‘The most successful I have ever felt’

Small Giants see beyond size as a success factor; exploring bigger choices in the development of their business and the way they work.

“I felt the book (Small Giants) was about staying pure to what you set the company up for in the first place. Set your own definitions of success – you don’t have to be big. The agency I co-founded in London had 12 people. The one I have now in Bath has four – this is the most successful I have felt. We are doing great work, for great clients and we win awards against agencies 100 times our size.”

Jamie Ellul, Founder and Creative Director, Supple Studio

‘Being able to say no’

Small Giants resist the prescribed path and external pressures to maintain what’s important to them: control – and the freedom to realise their own vision.

“Control to me is being able to say no to projects that are not right for us, and yes to the projects that really resonate. We only have a few clients, but we service them to the max. It is all about making their lives easy, and we are able to do that because we are flexible due to our size.”

Jamie Ellul, Founder and Creative Director, Supple Studio

‘With great teams comes great culture’

Small Giants treat their people with respect, dignity and integrity, understanding and exercising the value of making their business a great place to work.

“We are focused on creating a great working environment for people to enjoy themselves. When people are enjoying themselves great teams are built. With great teams comes great culture. We have defined three sets of behaviours for everyone at MrB, which really helps us drive the business:

1 “It can be done” – be positive. Don’t just solve problems, seek them out.

2 “Be there” – turning up everyday, being a team member. You can’t do this on your own.

3 “Act like you own it” – empowers the team, but makes them think – ‘if this was my business would I do that?’

Simon Barbato, CEO, Mr B and Friends

“We have developed a culture of distributed responsibility by hiring staff on values – we look for the same core philosophies. We hire those people who you could sit around a dinner table with, who have diverse interests and backgrounds but fit in with your brand. We then follow the teach, equip, trust model. Don’t do it for them. If they make mistakes coach them, don’t dictate.”

Brian Mansfield, Chairman, Taxi Studio

‘Customer satisfaction has gone through the roof’

Small Giants take advantage of being small and privately owned to develop and tailor effective, unique management practices. 

“We looked back to when we were 10 people. It was when we were our most productive, most agile and most profitable. So we are now trialling a pod system with a 10 person pod within the business made up of designers, copywriter, account director etc. We are three months into the trail, with the aim of having three pods in place by the end of 2018. Customer satisfaction has gone through the roof because we have been able to react to issues there and then. Plus with the pod’s notional P&L the PBT (profit before tax) has risen to 32%. If we can scale this approach we can be a larger business, while maintaining the entrepreneurial approach.”

Simon Barbato, CEO, Mr B and Friends

‘You build up trust on both sides’

Small Giants create exceptional relationships with their clients and suppliers for long-term benefits, and engage with local communities and issues for a meaningful emotional impact.

“We also try to collaborate with local suppliers and are very loyal to those we work with. You build up trust on both sides. We also try to put something back into the community by doing a pro-bono project for a local organisation each year.”

Jamie Ellul, Founder and Creative Director, Supple Studio

‘Someone in the business needs to care about that side’

Small Giants are proud to work differently for a better result for their company, people and community.

“Design businesses will always be passionate about the work and the craft, but there is nothing wrong with also being passionate about the business itself – how it is run, how it makes money. Someone in the business needs to care about that side with the same amount of passion. There is no point being a boutique agency doing great work if you don’t make any money.”

Brian Mansfield, Chairman, Taxi Studio

Watch the full interview with Brian Mansfield of Taxi Studio, Jamie Ellul of Supple Studio and Simon Barbato of Mr B and Friends

Nick, tell us a little about the innovation that you’re doing at Uniform.

We have an R&D programme that falls into two parts. The first is every day R&D that involves client work. With each client project, we look at how we can achieve results quicker, produce something better, or develop something smarter. We look at how we can innovate to solve our clients problems.

Secondly, we have a more formal and long-term R&D innovation programme, run by a specific team that explores two to three big tech driven themes per year, or longer if necessary. Right now we’re focused on AI, we’re looking at prototype projects, and some immersive AR and VR product development that sits in-between R&D and client work.

As a small business, how have you been able to fund this kind of work?

We made a conscious financial and business decision to forward fund our R&D and innovation programme as an investment about six years ago. We wanted to be a front-runner and externally it sent a strong message and cemented our position as innovators. Internally, the team know it’s not a luxury, while the innovation department sits outside our day-to-day services, their work and influence bleeds into client work every day.

The establishment of our R&D / innovation department has meant that the work being produced as a part of that is fully eligible for R&D tax credits, so there is an element of continuous self-funding as we reinvest in innovation.

Has claiming changed your approach to innovation (and risk)? 

In a way claiming de-risks the innovation work. It’s easier to launch into a project that might be deemed risky or unusual if we know we’ll receive a percentage of that spend back. It’s much easier to justify any spend or cost of investing in innovation work.

Has it changed the culture of your business at all? 

Well, we’re about to re-launch our website and re-communicate our offer more clearly, with R&D at the core. Innovation as a commercially significant part of our business is increasingly important, and with a focus on design thinking, sprints, innovation workshops – lots of this stems from the culture of R&D from within the business and the ability to continue practising this – made easier with the success we’ve had through claiming R&D tax credits and the opportunities this has opened for further innovation.

How easy is the process, and how much time does it take, and what would your advice be to design companies thinking about making an R&D tax credit claim, but not sure if it’s for them?

Explore the option – even if you’re sceptical. We were claiming on our own, with support from our accountants, and while that was successful, we didn’t realise until we started working with ForrestBrown that we were eligible to claim so much more. ForrestBrown are highly competent, they know the rules, what you can and can’t do. Working with them has been quite eye opening for us, in terms of understanding what were eligible costs – in a way that is robust and defensible. ForrestBrown has almost doubled what we were already receiving from our own claim, they helped us to interpret the process and the rules, and shaved about a two thirds off the time it took us to claim on our own.

We explored the market and chose ForrestBrown from three different specialists, purely on the basis that we felt ForrestBrown understood the design industry the best. They’re very strong in digital and in their understanding of design and innovation.

What are R&D tax credits worth?

How much R&D tax credits are worth depends on how much money you have spent on qualifying R&D activity. You can include the following costs in your claim: staff, subcontractors, materials, and consumables (such as heat, light and power).

SMEs are able to recoup up to 33p for every pound spent on qualifying expenditure using the SME R&D tax credit scheme. This means if you have qualifying costs of £500,000, you could receive a benefit worth £166,750.

How to claim

As Nick mentions, it’s best to work with true experts in this specialist area when submitting a claim. They will optimize the value of your claim. This means including everything that is valid, whilst also ensuring it can be robustly backed up should HMRC challenge it.

We can arrange for ForrestBrown’s team of chartered tax advisers – complemented by industry experts and former HMRC R&D unit tax inspectors – to handle your claim. They will gather information from the relevant people in your business, prepare all the paperwork and liaise with HMRC on your behalf.

For a free eligibility assessment or review of a claim you have already submitted, get in touch with the ForrestBrown team on 0117 926 9022 or hello@forrestbrown.co.uk and quote the code DBA.

Following the 2008/9 recession, Absolute, based in Truro, Cornwall had slipped from being an agency with £1m+ turnover and a 10% profit margin into becoming an agency that did anything that came along just to get money into the business. It was a gradual slide into a hand-to-mouth existence. Everyone worked incredibly hard, but at the end of the month there was no money. The work being done was just not profitable.

It was at this point (mid 2017) that Helen called the DBA and asked for advice on who could help her turn the business around. She was given a number of names from the DBA Expert’s Register, including Ralph Ardill, former head of strategy at Imagination, now a consultant for both agencies and ‘client’ businesses interested in business transformation.

Helen had spoken to Ralph after a DBA event in 2010 and would have worked with him then if it hadn’t been for the recession and a natural response to ‘batten down the hatches’. Ralph understood exactly what needed to be done. After much soul searching Helen and her husband decided to make an additional financial investment in the business and brought Ralph on board.

Ralph was drawn to Absolute immediately. “The work was great – an integration of architecture, interior design and graphics. But the business was siloed, it had lost its identity and the culture had stagnated.”

“I knew straight away that we could turn things around,” Ralph continued, “because of Helen’s commitment (in terms of time and energy) and her willingness to change everything if necessary. There were no sacred cows.”

A plan of action was thrashed out in the first meeting between Helen and Ralph, with a timeline of a little over 6 months. The plan, in essence, was simple – make Absolute the most important client of Absolute. To do on themselves what they do for their clients on a day-to-day basis. Simple in essence, but as any agency with an out-of-date website will attest to, harder in reality.

Key to the process was the involvement of the whole team at Absolute, and they were brought into the picture from meeting two. They were challenged to think way beyond their job specifications. Helen became the client, with no creative input, and the team presented to her and Ralph on a regular basis throughout the project.

The first stage involved the team presenting on what was wrong with Absolute. Ralph acknowledges that this is always difficult. “Ultimately you are telling someone their baby is ugly.”

The team threw themselves into it. It showed Helen who really cared, who had the character she needed long term. They looked at the agency culture, values and behaviours, at their identity, at the customer experience in the studio, the actual studio space itself to bring staff together – everything. They redesigned the business from the ground up.

It all came down to identifying what they were good at, what work was most profitable for them, what the levers were that created value and how they could articulate it all. It was about doing less, but at a higher value. It is an approach advocated by Ralph for many years under the title ‘Project You’, where an agency becomes the inspirational client for its own most creative transformation project.

The key aspects of the approach are:

• To have a single holistic model for looking at improving total agency experience – both inside for employees, and outside for clients
• Built around best-practice ‘levers’ proven to build value in creative consultancy firms. (If it is not driving value you should not be doing it)
• Focused on agency purpose, proposition, values and behaviours
• Adding value to create premium design services, tools and methodologies across the board
• Strong focus on IP development and creating more opportunities to commercialise talent, tools and techniques

The methodology for the transformation project enacted by Ralph and Helen demands frequent and rapid testing in live situations. Ralph explained it as developing propositions that “Help you win the day.” If it doesn’t then you know it needs more work. If it does you know you are going in the right direction.

The team developed the new positioning statement for Absolute – “Grow with Experience – how we can help your business grow through the power of experiential design.” Along with the positioning came a new ‘sales deck’ – a presentation for new business meetings focused on Absolute’s understanding of design and their experience. This was a prototype that got tested early with a prospective client. “He was hooked. The body language was fantastic – classic leaning in,” explained Helen, who was initially very nervous about the new approach. Having tested it in a live situation she realised it fulfilled Ralph’s criteria in that “it won the day.”

Absolute had always prided itself on its client servicing, but over the years had slipped into a very tactical and undefined relationships with their clients who found it easy to dip in and out with only small investments being made.

Absolute’s new approach has led to a more strategic, retained relationship with their clients. Within 3 months they increased their monthly, retained income five-fold.

Since re-launching at the start of 2018 Absolute have hit their monthly targets in both January and February – achieving twice something they had failed to do during the previous four years.

Ralph acknowledges that up to three quarters of agency owners that try to transform their business so dramatically will fail. This is due to three main reasons:

• Leadership team not willing to commit totally to change
• Approach to change is doomed at outset and not designed to overcome the significant creative, cultural and commercial barriers that will inevitably be encountered
• Unable to inspire and engage agency with personal and company creative opportunity change brings

Helen concedes that after many years of trying on her own, there was no way she could have achieved the transformation without external support, like the DBA Experts Register provided. “Ralph challenged everything,” she said “but it has given us the ability to know where we have the greatest right to win, and the ability to say ‘no’ at the right times. We have been absolutely transformed.”

1) Growth is primarily about the role you want

It doesn’t make any difference how big you are. I’ve worked with businesses with 40 employees whose sole principal is making $120,000. I’ve worked with even more businesses of less than 4 employees where the principal is making $600,000 consistently. It just doesn’t matter.

There are some advantages of being a large agency and different advantages of being a small agency, but the primary distinction between the two sizes is how you shape your role. And if you don’t frame the growth question this way, you’re just going to end up letting growth happen to you.

When you let growth happen to you, rather than making that choice for yourself, you’ll end up being dragged into a role that your business needs but which doesn’t feel comfortable for you. Do you enjoy being on the front lines and interacting directly with clients? Don’t get too large. Do you enjoy running your agency, landing new business, and shaping the careers of others? Think about growing your agency to take some things off your plate.

It’s really that simple and you’ve got to make the business your bitch rather than getting dragged around by this monster that you’ve created.

This part is pretty easy, but there’s a second element to this decision that forces you to live within the realities of the marketplace. That’s next.

2) Right size = Smaller than your opportunity

It’s not quite as simple as deciding what size business you’d like to run, based on what role you want to play. The marketplace has some say in the matter, too, and so once you decide what size is comfortable, your primary mission becomes finding more work (from qualified clients) than you can handle.

Yes, that’s not a mistake. You always need more opportunity than capacity. Otherwise you’re feeding a machine and any misalignment between your capacity and your opportunity will leave you scrambling to fill that gap. And that, my friends, is exactly when you’re most tempted to compromise on your standards for a qualified client. Your thinking goes something like this: “Yeah, I know that we aren’t going to make much money on this engagement. But we’ll make a lot more money than if my people were just sitting around.”

That sort of thinking means you are no longer in charge. You’re feeding a machine, and financial pressure is the primary cause of all business decision compromises.

If you lose your ability to say no because you have to say yes all the time in order to stay busy, you’re just along for the ride.

Life’s too short to be running someone else’s business. Apparently some of you feel that way, too. I asked 414 of you how you felt about growth as a principal, and here’s what you said:

I’d be happier if we had fewer people like before: 43%
I’d be happier if we stayed this size forever: 30%
I’d be happier if we got significantly bigger: 27%

Choose to be a Small Giant.

Here at the DBA, we champion greatness in small businesses like yours that think big. Our focus is to shine a light on the unique characteristics that drive you, with a carefully curated programme of training, events and resources that will help you shape your business. Read more here.

What is a Small Giant?

Better

As a founder or leader, you see beyond the standard definition of success and look to explore bigger choices in the development of your business, and the way you work.

Control

Building a business faces plenty of challenges but you resist the prescribed path and external pressures to maintain what’s important to you: control – and the freedom to realise your own vision.

People

Your people are valuable so you treat them with respect, dignity and integrity, whilst making your business a great place to work emotionally, spiritually, economically and socially.

Development

Usual corporate structures don’t work for your business so you take advantage of being small and privately owned to develop and tailor effective unique management practices.

Relationships

Working effectively means respecting everyone in and around your business, so you create exceptional relationships with your clients and suppliers for long-term benefits.

Community

It’s important to respect the neighbourhood, town or city where you do business, so you engage with local communities and issues for a meaningful emotional impact.

Passion

Design businesses start with passion and yours is no different, which is why you’re proud to work differently for a better result for your company, your people and your community.

Says DBA Chief Executive Deborah Dawton

“Our industry has unique characteristics that set us apart. And it’s these characteristics – the way we think differently; the way we work differently; the way we aspire differently – that enable us to deliver this level of customer impact and financial return for the businesses we work in and for.”

“When I look at the DBA’s membership, I see businesses defined by their determination to be, not just good, but to be great at what they do. Driven by a genuine desire to the best they can be at what they do, to create a stimulating place for their staff to work, to provide great client servicing, to make a wider positive impact beyond simply their own financial gains. It’s what gives this sector its unique mojo. And it’s what makes the UK design industry so special.”

How are you feeling? Any particular highlights from the night, apart from winning? 

Still grinning! Winning a DEA has been a career-long ambition of ours, but as a pure breed brand consultancy, we knew winning was never going to be easy. So to win not one but two awards (Gold & Silver) is a great achievement for us, and we haven’t stopped banging on about it since. 

Beyond winning, we had an excellent evening catching up with our clients at London’s Air Ambulance and One Feeds Two, as well as the many old friends we bumped into at the ceremony. And Deborah’s speech was pretty damn good too! If you haven’t heard it, it’s on the Design Effectiveness Awards website, and well worth a watch.

Building on your article with the DBA from June last year, what was it exactly about attending the Awards in 2017 that spurred you to a) revisit your business model, and b) enter in 2018?

The Clearing is a new breed of brand consultancy firmly grounded in commercial reality. We’ve always worked with ambitious businesses helping them deliver their commercial ambition – growing revenue, increasing profit and entering new markets and it’s the strength of our ideas, creativity and strategic know how that enables us to do this. 

That said while attending last year’s DEA ceremony it got us thinking about the way we talk about results – and we started being much more upfront about the way we talked about the impact of our work.

Also, our conversations with the DBA helped clarify the judging criteria which made us look again at recent projects where we created seismic shifts for two of our clients – from a new helicopter for London’s Air Ambulance to introducing national food partners to One Feeds Two.

What do The Clearing’s DEA wins mean for the company? Both internally and in terms of client relationships and new business.

Anyone working within the creative industry who tells you they don’t care what people think of their work is either lying or frankly, not good enough. As designers, we know how hard good ideas are to come by and how many of those good ideas are lost along the way. From college crits to client presentations, it’s the constant knocking of ideas that makes us designers such a fragile, insecure and needy breed. 

So, at The Clearing, it’s important the team see their work celebrated, gaining the recognition it deserves across the industry. And I’m hoping the credibility our Design Effectiveness Awards bring will help accelerate our new business effort. I’ll let you know how that goes this time next year. 

In your opinion, what do the Awards contribute to the design industry?

It’s quite simple, the awards celebrate powerful, commercially successful design – it’s design that means business.

And for the relationship or way of working between an agency and their client?

We always comment that we do our best work with our best clients ­and you can’t win a DEA without great clients, great work and a strong relationship.

What was the most difficult part of entering the Awards for you? 

Knowing what to leave out. There’s always that tendency to cover the entire branding project from brief to solution – we had to focus on specifics, and on demonstrable change.

And the most enjoyable?

The Jagerbomb fuelled official winners photographs tell their own story­­. 

What would you say to an agency similar to yours that is considering entering the awards?

Go for it! Focus on a project where your design work and thinking provided a pivotal point in a project and supercharged the outcome – because that’s the story the judges are looking for.

Read the winning case studies

One Feeds Two: Brand identity

A brand-new logo, ‘The Smile’ was created during a brand refresh that challenged the ‘pulling on heartstrings’ tactic commonly associated with charities, and it clearly highlighted how even the smallest actions, such as buying a meal, can have a huge positive impact. Read on.

London’s Air Ambulance: Strategic redesign

With only one helicopter in existence, 63 flying days were forfeited in 2015 due to maintenance, therefore acquiring a second helicopter became a strategic priority. But for a brand that relies on charitable donations, raising an additional £1.2 million per annum for another helicopter seemed an almighty challenge.

A strategic redesign of London’s Air Ambulance’s most iconic asset, its helicopter, was undertaken. The new livery turned the helicopter, as well as the rapid response vehicles, into powerful communications tools maximising awareness of the charity. Read on.

Our planet in our hands

Homeward Bound is a ground-breaking project aimed at advancing the role of women in science. They had a huge mission on their hands – to increase the influence of women in climate change decision-making.

The representation of women in science global leadership roles is a minimal 15%. When you consider that these decisions impact how our planet is affected, it’s obvious why women who have focused their careers on science and the environment were frustrated. They wanted to see change. They wanted to increase diversity in leadership teams to share more ideas on tackling climate change.

The initiative saw a team of women embark on a year-long awareness programme, followed by a 20-day expedition to Antarctica. It’s the only global network of women devoted to changing the way we care for our planet, and the ambition is to recruit 1,000 women over the next 10 years to create a powerful network that influences the gender balance in policy making.

Mother Nature Needs Her Daughters

To gain significant outreach and change perceptions of women in science, they needed a brand identity. It was essential that it highlighted how women can lead climate change conversations, and engage hundreds more to join the collaboration. It needed to be emotive and uplifting, both for women and men.

Starting with the symbols for male and female and weaving the idea of ‘X’ being a kiss and ‘O’ being a hug, agency Elmwood created a strong visual sign that speaks to both genders. Hand drawn, it’s easy to recreate, and acts as a pledge.

They also went one step further, creating an overarching idea to drive the campaign. This headline, ‘Mother Nature Needs Her Daughters’, became the rallying cry for the brand, establishing a unified voice. It enabled them to go beyond the power of the brand to start conversations and galvanise women from all backgrounds. The idea was brought to life through videos that asked, ‘What would you do if your mother was sick?’.

A global movement

In the first month, the campaign reached 76 million people. To date, it has reached over 450,000 million – and that’s with no advertising or media spend. It is more than the cumulative media coverage recorded for women in science – ever.

The expedition featured in a 2016 documentary, Beautiful Minds, which investigated what the world would look like if more women had a seat at the leadership table. Homeward Bound has since been selected to be part of an initiative that connects films with philanthropists looking to positively change the world.

Gender power balances are starting to shift, too. Since the programme launched, Deborah Pardo, one of the participants, has been nominated as one of the 20 most influential women in France. A future participant, Adriana Humanes who generated significant media coverage on the back of her involvement with Homeward Bound, was invited to act as a commentator and adviser following an oil spill in Trinidad.

Hundreds of women from more than 10 countries have been added to the waiting list for the second expedition, which is going to be recorded in a new book.

2018 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards: Gold Award Winner 

View all of the 2018 winning case studies at effectivedesign.org.uk and sign up to receive details about entering the Awards via awards@dba.org.uk 

A story of brand reinvigoration

Carlsberg was having an identity crisis. For millennials, the beer was known for its humorous advertising but little else. It lacked relevance in a world of discerning drinkers who are increasingly clued up about different beers. Premium outlets had started to shun the brand completely, favouring it for seemingly upmarket rivals and if it did manage to hold its position on the shelf, it would be priced low as a cheaper option compared to the likes of Peroni, Birra Moretti and Brooklyn Lager. This was having a detrimental impact not just on sales, but staff morale too.

Although the UK is the biggest market for the Carlsberg brand, the drinking market in the UK itself has waned. Over the last five years, the standard and premium lager market has shrunk by 3.2 million hectolitres, taking almost £300 million out of the category. The industry has reacted by slashing prices, which has had a negative impact on profits.

As the fourth largest brewer in the world, the first to discover a purified yeast for brewing and the creators of the pH scale, Carlsberg are experts. But all of this was lost in the haze of its mainstream image, with the brand now seen as lacking relevance and credibility.

Something needed to be done to reinvigorate Carlsberg. The answer lay in a new proposition and premium rebrand by Taxi Studio.

From Denmark With Love

In the UK, people associate Scandinavia with smart, happy, good-looking people, a love of nature and style. It’s seen as an effortlessly cool place, and by focusing on the brand’s Danish roots with the new proposition ‘Carlsberg From Denmark With Love’, Carlsberg could translate the premium, high-quality nature of the beer.

Carlsberg Export was chosen to lead the new proposition and the backbone of its new design centred on the Dannebrog, a military symbol in a simple cross system. Using a blend of colours and textures inspired by the Danish concept of hygge with copper, wood and ceramic white, the result was a brown bottle, white label and copper-toned wording. It sends out a clear message: Premium.

Scrapping the green bottle in favour of brown was a bold move. Green glass has been a mainstay of the brand for 170 years, but the brown bottle gave consumers a more crafted, quality perception.

Carlsberg had three objectives with the rebrand – bring back distribution losses from outlets, stabilise profit growth and establish a premium brand. In just 14 weeks they not only achieved all three, they in fact delivered significant growth.

Surpassing all objectives

Before the new packaging, Export had 3,240 distribution points in Grocery customers. This jumped to over 9,000 in only 14 weeks after launch – a 170% increase in a remarkably short time. It’s important to recognise that the new distribution points are all considered the ‘right’ kind for the Carlsberg brand vision. Significantly, Export has managed to gain a place on Sainsbury’s shelves having been delisted for five years. These big wins, including being relisted in Waitrose, have helped stabilise gross profit and they have since grown by 2% on every hectolitre sold.

In Impulse customers the Carlsberg Export brand has grown distribution by over 10% to now be available in over 43,000 distribution points. And a wider halo effect is being felt by the Carlsberg brand with gross profit growth up on the previous year.

Carlsberg Export also has the highest pence per litre against competitors such as Stella Artois, Budweiser, Kronenbourg and Amstel. It is deserving of the price difference because brand perception has increased – the statement ‘More stylish than other brands’ was up by 9%.

All of these successes came within just three months without any other communications support. Carlsberg has earned its stature based purely on its clear, contemporary, beautiful design, and has won the hearts and minds of trade customers, consumers and the internal audience alike.

2018 DBA Design Effectiveness Awards: Grand Prix and Gold Award Winner

View all of the 2018 winning case studies at effectivedesign.org.uk and sign up to receive details about entering the Awards via awards@dba.org.uk