Putting data first: Aukera joins the Rebellion

Apart from fighting to survive a global pandemic, these last two years we’ve kept busy at Good Rebels implementing the strategic turnaround we launched in 2019. Having succeeded until then, in creating a global social media player, we saw it was time to change gears and start our journey to become the 360º digital partner of choice for our clients.

Our revenues have grown by 30% in 2021 but social and engagement represents now only 65% of the total billings down from 90% in 2019. And digital product design, strategy and research and digital media buying services are set to make for 50% in 2022. 

This turnaround has been partly made possible, with the acquisitions of Muskae and Kanvas. It feels like this was ages ago though, and it’s time to push the throttle. Thus, we are happy to announce that Aukera, one of the best Spanish digital analytics agencies, is joining the Rebellion. 

Probably, the best independent web analytics agency in Spain

“Drive for show, putt for dough” is one of the old mantras of golf wisdom that was dismantled in 2004 when every single ball in the US Golf tournament started to get tracked and demonstrated that good long drives -not hits on greens- won prizes. Marketing, like golf, has been governed by intuition and creativity for years then suddenly, digital changed everything. That’s why we built Good Rebels on 4 pillars: data, design, creativity and technology. And we put data first, not by coincidence or aesthetics.

Some months ago, we approached Aukera, a digital analytics agency and consultancy founded by Eneko Vivanco 12 years ago in Bilbao. They have built a strong reputation working for companies like DKV, Easyjet or Eroski and they are one of the very few Google Certified agencies in six GMP products in Spain. Having reached an agreement to acquire the company, a team of more than 10 amazing professionals is now joining Good Rebels. With their support our capabilities to deliver projects in data strategy, infrastructure and technology, data-driven marketing and data culture are strengthened. 

Agile methodologies and CRO (Conversion rate optimisation) tactics have become pervasive and are now key to addressing the threat of digital players trying to steal market share from incumbent companies. The integration with Aukera will enable Good Rebels’ clients to address smart questions through more sophisticated projects and technologies, improving data capture and analysis along the touchpoints of the digital consumer journey. 

But what else happened in these last two years at Good Rebels?

Four day week, remote first and more

Not only have we managed to win 40+ new clients since the beginning of the pandemic, like Decathlon, Lidl, Repsol, Mission Foods, Amazon and others. We’ve also been able to do so, protecting all our co-workers’ jobs without furloughs or layoffs. We’ve diversified our range of services and increased the turnover (one third in 2021) coming from our smaller basecamps: the UK, Mexico and Barcelona. And we are proud to have retained most of our clients in this period: our work with them speaks for itself and is our most powerful business generator.

Our revenues increased by 30% in 2021 and our pipeline shows strength to keep growing at a similar pace in 2022. Our biggest push came from our Digital Product Design team, who increased its turnover by a factor of five and it’s still the fastest moving area of the company. I want to congratulate Kike, Javi, Laura, Vanessa, Eva from the Muskae team in 2020, Antonio at the forefront of the services strategy and Mar at the helm of the development team.

The superdigitalisation wave unleashed by Covid fueled our growth, and so did our brand that has become more salient thanks to our thought leadership activity: our Rebels have participated in tens -if not hundreds- of events and webinars, and many long, meaningful articles and a bunch of original research and papers have been published on Rebel Thinking (like the Zen Gen, the Age of Balance or Covid-19: implications for CMOs). All of it brings our humble independent company on a par with the big players.

We introduced a 4 day week scheme in July 2021 without salary reductions and we are keeping this experiment live for now, because our clients have responded with enthusiasm and we are happier and feel more productive. Not only do we look for our wellbeing -better rested and energised-, but we also want to be part of the group of trailblazers that are showing the world that productivity gains of the last decades will allow for major societal change.

In addition to our 4 day week, we moved to a remote first approach in September: though we keep our offices open (that now include Aukera’s in Bilbao), every Rebel is now allowed to work from home or even change their place of residence at will. Our clients’ mindset has evolved, we are more productive and can reduce our carbon footprint on top of it. This is the future of work and it doesn’t make sense to fight it, but we’ll keep working on our idea of love in the workplace, promoting as much face to face interactions as we can, only with different, more social face to face events.

Bring on 2022!

The new year arrived full of omicron but we are confident that the worst of this pandemic is behind us. We cannot wait to keep building a better Rebellion, helping our clients achieve sustainable business results while inspiring them to be more human-centred. I’d list here all of our challenges and plans for the year but this entry is already too long and I prefer to walk the talk. 

We will continue to grow in 2022 with a focus on diversifying our services and introducing operational improvements with the help of a new ERP (Netsuite) that will help us deliver a healthier profit, while continuing to exceed our clients’ expectations. We are truly excited about becoming a B-Corp certified company, and moving our Madrid office to create a more experiential “Rebel House”, open to all of you. But most of all, we are cannot wait to start working with Aukera.

Ongi etorri, Aukerians, to our (all new) Rebellion!