We’re the Firestarters
“So how can organizations win the talent war? By cultivating a workplace culture that engages, rewards and, most of all, inspires.” Forbes
According to Forbes, 2022 is the year of Workplace Culture. In the face of The Great Resignation and talent wars, most businesses have had to rethink the way they do things. In short, they’ve had to start putting their people first.
Putting people first
It might seem like a strange concept to some of the old guard, but at Fluro, putting people first is an absolute no-brainer. People have always been at the heart of every conversation and every decision when it comes to running the business. To us it seems obvious that if your employees aren’t happy then they probably won’t give you their best and maybe it’s because we’re a small business, or maybe it’s the nature of our work, but we need everyone to bring their A game every day. For us, getting the best from our team has always been about fostering creativity, building relationships, and giving our people everything they need to thrive, not just at work but as individuals. We also think that the best place for that to happen is here, in the studio.
Swimming upstream
In a climate where hybrid workplaces are the default setting, it feels like we’re swimming upstream, because – at the risk of sounding unpopular – we want our people in the room. We know that means putting your good jeans on and leaving the house, but we also know that the effort pays off. Salmon don’t swim upstream for the exercise, they do it so their young have a better chance not just to survive but to thrive. And that’s pretty much how we see things. In fact, we think it’s one of the main contributors to our success.
It’s not that we don’t get it, because we do. We’ve read the same articles that you have, saying that over 80% of professionals don’t want to return to the 9-5 framework and there’s no doubt that in some sectors, things desperately needed to change. Maybe some businesses in our sector needed to change too. But for us, flexibility has always been on the agenda, most of us have families and we whole-heartedly endorse the benefits of a balanced lifestyle. And who doesn’t love working in trackies and walking the dog on lunch break?
Feeling the glow
But on the flip side, an agency like Fluro, is at its very core a creative and collaborative place. And in our collective experience, we’ve found that creativity often flounders in isolation. There’s a spark that ignites, a feeling that comes alive when you’re all in the same room, and that’s why we like to do our thing together, in the shared space of the studio.
We’ve taken on a lot of new people in the past year, a mix of seasoned pros and emerging talents, and there’s nothing quite like the shared, dynamic experience of studio life. “I love that buzz you get when an idea lands on the table and everyone knows it’s in the bag” says Jackie our Creative Lead. “Of course, we can do it on Zoom, we had to for two years, but I want work to be more than just learning to overcome, or doing your due diligence, I want it to be affirming and inspiring.”
There’s a certain kind of alchemy, an infectious enthusiasm that builds in the room when raw reactions collide with a hunger to excite and amaze. You might have forgotten what that feels like, but we haven’t, and we want more.
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Strategic Thinking
Strategy at a Creative Agency
Whether it’s design, copywriting or brand strategy, the work we do at a creative agency happens in the liminal space between an objective and its end. At Fluro, we use our creative skills to influence the way an objective reaches its end. To use a real-world example, if a carton of milk is the object, and the consumer is the end, then an advertising campaign is the means to connect the consumer with the milk.
Our copywriter attended Uri Baruchin’s short course at D&AD about strategic thinking. This is a big topic, and there’s a lot of wisdom out there about how to ‘do strategy’. And while we don’t want to ruin the surprise, we thought it was safe to share the bigger lessons we learned from Uri’s Think, Plan, Act workshop.
We are all strategists
While you might not consider yourself a strategist, you are a strategic thinker. Apparently, we all are.
Uri used a 1995 research paper about public toilet stalls to demonstrate the role that strategy plays in the selection process. In the Psychological Science journal, Nicholas Christenfeld conducted a study on which public toilet stalls are most commonly chosen. He used this data to illustrate the way we use strategic reasoning on a daily basis.
And when it comes to developing a creative strategy, developers, designers and writers are all part of the strategic picture and we all contribute in our different ways.
As well as being an interesting way to break the ice, Uri’s example helped us understand the dangers of choosing “the middle stall” when it comes to strategic brainstorming.
Strategies that stand out
It’s very easy in a studio environment to get into a creative groove, where the same people keep doing the same things in the same ways. If you keep doing – strategy or creative – the same way every time, you will keep getting the same results. We’re all guilty of this, because in the end, it’s hard to not be you right? And as much as we fall into this trap as individuals, it’s also happens in group work and in society at large.
A group task challenged the learners to come up with a strategy for a gin campaign. We were broken up into groups to come up with a strategy for our chosen tipple. When we all came back into the room to share our ideas, it was shocking to see how similar our strategies were.
This simple task made it obvious that there’s no benefit to staying in your own creative lane. On the contrary, it pays to open the discussion and always cast the net wider to explore those less popular, less obvious perspectives.
Whether it’s a small group in an agency, a community, or a society – we often tend to think along similar pathways – and the result is that we all come to similar conclusions. Needless to say that it pays to take the path less travelled, unless you want to end up in the same place as everyone else.
Managing strategic and creative processes
The final lesson from Uri’s workshop was that strategy is messy work. There’s a lot of ideas and opinions flying about and it’s not always easy to distinguish the great ideas from the good ones. As much as there are some really useful guides and templates, workshops and mind maps available, there is no magic formula to making hard decisions. Being a good decision maker comes down to experience and judgement.
While Uri didn’t have the secret to making good decisions, he did provide a handy set of tools to help us guide ourselves through the hard parts; the messy processes between research, concept and execution.
After all, the act of creating is really just a series of decisions. A writer wrestles with decisions about words, narrative and motivation. Designers have decisions to make about colour, spacing, typography etc.
Perhaps the most powerful lesson of all was realising that not only are we all strategic thinkers, but we’re also all creative thinkers. And we will always do better when we work together.
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A Little Book of Big Values
A Little Book of Big Values
In September this year, Fluro held its first ever company day. It was the perfect time to share the news that in spite of the disruption caused by the pandemic, we’ve gone from strength to strength. But there was another, more important piece of news to share: the birth of our company values. Whether it was the scattering effects of the pandemic or our rapid expansion, we needed to consolidate our vision and our strategy. We also needed some new tools to help steer a larger team.
A small, black book with gold lettering and beautiful illustrations, Fluro’s Little Book of Big Values represents an important milestone – the moment we formally defined the ‘why’ behind our brand.
Why Are Company Values Important?
Establishing a set of values is tantamount to staking your claim in the world. They also help give your staff a reason for coming into work each day.
Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl was the first theorise that the search for meaning is the most powerful motivating force in humans. Unlike his Nietzsche and Freud, Frankl felt that our need to create meaning was a stronger urge than the desire for power or pleasure.
A pay cheque is important, let’s not pretend it isn’t. But money isn’t the reason people like coming to work each day. Whether it’s swiping groceries or saving lives, each and every one of us needs to feel like our work is meaningful. Authors of The Why of Work, Dave and Wendy Ulrich, told the Harvard Business Review that “neither position nor salary seem to have much to do with finding meaning in work.”
Create a Sense of Belonging
Having a set of beliefs or values imparts meaning to the tasks and goals of working life. They also provides the framework to stimulate a sense of belonging. In her Forbes article, Tracy Brower used the psychological fall-out of the pandemic to highlight the importance of belonging. According to the author humans are hardwired for connection. The pandemic wreaked such havoc with our mental health because it took this vital factor away from us.
Belonging to a group is intrinsic to social identity. Belonging is achieved when you share a set of beliefs, because it results in a feeling of unity. But Jeanine Stewart, senior consultant to the Neuroleadership Institute says that being surrounded by people doesn’t guarantee a sense of belonging. To help your employees feel part of your team, you have to let them know what those shared beliefs are. But in order to share a set of beliefs or values, you have to identify them first.
Research shows that a strong sense of belonging can be a more powerful motivator than money. When people feel connected to their colleagues, the incentive to perform is higher. They’re driven more by their desire to maintain status in the group than by their pay check.
The Why Behind your Brand
Company values can also benefit your bottom line. In a previous post we explain how values help to harness the power of WHY . Author and TED speaker Simon Sinek believes that ‘people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.’ If you don’t know why you are in business, how will your customers be able to?
Performance management platform Plai claims that customers choose companies whose values they can relate to. “Study after study shows that companies with strong values have better financial performance, customer and employee satisfaction, and grow faster.”
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How to Find The Right Creative Agency
Finding the right creative agency for your business can be daunting. Do you need an agency with sector experience, or is most important to find a brand agency ‘near me’ or perhaps you want shake things up and select a creative agency that is going to give you something really different?
To help you find the right agency, we’ve put together a few pointers which should help you get your search underway.
Where to start?
- Have you seen a website or a campaign you like? Find out who’s behind it.
- Google may not have all the answers, but you might be surprised to find a sh*t hot agency right on your doorstep.
- Ask around for a recommendation. Word of mouth can be a powerful thing – a lot of our own clients have found us through recommendations.
What is your long-term goal?
Are you looking for a one-off project, or do you need a brand agency who can take things further for things like future campaigns, a website launch, video and ongoing support?
It pays to think long-term because once you find a great agency you get along with and they ‘get you’, the process becomes effortless and less stressful for you. As the relationship progresses, we get to know our clients inside out which helps us become your perfect partner. A lot of our clients stay with us for that reason. One good example is Edgify – we’ve done work for them ranging from a rebrand, animations and websites and our relationship is still going strong.
It’s all about chemistry
You want to work with people you like and get along with, that’s just how life is. In person meetings are a much stronger gauge of a good fit, and we always prefer to meet a client in person before we work together, but we also understand that sometimes that’s just not possible. The important thing is that both sides get a feel for each other and share a vision of the bigger picture. The perfect agency is out there for everyone and when you know, you know.
Assess the pitching process
Once you have whittled it down to a select group, you might decide that conducting a pitching process is the way forward. This will give you some insight into how an agency works and if you’re on the same wavelength.
Having a good brief is key here. This is the make or break of any pitch, so try and give as much background information as possible and pinpoint what the goal of the project or campaign is. Otherwise, you’ll just get a stab in the dark and you may not get the results you were hoping for.
Don’t break the budget
This is a big factor. Your budget needs to align with your ambitions and the size of agency you’re approaching. This is an extreme example but a freelancer rate is very different to an agency rate. On the other hand, a freelancer will have a very different and much narrower offering compared to a full-service agency.
Geography also plays a factor in how much value for money you get. London brand agencies tend to be more expensive so your budget will go much further elsewhere. And this might well be the point at which you drop us a line
Having a great agency in your corner is worth every penny and one of our client reviews is testament to that: “I highly recommend Fluro as an agency for their creative skills and approach to partnering. I’ve found them to be highly flexible, adaptable and very easy to work with.” David Bowman at Content+Cloud
Why not give us a try? We’re super friendly, and always happy to have a chat – so drop us a line or give us a call.
Written by Sarah McEvoy, Studio Manager.
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