97th Floor Introduces 97 X, a New R&D Department Led by Josh Moody

We at 97th Floor have always prided ourselves on our ability to innovate—to reach beyond the standard agency offerings and bring new skills and resources to the table. In the past, we have worked on several such projects, but our focus was on the agency side of things. We realized that if we wanted to become one of the top digital marketing agencies in the world, we needed to put all of our effort and focus towards that goal.

Now that 97th Floor has reached that point, we still aim to improve and grow the agency; however, we now have the capital and resources to do even more. Testing and experimentation have always been one of the pillars of 97th Floor’s culture, and it’s now time to take a big leap forward in this arena.

To that end, 97th Floor has created 97 X, a new Research and Development department. 97 X’s purpose is to test and experiment with every aspect of the business, trying new methods and developing new resources. Through this program, 97th Floor will further both its own innovation and the industry’s as a whole.

“I am extremely excited for 97 X, as it has been something I have wanted to do for a long time,” says Chris Bennett, 97th Floor’s CEO. “We dabbled in tools early in 97th Floor’s history, but we never really made a go of it, as the agency side always took precedence.”

Leading 97 X as 97th Floor’s Director of Research and Development will be Josh Moody. Moody will be transitioning from his current position as a Lead Enterprise Digital Marketer. 97th Floor’s executives have high expectations for Moody’s work in this new capacity. “Josh has the passion to start things and scale them,” says Wayne Sleight, COO at 97th Floor. “He even built a tool for his own work at 97th Floor without being asked, so he basically was already becoming our Director of R&D before we had even decided to create 97 X. He was an obvious choice and the right person to lead this new department.” Bennett adds, “Josh is just the guy to run this division to his heart’s content and really push where 97th Floor can go outside of agency services.” 

Josh Moody

Moody is ready to hit the ground running in his new position. “This is something I’ve wanted to dive into in a greater capacity for years,” he says. “It’s easy to get to the point where you only have so much free time testing and validating theories in addition to everything else. This will enable me to dig deeper and get more on the fringes of digital marketing for the benefit of the sites we believe in and work with.”

When asked about the value he feels 97 X will bring, he anticipates many positive returns. “I’m excited to create value through many various media. Primarily the scientific theorizing, testing, and validating will be huge for 97th Floor. Our findings will be of great value to our clients and enable us to elevate them even further.”

“Furthermore,” he continues, “we have some amazing projects that we are working on right now that we are keeping a tight lip on. These projects will be revealed in the coming months, and I am excited at the impact they will have internally, as well as for the digital marketing community.”