Luxury travel brand Black Tomato Group has launched a new creative agency called søster.

The new agency is an evolution of Black Tomato’s content, marketing and brand strategy arm, Studio Black Tomato, and its group incentive travel prize fulfilment division, Black Tomato Agency, with both teams now operating collectively as søster. 

The agency, headed up by managing director Alex James, will work with clients across the travel, luxury and lifestyle sectors and will service brands looking to engage with high-net-worth, experience-led audiences. 

Its services include strategic planning and insight to craft a brand’s positioning and engagement; production of creative content to support and deliver on marketing and communications; and design and delivery of brand experiences that drive audience engagement. 

Clients so far include Explore Charleston, MSC Cruises, One&Only, Saga, TWYN, Nu Skin and Virgin Limited Edition.

Black Tomato co-founder Matt Smith said: “We have been providing strategic, creative and experiential services to clients and partners for more than a decade via Studio Black Tomato and Black Tomato Agency, and to now be offering these specialisms in an integrated and relevant way under the søster brand is something we are all extremely excited about.

“We are proud of our unparalleled ability to draw upon historic, ‘live’ and ongoing analysis of HNW traveller behaviour along with our broader travel industry expertise, which leads to an unrivalled understanding of this key audience as well as future trends.

“We have listened to our clients' challenges and needs over an extended period and observed an increasing demand for a much more joined-up, integrated approach to brand strategy, creative and brand experiences. We recognised that whilst there are many strategy agencies, creative agencies and experience agencies in existence, none were bridging these individual key pillars together in the way that søster does.” 

James added: “It is extremely exciting to have this inter-connected team of experts from strategic, creative and experiential backgrounds combined to supercharge our unique proposition to our customers, and to ensure they deliver on their strategies into 2022 and beyond.

“I am thrilled with our client feedback as we create remarkable outputs, already showcasing an ability to deliver this bold, combined offering that affords them a truly holistic service.

“I am humbled to be leading such a knowledgeable, empathetic and dynamic group, and immensely proud and honoured to be part of a majority female leadership team. We look forward to evolving our service by delivering incredible work and supporting our partners globally.”