Michel van Velde and Floris Derksen launch I.C.Y. Group

With Ablestar, Craftmore and GrowMads serving as specialist agencies

Entrepreneurs Michel van Velde and Floris Derksen have launched I.C.Y. group, an independent agency group comprising Ablestar, Craftmore and GrowMads.

The group has one shared objective: to deliver sustainable and measurable growth for organizations and brands.

The name I.C.Y. stands for Intelligence, Creativity & Yield. These three pillars are represented within the group by strategy consultancy Ablestar, creative and digital agency Craftmore, and digital marketing and growth engineering agency GrowMads.

Ablestar and Craftmore were founded in October 2023, while GrowMads was established in November 2025. Michel van Velde and Floris Derksen remain the owners of all three companies.

Independent Specialist Agencies

I.C.Y. Group is intentionally not a traditional full-service agency that combines every discipline under a single brand. Instead, it consists of independent specialist agencies, each with its own expertise, culture, and market position. Depending on the client's challenge, the agencies can be engaged individually or collaborate as one integrated team.

Michel van Velde, co-founder, I.C.Y. Group: "Organizations don't necessarily need more disciplines—they need highly skilled specialists who collaborate at the right time. Strategy without execution remains just a plan. Creativity without direction becomes decoration. And marketing without a distinctive brand simply becomes more expensive. With I.C.Y. Group, we deliberately bring these elements together."

Growth Is Not a Standalone Marketing Activity

The creation of I.C.Y. Group stems from a fundamental vision of specialization and growth. According to Michel van Velde, many organizations outsource their brand strategy, creative development, digital channels, and performance marketing to different agencies. These agencies are often managed separately, work toward different objectives, and optimize only part of the customer journey.

Typically, the strategic agency develops the positioning, a creative agency translates it into a brand identity and campaign, a digital agency builds the website or online store, and finally a performance agency is tasked with generating as much traffic and as many conversions as possible.

While this may appear logical on paper, I.C.Y. Group believes it often results in fragmentation and overlap. Strategic decisions become diluted during execution, creative concepts are developed in isolation or insufficiently connected to data, and performance campaigns are optimized without reconsidering the brand, value proposition, or overall customer journey.

According to the group, sustainable growth can only be achieved when these elements are connected and specialists collaborate in depth. True specialists prefer working with other specialists, and specialist agencies provide the best environment for that collaboration.

Michel van Velde: "We also see many organizations managing every marketing component separately, while customers don't think in channels or disciplines. A customer experiences one brand—from the first introduction to visiting a website, from seeing an advertisement to speaking with sales, and from making a purchase to receiving after-sales service. That's why we need to look beyond individual channels and focus on the interaction between every touchpoint. Silos are for farmers, not for brands—that has been my guiding principle for years."

Ablestar

Within I.C.Y. Group, Ablestar represents Intelligence. The strategy consultancy helps organizations address challenges related to brand strategy, marketing strategy, digital strategy, sales, and artificial intelligence.

Rather than starting with tactics or campaigns, Ablestar begins by asking where an organization truly wants to go and what choices are required to get there. It analyzes the market, customer needs, competition, competitive advantage, customer journey, commercial processes, and available data. Intelligence therefore forms the foundation for the entire growth chain.

Michel van Velde: "Growth doesn't begin with buying media or building a new website. Growth begins with insight. Who are we as an organization? Who are we relevant to? Which problem do we demonstrably solve better than others? Why should someone choose us? And what barriers are currently preventing growth? Only by answering those questions honestly can you determine where investments will have the greatest impact."

The same principle applies to digital and technological challenges. According to Floris Derksen, a request for a new Shopify e-commerce platform is rarely just a technical question. A new platform may be faster, more user-friendly, and convert better, but it will not automatically generate growth if the positioning, proposition, or messaging lacks distinction.

The same applies to AI. Ablestar helps organizations not only select AI applications but also develop the necessary strategy, governance, data, processes, and organizational transformation. In this vision, AI is not an objective in itself but a tool that must demonstrably create value.

Craftmore

Craftmore represents Creativity. The agency translates strategy into brand identities, brand campaigns, digital platforms, e-commerce environments, content, and digital brand experiences.

Within I.C.Y. Group, creativity is not intended solely to attract attention. Its role is to make strategy visible, recognizable, and tangible. A brand should not only communicate what makes it different but consistently prove that difference at every relevant touchpoint.

Michel van Velde: "A strategy may be entirely correct on paper, but if customers don't recognize or experience it, nothing changes. Creativity humanizes a brand. It enables people to see, feel, and remember it. At the same time, creativity must contribute to commercial objectives. Beauty and effectiveness should never be viewed as opposites."

Craftmore therefore focuses on combining brand experience, usability, and conversion. From identity design and campaigns to websites and online stores, every element must contribute to both a consistent customer experience and measurable business results.

Attention to detail is a key part of that philosophy.

Michel van Velde: "When discussing return on investment, the final ten percent—the attention to detail required to create a truly distinctive digital experience—often delivers the greatest return."

With generative AI, organizations can now produce content, designs, and digital solutions faster than ever. According to the founders, this makes a clear brand identity, a recognizable creative signature, and careful execution even more valuable. AI can accelerate production, but speed is not the same as differentiation. If everyone has access to the same technology, the ability to consistently express a brand's essence becomes even more important. Sometimes AI is a powerful tool; other times it is better not to use it—for example, when authentic photography or human craftsmanship better reflects the brand.

GrowMads

GrowMads represents Yield—the measurable return generated through the combination of strategy, creativity, technology, data, and marketing.

The agency focuses on digital marketing, performance marketing, growth engineering, conversion optimization, and systematically improving the commercial growth engine. Rather than concentrating solely on campaigns or individual channels, GrowMads looks at the entire system through which organizations attract, convert, and retain customers.

Ronald de Groot, Managing Director, I.C.Y. Group: "To us, growth engineering means treating growth not as a collection of isolated experiments but as a coherent system that is continuously designed and improved. Within that system, data, media, content, technology, conversion, and customer retention are connected. We then measure where growth occurs, where value is lost, and which adjustments will have the greatest impact."

The agency deliberately uses the term growth engineering. According to GrowMads, growth should not be "hacked" but systematically built. This requires a solid advertising and data foundation, clear measurement models, ongoing optimization, and the willingness to reallocate budgets when performance data indicates it is necessary.

That may also mean advertising less during certain periods. If historical data shows that a particular period generates few purchases, there is little value in maintaining the same media budget. Instead, budgets should be shifted to the moments, audiences, or stages of the customer journey where they will generate greater returns.

Ronald de Groot: "Our objective is not simply to buy as much media as possible or perform endless isolated optimizations. The objective is to create more relevant demand and convert that demand into revenue and customer value more efficiently. Growth should not only be visible in dashboards but ultimately reflected in business performance."

Independent Brands

Although the three agencies work closely together, Ablestar, Craftmore, and GrowMads each retain their own name, expertise, and positioning. This is a deliberate choice.

I.C.Y. Group does not want to suggest that every client always requires every discipline. Some organizations only need a new brand strategy. Others require a creative concept or digital platform. In other cases, the greatest opportunity lies in performance marketing, conversion optimization, or improving data and commercial processes.

When a challenge spans multiple areas of expertise, the agencies collaborate under one shared strategy with common objectives.

Michel van Velde: "The essence of I.C.Y. Group is simple. Intelligence helps us make the right choices. Creativity ensures people see, feel, and remember the brand. Yield makes those choices measurable. When these three elements are truly connected, the result is not a temporary peak but a foundation for sustainable growth."

The group aims to work with organizations that see growth not as the responsibility of a single marketing department or one external agency, but as a shared mission. Strategy, creativity, technology, marketing, and sales should reinforce one another and be connected to clear business objectives.

www.icygroup.nl

www.ablestar.nl

www.craftmore.nl

www.growmads.nl

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