Joseph Jaffe was early to sound the social-media alarm with his book Join the Conversation. He parlayed his vision of a marketing world turned upside down by empowered customers into a social-media agency Crayon, which was acquired by Powered in January 2010. Now Jaffe’s back with a new type of marketing shop, Evol8tion, an agency that’s solely dedicated to connecting startups and brands. In Jaffe’s view, the divide between Madison Avenue and Silicon Valley is as wide as ever. Many startups fail because they run out of funding, which Jaffe believes wouldn’t be the case if they had found a brand patron earlier on.

It seems like lots of folks want to be brand-startup matchmakers. Where is the gap in the market that you feel Evol8tion can fill?
Ultimately, there are a few massive gaps. I looked at the typical life cycle of a startup. It began in a world of tech and finance and stumbled its way into marketing and brands. This has always been the way the model is. It’s get big fast, and then the rest follows. It’s then about advertising. A majority of startups are built on the premise of get big fast and then monetize that scale in terms of brand-advertising dollars. What would happen if we began with the brand and then worked our way backward? Start off with the business problem, the brand challenge and the consumer needs, and then work backward to a startup that exists — or maybe doesn’t yet exist. The funding would come from the brands. On the one hand, 97 percent of startups never get fully funded. Dollars for startups are drying up. You have a blue ocean of possibility. We believe every viable startup has a brand soulmate. We’re not saying they’re all are viable. We bet a majority are viable for a particular category or brand. (more…)

If you’re familiar with Joe Jaffe, author, former agency guy, Jaffe Juice blogger and Crayon founder, then you know the man is passionate and has a lot to say about whatever’s on his mind. And he’s got quite a lot to say about his new venture, Evol8tion, an “innovation agency” that aims to bring the agencies of Madison Avenue together with the early stage technology startups of Mountain View in order to orchestrate “brand soul mates.”

What the hell does that mean? It mean that Joe firmly believes technology does and will play an important role in the future of advertising and that the fusion of creative ideas, story-telling and technology can make anything possible.

Positioning Evol8tion, Jaffe said, “The startup lives in the epicenter of technology-inspired innovation. 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.” (more…)

By Kiran Aditham on January 24, 2012 10:36 AM

Joseph Jaffe, the man behind the Jaffe Juice blog and Crayon, the latter of which was acquired by Powered two years ago, is back in the agency biz with his new operation called Evol8tion. The idea behind the one-time TBWA\Chiat\Day and OMD staffer’s new shop is to bring start-ups and brands as well as Madison Ave and Mountain View together. According to the man himself, “The startup lives in the epicenter of technology-inspired innovation. 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.”

Jaffe is kickstarting Evol8tion with a product called “Matchmaker,” which, wait for it, helps start-ups find their “brand soul mate.” Anyhow, you can find out more from the link above about Evl8tion, which has attracted clients like AB-InBev and Kraft to the fold.

by Joe Mandese

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.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166358/joe-jaffe-launches-evol8tion-focuses-on-matching.html#ixzz1kOBp2qTM

Innovation agency looks to fuse worlds of Madison Avenue and Mountain View to “reverse engineer” the startup

WESTPORT, Connecticut – January 24, 2012 – Thought Leader, Author and Entrepreneur Joseph Jaffe, today announced the launch of his new company, Evol8tion, LLC (www.startupsforbrands.com).

Evol8tion is an innovation agency that matches early stage startups to blue chip brands to partner via mentoring, pilot programs and/or investment.  Evol8tion aims to change the way brands work with technology-based startups via early stage participation with early stage ventures.

Evol8tion is Jaffe’s latest breakthrough for the marketing world, following his firm, crayon, one of the industry’s first social media agencies, which was acquired by Powered, and again by Dachis Group. Before that, Jaffe was Director of Interactive Media at TBWA/Chiat/Day and OMD USA.  He is also a three time author of best selling books, hosts a blog and audio podcast, “Jaffe Juice,” and a video show called Jaffe Juice TV. (more…)