When being the ‘best 2nd tier agency in London’ can be your biggest asset.
Not so long ago one of our clients referred to us as London’s best second tier agency.
At first, I wasn’t sure how to take this, after all, we all think we want to be in the top tier, don’t we? Once I’d reflected and discussed it with them it actually made sense…and was very complimentary.
For this multi-national corporate client, top tier meant big name ATL agencies creating a single, national advertising concept to reflect the brand strategy – with a significant media spend to support it. By second tier she meant famously un-famous agencies like TurnbullRipley, who have decades of experience at interpreting those ‘Big Agency Big Ideas’ to work equally successfully across all other media channels at a fraction of the big agency costs.
The ‘interpretation & implementation’ part is, more often than not, under the radar in PR terms but is more than many think, and it’s just as creative. Taking a ‘Big Idea’ and stretching it, thinking round it and working it to make it appropriate to each audience that it needs to serve takes considerable skill and creativity. Then, applying it to digital media and print across 100s of executions takes a team of dedicated implementation experts. And that’s what we’ve been doing, on and off, for nearly 30 years, for companies such as Aviva, Cable and Wireless and One2One to Fidelity International and Big Bus right now.
While I was thinking about our client’s view of us, I also considered what ‘second tier’ means for our wealth of non-corporates, Owner Operated Business and Start-up clients. It simply means they get inspiring creative, delivered with a brand strategy and budget appropriate to their size and scale. Second tier is first rate in that context too.
And it’s a place we’re proud to be, and rightly so.