Matured at Researchcraft – Celebrating 20 years
06 March 2025
Jon's career milestone
March 2025. Researchcraft’s Managing Director Jon Wilkins celebrated a milestone in his career at the end of 2024, reaching his 20th anniversary of working at Researchcraft. Di O’Neill, one of Researchcraft’s Associate Directors, caught up with him to get his reflections.
Di: First of all, congratulations! Can you take us back to why you joined Researchcraft 20 years ago?
Jon: My goal back in 2004 was to spend more of my time working closely with clients to make a difference for them. I was frustrated by becoming increasingly distanced from clients in a larger agency environment. Researchcraft’s philosophy is to make sure clients have hands-on access to the most senior and experienced people in the business and that’s still at the heart of the way we work today. A lot of clients still value that approach and it’s why our industry continues to have a large and thriving pool of smaller agencies.
Di: What do you looks back on with most pride from the last 20 years?
Jon: We must be doing something right! Over the years we have worked with lots of clients who are established household names but helped grow lots of emerging brands. Even those that are not in the public eye are important players in their fields. There have been plenty of challenging times for our industry in those 20 years, but Researchcraft managed to weather them all from the 2008 financial crisis, to Brexit, Covid and the cost-of-living crisis. We have bounced back and come back stronger every time.
Di: What does the future hold for you and Researchcraft?
Jon: As has always been the case, my main challenge is to make sure we continue to thrive as a business by finding new and better ways to help our clients. The tools of the trade may be rapidly changing, but I see that as an opportunity rather than a problem. Right now, we need to embrace new developments in AI and other innovations to help us apply our expertise in better ways. If that means it is faster and more cost effective then great, as long as we uphold the quality and integrity of what we do. We can do that in a number of ways. Clients rely on what we do to make well-informed decisions. Our focus needs to be on ensuring the veracity of the data and insights we provide, as well as adding value by applying our specialist expertise to everything we do for our clients. I’m not certain what that will look like in five years’ time, but it will certainly be very different to where we are now and it’s going to be an exciting journey getting there.
And if all goes well, I’ll have more time to explore my ever expanding whisky collection!
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