Iris partners Australian digital agency to ramp up tech and innovation in Asia

Global creative agency Iris has partnered with Melbourne-based branding and digital agency, Liquorice in a bid to strengthen its tech and innovation offering in Asia. As a part of this partnership, Iris has purchased a share in Liquorice’s offshoot global technology company Dokio.

In a statement to Marketing, an Iris spokesperson said the purchase value of the share cannot be disclosed but added that Iris’ investment will trigger the close of Dokio’s seed investment round which has raised approximately AU$1.3m. According to the spokesperson, enterprise clients with multinational or multi-site marketing requirements with large retail networks (such as automakers, health insurers or banks) will be able to benefit from Dokio's CRM and workflow management system.

Dokio helps clients create, distribute and manage branded communications via intuitive templates and navigable content management systems. Following its purchase of share, Iris aims to roll out Dokio platform to its clients starting with Australia and Asia, as well as in the UK and the US.

Luke Nathans (pictured left), CEO of Iris APAC said the team sees Dokio providing real disruption to the agency landscape and change the way the agency works with clients. He added that these could include clients who require better efficiency and smart automation in the production of global-to-local and national-to-local campaigns, which also lets agency creatives to focus on big ideas and craft.

“Working together with Liquorice, we recognised a fantastic culture fit and a great pool of talent that truly values high-quality craft, design and technical expertise," he said.

"Iris is one of the few large agencies that has had great global success and managed to maintain a fantastic agency culture. It’s been a pleasure working with everyone at Iris over the last six months in the lead up to this partnership deal and I can’t wait to share their international expertise with our clients in Melbourne,” Scott Bonanno (pictured right), managing director of Liquorice, said.

In May this year, a Singapore-based sustainable farm Sustenir Agriculture appointed Iris Singapore as its agency of record (AOR). Following the appointment, Iris will be responsible for managing Sustenir’s brand strategy, creative execution and product innovation, as well as the company's expansion into Hong Kong later this year.

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