Emperor takes share in exceptional™

Corporate communications agency Emperor takes a minority stake in exceptional™

Emperor, one of the UK’s leading employee-owned corporate communications agencies, has taken a minority stake in exceptional™, marking a new chapter in a relationship between the two businesses that stretches back almost a decade.

It’s an investment that brings together Emperor’s expertise in corporate reporting, sustainability, brand and stakeholder communications with our expertise in AI Search, SEO, paid media, social media and analytics.

But the story of how we got here is considerably less corporate.

It starts at 7.30am on a Friday morning in a gym.

From fitness to business

Back in 2016, exceptional™ was still called Base Creative. 

I was running the agency during the day while also teaching a weekly fitness class – partly because I loved doing it and partly because putting myself on the timetable was a fairly effective way of guaranteeing I actually exercised.

One of the regulars was Steve Kemp, founder of Emperor.

For the first few months, our relationship was pretty straightforward. I told Steve to squat lower, lift heavier and generally try harder. 

Eventually, a chance conversation outside the fitness studio revealed that we both had day jobs. Steve had built Emperor into a highly respected corporate communications agency. I ran a digital agency.

We swapped business cards… which led to a coffee, then a referral, then a project. 

Over the years, the two businesses worked together more and more, bringing different skills and perspectives to the same clients and gradually discovering just how complementary those skills were. It wasn’t just our work that was well aligned. Today, both Emperor and exceptional™ are certified B Corps, reflecting a common belief that how we grow and do business matters as much as the work itself.

There was never a grand plan to get from that first conversation to an investment, the relationship simply grew. Almost ten years later, Emperor and exceptional™ are taking the next step together.

Why now?

A lot has changed in those ten years. Corporate communications used to have some fairly well-defined destinations – companies published annual reports, maintained corporate websites, issued announcements and communicated with investors, employees, customers and other stakeholders through relatively established channels. 

Then those channels multiplied as annual reports became digital experiences, and corporate websites became increasingly important sources of information. Google had changed how people discovered companies, while social media changed how stories travelled and who could participate in them.

Now we’re entering another shift as people trying to understand a company (from investors and analysts to journalists, customers and candidates) are increasingly asking ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude alongside searching Google and scrolling social media.

AI platforms don’t simply provide a list of links – they gather information from across the web, interpret it, summarise it and increasingly provide the answer themselves.

For organisations, that creates a new question: when someone asks an AI platform about your company, your sector, your sustainability credentials or an issue you want to be known for, what does it say?

That question sits right at the intersection of what Emperor and exceptional™ do.

Emperor has spent decades helping organisations understand what they need to say, how they should say it and how they communicate effectively with the stakeholders who matter.

At exceptional™, we’ve spent 20 years obsessing over visibility, awareness and engagement. Our work has evolved considerably during that time, from the early days of digital and search marketing through to SEO, paid media, social, analytics and, increasingly, AI search.

What’s changing?

Importantly, this investment doesn’t mean exceptional™ becomes Emperor. 

We remain independent, with our own brand, leadership, team, culture and clients. We’ll continue working with our existing partners and doing the things that have made exceptional™ what it is. For our clients, that means the same team and relationship they know, backed by greater depth and resilience, earlier access to new propositions, and Emperor’s broader expertise when it can add value.

What changes is what we can do next.

We now have a brilliant partner alongside us, closer access to some of the UK’s most ambitious organisations and the opportunity to bring our expertise into much bigger corporate communications conversations.

Some of the best business relationships don’t begin with a strategy document or a five-year plan. They start because two people get on, discover they can help each other and keep finding reasons to work together.