Start-up sets sights on graphic revolution

By DOMINIC JEFF
Published on 26/08/2012 00:00

A START-UP business which is aiming to revolutionise marketing with interactive displays that will provide instant research results has signed up former Lloyds banker John Watson as its first non-executive director.

Watson, former head of Lloyds’ small business lending portfolio, joins a group of international entrepreneurs who have set up a firm called Stipso in Edinburgh to use the internet craze of infographics as a marketing tool. Infographics are graphical displays which bring together a variety of figures and make them easy to interpret.

Chief executive Steven Drost said the system could provide quick feedback as well as publicity for clients, and worked because people were happy to answer questions on topics they were interested in.

“People are no longer interested in being respondents, they want to be data users,” he says. “They are motivated by knowing what others think about a subject that interests them.”

Stipso was formed in Edinburgh in 2010 by Drost – a “German-Scot” – along with sales director Brian Corcoran from Ireland and head of online marketing Yaniv Mazor from Israel.

The group’s first client to go live is expected to be 
PetNet, a social media website for pet owners, with an infographic due to appear in the next few weeks.

Although the company has yet to advertise its service, it has also signed up Maven Capital Partners, the Glasgow-based fund manager which handles the Scottish Loan Fund.