Cost effectiveness

Brands built from the bottom up. Thought through and carefully directed to address objectives. Speaking to what really matters for audiences. Contributed to and with buy-in from all of the people who have to live, breathe and sell it. These are the brands that thrive. All of this takes time.

When we say that our prices are justifiable, it does not mean that they are cheap. They are substantially cheaper than the big central London agencies we came from. But you can pay less. Of course you can. Cut some corners. You can get an off-the shelf thing that someone has already banged out for someone else. You can get a rough scope of what you fancy with a few mood boards and take your chances with some tweaks to a prefabricated template. You can pay less for an identity that has no idea at its core, or doesn’t really get at what makes you special. You can.

But beware of false economies. A good brand will pay for itself in two ways. Firstly, as we said above, its power to engage with the right people in the right ways has the power to increase revenue: win you projects, new clients and better performance from employees. But secondly, a genuine brand lasts. We have created brands that some 20 years later are still going strong. In fact, the vast majority of the brands we have created are still live! This is value for money, because chance-it brands quickly fall apart under the pressures of time and change. They’re often irrelevant to their companies from the outset, signed off but ignored. They quickly feel wrong, they don’t support people and they’re scrapped within a couple of years.

Projects of appropriateness, integrity and effectiveness survive through time because at their heart they capture the essence of what matters. Ironically, while they have the power to change the world around them, they themselves acquire longevity. Powerfully rooted, they’re able to bend and adapt to whatever comes their way.

That’s our kind of brand.

Size

So you can pay less, then, but you can also pay more, much more. Some clients feel ‘safe’ working with a big-scale organisation that has banks of people internally from all manner of disciplines, and rows of project managers behind them. That’s fine. But we’ve worked in such organisations. We know the pressures on time and budget caused by overheads. We know what client handlers mean for the bill. We’ve seen the creative director wheeled into meetings, never to clap eyes on a project again.

It’s not for us.

We’re not interested in huge volumes of work or constantly whirring tills, we’re interested in doing the right number of the right kind of projects with the right quality clients. We’re interested in living meaningful days, not factory farming ideas. We’re interested in relationships, in being connected to and invested in the people we’re working for.

So, our idea of ‘safe’ is to have a highly experienced, multiple award-winning creative director closely involved at all stages. It’s to have a brilliant core team, but access – though three decades of experience – to a network of top-drawer strategists, designers, illustrators, copywriters, photographers, filmmakers and so on. It’s being able to expand and contract according to the project and client. It’s the freedom to hand-pick the best and most appropriate people for each project, with no strait jacket. This is modern business. You don’t have to be big to work with big companies. You need to be smart.

Experience

When commissioning agencies, many organisations look for prior experience in that field. “What have you done in cosmetics?”, they might ask. It’s understandable that you would ask that. But beware of the copycat mindset that sets in across entire industries as a result. Everyone, like sheep, ends up looking the same. Fear sets in: no one dares commission an idea that bucks the trend. But the name of the game here is differentiation. When you have done your homework, being daring isn’t even a risk.

So, look instead for an agency that has the ability to ask the right questions, ones that hurt your head to answer. Look for the ability to get at the nub of a problem. Ask for companies to show you where they have stopped people in their tracks and brought about change. Ask them what has actually happened in the world as a result of their work.

Sector experience is irrelevant. What’s relevant is an understanding of the mechanics of change, the processes that take you to what really matters. Often, coming from outside a field may be exactly what’s required to see things afresh. We’ve tackled charity, property, finance, technology, religion, architecture, energy and health, to name a few. However niche you believe yourselves to be, we can tackle that too. Change keeps us all fresh.

Creativity

This is tricky for a client to judge, because creativity comes in many forms. Designers can produce you a neat, well arranged look, and this is, unarguably, creative. But it’s not our kind of creative.

We aim to go further than this, which means craft is only part of it… and comes later, for us it’s the cherry on the cake. If it helps you judge what creativity is with reference to branding, here’s how we approach it ourselves. We seek out distinctiveness and traction in our designers and our thinking. We ask ourselves how our teams and our work can cut through the noise and the information overload. It takes a clear idea, well executed in every facet, to reach people, to matter to and stay with them. The idea around which all the visual elements are created is what will set you apart. Creativity is the ability to uncover that idea.

So, we’re always respectful of the situation, but never of the status quo. We’re always appropriate to our clients’ needs, but that rarely means safe, because you have to engage people emotionally. That’s the task. So, we look for fearless thinkers, because brilliantly calculated risks are the essence of meaningful change. We seek the very best of what it is to be audacious: to have the mastery of craft that allows you to conceive of and successfully execute things that no others would or could, and by doing so create the kind of thrill that changes hearts and minds.

He (or she) who dares, wins.

Chemistry

Last, but not least, chemistry matters. Trust your instincts. Time and life is too precious to spend it working with people to whom you are indifferent, especially if the option exists to avoid it. We come in to work to feel good. We like liking our clients. If you work with us, we’ll take your needs, challenges and success personally. It suits us to go into battle for you as if your company were our own, as if our jobs depended on it. Which, in a way, they do. We do it together, and with joie de vivre: it’s so much more rewarding for everyone.