No egos. No silos. No nonsense. smart brings the future of coopetition to life with smart FLUX.

In a revolutionary new approach, three of the leading European agencies have decided to join forces in shaping the future of mobility. Partnering with smart, they will create smart FLUX, an innovative communications group promoting the all-new smart range of mobility solutions, starting with the launch of the upcoming smart SUV in the compact car segment.

FLUX symbolises the way the partners are thinking, working and innovating as a collective, with expertise flowing into each other. Focusing on the end-to-end experience, smart FLUX brings together the best talents to write the next chapter of the smart success story. Driven by intrinsic motivation to constantly question the status quo for more impactful success across disciplines, something new is constantly emerging. All the agencies will work like a virtual company with the joint responsibility for efficiency and the management of the budget towards joint KPIs for the optimum result.

After nine months of an intense selection process, smart Europe has chosen DEPT®, Ketchum and Kolle Rebbe, part of Accenture Interactive, as partners in its new communications team.

With smart radically changing its marketing to a customer-centred, data-first, hyper-personalised approach, smart FLUX will have no boundaries between partners to achieve maximum impact: everyone contributes, no-one is limited to their core area of expertise. “We consequently follow our direction to take a new path – disruptive, integrated and success-driven. We take the set-up very seriously and our aim is to establish a long-lasting partnership where we are on eye-level. In the smart Europe organisation, there are no silos around digital, marketing and PR to ensure a holistic end-to-end experience – and that’s also the case at smartFLUX,“ says Björn Schick, Director CX & Member of the Executive Board at smart Europe GmbH.

“Together we work on the best solutions, along clear, binding, overarching targets. All partners are equal in this set-up – the agencies among themselves, but also we as the client,” Julia Brehm, Head of PR & Communications at smart Europe GmbH, continues. “For us, there are no boundaries, neither in our thinking, nor in our concepts, nor in execution. Since our vision of this communications team only works if all partners lose or win together, a common KPI set lays the ground for everything we do,” Stella Yao Yue, Head of Marketing at smart Europe GmbH, reinforces.

With smart FLUX, smart Europe is committed to sustained cooperation: the new team will work together in this constellation long-term to jointly drive brand and business impact. To achieve the common KPI set, smart FLUX has the authority for joint resource allocation including all media spend.

Effective immediately, all communication for the European market will be developed and directed from smart FLUX. For impactful orchestration of the market launch, the smart FLUX colleagues are acting collectively as a lean, efficient network aiming for strong market interaction instead of pure market steering.

The initial challenge for smart FLUX will be the world premiere of the new smart SUV, which is scheduled for the first half of 2022. This will subsequently be followed by a pre-order campaign starting in the third quarter of 2022, followed by the start of sales end of 2022.

>> DEPT® on smart FLUX
“Agility, speed and transparency, while focussing on end-to-end experiences that combine technology and marketing, is rare to find. It’s great that together we can enable smart to build this bridge to achieve their business goals”, says Josephine Gerves, Managing Director at DEPT®. Adding: “Working in a truly collaborative team, where everyone thinks beyond the horizon of their own discipline, is refreshing, fun
and inspiring.”

>> Ketchum on smart FLUX
“We are proud to be a shaping and driving part of smart FLUX, redefining the way communication is developed and implemented – especially since we do not position ourselves in an attention economy only, but in the decision-making economy. A strictly impact-orientated and measurable definition of success – as it is given with smart FLUX – also reflects our understanding of visionary communication”, says Simone Hoch, Chief Client Officer at Ketchum in Germany.

>> Kolle Rebbe, part of Accenture Interactive, on smart FLUX
“smart is an icon of mobility with its revolutionary and radical approach. Shaping its next chapter together with our partners is a wonderful task. Transforming marketing end-to-end to create the best brand experiences for our customers can only be
achieved if we stand together behind this joint goal”, says Lennart Wittgen, Managing Director at Kolle Rebbe, part of Accenture Interactive. “To integrate
strategy, implementation and now creativity gives us the chance to holistically support smart on their way into the next decade.”

In their manifesto the four partners of smart FLUX agree:

“No egos. No silos. No bullshit. smart’s success is our joint success.”

For further information about smart, please click here.