The consultancy is a division of the award-winning agency, which is an innovator in developing, supporting and executing artist partnerships and culture campaigns for agencies and brands across three continents.
According to the agency, the creation of the consulting unit came after identifying the stiff challenges agencies and brands often face in the evolving culture and entertainment space — from overinvestment to unsuitable brand talent matches and forced messaging.
"Having executed numerous global culture and entertainment campaigns and talent partnerships, we have seen a massive gap where brands are often over-paying while not taking into consideration where an artist or influencer is in their individual journey — all of which impacts on the right brand-talent fit. This also results in brands then being a distraction rather than authentically in culture," says Davin Phillips, executive director at CSA.global.
The agency adds that with its substantial experience in artist management, it also understands the key factors and metrics that influence the pricing of talent partnerships in today's market, all of which inform a balanced brand-talent spending approach.
"The three biggest questions any brand custodian anywhere needs to ask in a talent partnership are: Are you actively positioning your brand in culture or just using talent as a media buy? Are you buying wisely on rights or overspending on elements you don't need? Are you ensuring campaign narratives raise the profile of brand and talent in a way that makes it rewarding to both? If not, you're not unlocking the full potential of your artist and influencer partnerships," adds Phillips.
Outside of helping cast and manage the right talent for a brand role, the agency says C&E Partners London will also provide a focus on transforming contractual agreements into symbiotic collaborations, where both parties value the relationship equally, along with authentic narratives and analytics development.
"Our goal is to add value to agencies and brands to grow the market through partnerships that create emotional connections and to help them maximise their artist and influencer relationships by bringing artists credibly into the brand's world — and vice versa. For brand relevance, in today's conscious culture, that's the sweet spot," says Phillips.
The agency concludes that on top of building out culture and entertainment campaigns for several multinational brands — and managing numerous brand-talent relationships — C&E Partners' leadership team has created award-winning short films and TV shows, developed number-one music hits and managed tours with artists globally.