands to develop new and innovative marketing approaches to not only convert marketing channels and consumers, but to make everyone’s lives easier in the process.

One thing is for sure:

2017 promises to be an interesting year for Adimo, and indeed for the FMCG and CPG industry as a whole. The writing is on the wall for those stuck in old ways of thinking about digital marketing for fast moving consumer goods.

Those who choose to get ahead of the curve and embrace new approaches to traditional digital advertising will find themselves in the enviable position of setting the trends, while those who decide to stick to their guns may very well be left behind in the dust.

With his decision to bring on £1 million in funding to start off 2017, Richard Kelly is betting that brands are beginning to see that the time is now for the digital marketing of FMCG and CPG to take it’s next big evolutionary step forward.

The only question left to be answered is; Once the word gets out, which brands will jump on board and embrace the future, and which ones won’t?