A scary realization hit Chris Breikss as he listened to Google “digital marketing evangelist” Avinash Kaushik last September at an industry conference.
“He basically said that in three to five years, most digital agency jobs will be gone because of machine learning and artificial intelligence,” recalled Breikss, the co-founder of Vancouver-based digital agency 6S Marketing.
His digital marketing agency has a strong focus on search engine optimization, Google AdWords and Facebook, Inc. (Nasdaq: FB) ads — all specialties that will require less human expertise as AI matures.
“That was a catalyst for saying, ‘OK, let’s re-examine what we’re going to be doing,” Breikss said.
Flash forward 10 months and 6S Marketing is merging with web design firm Drive Digital to create what Breikss says is Vancouver’s largest digital agency: Major Tom.
“What we’re now doing is bringing in the creative side with Drive Digital,” he said.
“We’re merging design and science.”
The companies announced their merger July 3 along with the new name, a nod to David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.”
“But there’s not going to be spaceships and rocket men everywhere,” said Breikss, who is among the founding partners.
Instead, Major Tom has a roster of about 75 people, 60 of whom are in Vancouver. The rest are based in offices in Toronto and New York.
Major Tom paid $7.6 million for its new 10,000-square-foot space at 548 Beatty St., while renovations added another $800,000 to the final price tag.
The area is also home to advertising agencies Pound & Grain at 510 Beatty St. and Skyrocket Digital at 560 Beatty St.
And the real estate investment next to Stadium-Chinatown SkyTrain station already appears to be paying off.
“We got really lucky because the office is basically at Dunsmuir and Beatty,” Breikss said.
“So our property just went shooting up because it’s a five-minute walk away now from the new Amazon (Nasdaq: AMZN) headquarters in Vancouver.”
The location aside, Breikss said the most significant part of the merge is how it represents a change in strategy.
A year ago if a client asked 6S Marketing to add a few thousand more customers onto its social media channels, the company would execute on that.
Breikss said the new strategy is to first figure out what the client’s ultimate goal is.
“We’re trying to get to the root of the problem,” he said.
“Then we want to figure out, is that a reasonable goal or should we be examining the greater landscape?”
