Joe Jaffe Launches Evol8tion, Focuses On Matching Brands With Startups

Digital agency impresario Joe Jaffe continues to adapt, and the latest step in his evolution is, well, Evol8tion, the alliterative name of a new shop focusing on matching “early stage startups” with “blue chip brands” -- something many of Madison Avenue’s biggest agencies also seem to be focused on these days.

Jaffe, who is well known for his blog “Jaffe Juice,” books and sound bites about marketers “joining the conversation,” may be best known for Crayon, the social-focused shop he created just as the conversation was beginning to explode, and which he sold to Powered in 2010. Before that, he was director of interactive media at Omnicom’s TBWA/Chiat/Day and OMD USA units.

Another thing Jaffe is known for is his access to and influence over the way big brands evolve their use of new technologies and digital marketing platforms, and it should come as no revelation that he announced the launch of Evol8tion with a couple of biggies in his back pocket, including quotes in his release from Kraft Foods’ Ed Kaczmarek and ABInBev’s Maarten Albarda, which implied they are working with the new shop.

“The startup lives in the epicenter of technology-inspired innovation,” Jaffe stated, adding: “But brands are often not brought into the picture until the startup is so far downstream in the process that it’s too late to influence direction, partner or truly innovate.”

To help make the right matches between big brands and innovative startup models, Jaffe not surprisingly also is launching a new proprietary -- and aptly named -- tool dubbed MatchMaker, which he described as a means of helping marketers find their “brand soul mate” by using a database to match brand goals and attributes with startup technologies.

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