Simon Davies, the former marketing director of Molson Coors who left the brewer after 13 years at the start of this month, has opened a new strategic and creative agency in Manchester.

MMIXX, based in Spinningfields, is the brainchild of Davies, experienced agency man David Walters and Dr Mark Batey, a psychology academic at Manchester Business School who has consulted for the likes of Unilever, Rolls Royce and Johnson & Johnson.

The start-up bills itself as a combination of a "strategic marketing consultancy and media neutral creative agency".

Davies said: “As a client I found it frustrating that there are so few – if any – genuinely integrated agencies out there.

“Even the big groups are more like shopping malls of individual disciplines than properly integrated operations. MMIXX is going to offer clients strategic insight and the means to act on it regardless of whether the answer is advertising, web, DM, pricing, distribution or all of the above.

“Some people will say we are crazy to start now, but very many successful businesses launch in a recession."

Davies and Walters met as brand managers on Imperial Leather in the 80s and say they have long planned to launch a business together.

While Davies stayed client-side Waters crossed over to agency life as a director of Clark Hooper Scotland and founder and creative director of Blue Chip Marketing.

"In an age of media without boundaries everyone needs help navigating the new world to connect with consumers, so there has never been a better time to launch an agency that can do just that," Walters said.