For the past 5 years or so, I’m slightly ashamed to admit I’ve used a painter and decorator at Reed Towers.

I mean, how hard can it be to paint a room or hang a bit of wallpaper?

To someone “more cerebral” like me, it turns out it’s very hard.

And while my wife will attack any task with 100% effort, she’ll also admit that her decorating skills aren’t at the pro level yet.

So, whenever we need something doing we call Dean the Decorator.

He’s a great bloke – friendly, skilled and best of all, he is the spitting image of Will Ferrell (one of my favourite comedy actors ever).

Dean’s work is always good and he does his stuff really quickly. But is he cheap? No.

He costs about £20 a day more than other decorators, but we feel that’s a price worth paying – and not just for the “look at Will Ferrell in my house” selfies that we insist on taking with him.

Every. Time. He. Visits

(I’m sure he loves coming to our house!)

Although he works in a very different space to me, Dean exemplifies two of the three pillars of the magic triangle perfectly.

You know the one – with good, fast & cheap each taking a side of the triangle.

The Magic Triangle is a cast in stone, scientifically proven (well, almost) law that says that it’s usually only possible to find two of those three qualities in any brand, product or service because they can only be delivered to the detriment of the third.

…especially if you spend 20+ minutes packing your bags in Aldi like I do every week you’ll know that 😀.

At G&T we know that progressive, modern brands value top quality work, delivered quickly.

That means we’re never going to be the cheapest agency around, but as a lean, specialist team we are extremely efficient and consistently deliver excellent value for money.

Just like Dean – but sadly none of us looks like Will Ferrell.

A wise pal once told me he always thinks of a creative brief as if he’s standing on the edge of a river. His objective is to get to the opposite river bank, but he doesn’t know how to get there without getting wet.

He’s scared of boats, so his only way across is to build a bridge.

Problem is, he sucks at building bridges. He lacks the tools, the experience and – crucially – the creativity to figure out how to build the bridge that will get him over to the other side.

To get across, he needs other people who do possess the necessary skills.

So he enlists his companions and imparts the knowledge he has in a clear, coherent and inspirational way so that everyone knows what’s expected of them and the parameters within which they’re expected to work.

Lo and behold, he gets across the river without touching a drop of water.

The creative brief is a standard tool of our trade, and is used to communicate our client’s needs to the creative team.

It’s crucial because for a project to be successful, everyone needs to be on the same page with no misunderstandings and no time wasted.

Just like in the bridge-building metaphor, there are three things which make a brilliant creative brief.

1. Clarity

It’s really important to clearly state what the problem is that we’re trying to solve. Bravissimo wanted to reach a younger audience. Kaspersky wanted to showcase their new proposition through storytelling. MG wanted to change brand perceptions with a new model launch.

In the bridge metaphor, the goal is simply “I want to get to the other side of the river”.

Without this clarity, chaos will reign and the ideas the team produces will lack the single mindedness that separates a brilliant creative solution from a crap one.

2. Brevity

A brief is called a brief because it should be brief.

Overloading the creative team with loads of unnecessary information or pages of waffle-bollocks will inevitably reduce the clarity of the brief – and I’ve just explained where that will lead.

So the brief-writer’s job is to boil everything down to it’s simplest form, removing anything that distracts from the task in front of the creative team.

What you leave out is as important as what you put into a brief. As a rule of thumb, a brief should never be more than 2 pages long at the very most (Don Draper would probably slap me for writing that, in his day a brief was never more than a page long).

If you need more than that to get the info across, it’s time to take something out.

3. Inspiration

Over the course of my career I’ve seen a shift towards the perception that the creative brief is a form to be filled in.

Newsflash: It definitely isn’t.

A brilliant creative brief will inspire the recipient of the brief to think bigger, more originally, more creatively about the solution.

That inspiration can come from all sorts of places, from the physical location you deliver the brief (I once briefed a team on a bleach product in a toilet!) to references you put in the brief, to the way the brief is written and delivered verbally.

Whichever ways you choose to inspire the team, the rewards are obvious: your brief will get a greater share of the creatives’ headspace, you’ll send them a psychological signal about the kind of answers you’re looking for and you’ll offer a better environment for free thinking to flourish.

Alongside these three traits, a good creative brief will give insights on the target audience, the budget & time available and so much more.

But if you can weave clarity, brevity and inspiration into your briefs, you’ll undoubtedly get some brilliant work as a result.

Over recent years we’ve had the privilege of working with a number of great startups.

From Florena Fermented Skincare, backed by the giant Beiersdorf brand, to DrinkTG who we helped on their journey from a kitchen table to the shelves of Tesco & Asda, we’ve helped burgeoning businesses to grow and flourish with great pride.

One thing all these businesses have in common is their profound ambition.

The founders truly believe they’ve come up with the next Gymshark, Uber or AirBnb and dedicate their lives to growing their businesses.

But a lot of the time, the marketing budget available doesn’t quite tally with the scale of their ambitions. That’s not a negative, it’s a statement of fact when there are millions of things to invest in from premises to people, R&D to tech.

As a business with many of the same investment conundrums, we get it.

The keyword we use when talking to startups is realism.

While you can spend tens of thousands of pounds on marketing activity that doesn’t have a direct impact on sales, in the early days do you really need to?

Realistically, probably not – although the investments you make ahead of launch are fundamental to the future success of your brand, so I’m not suggesting for one second that it should be done on the cheap or by a random on Fiverr.com.

If you hire a smart agency (one that knows what it’s doing, doesn’t take the piss and genuinely wants to help) getting the marketing basics that you need to launch can be done much more efficiently.

So based on some recent conversations we’ve been having with a very exciting startup, here’s how we’d recommend getting your marketing off the ground.

Website

There’s no need to go for expensive software here. Open source systems like WordPress or low-cost tools like Craft will do a great job and almost certainly stand the test of time. If budgets are really tight and you can’t stretch to a bespoke look & feel, grab an off the shelf style from Themeforest to get started. It won’t have the same degree of personalisation but it’ll do a great job in the short term. After all, not everyone can go for a Saville Row suit – most of us go to Next!

eCommerce

Off the shelf is the way to go here too. Shopify is just one of many platforms that offers low cost SaaS-based options that will get your store open in no time. It might even be possible to start by selling directly through social channels on Meta & TikTok or via 3rd party merchants like Etsy and Amazon – but watch out for their transaction fees!

Branding

When the big dogs carry out a rebrand, sensationalist headlines like “BT spends £30m on new logo” tend to follow.

But the bill is only that much because they have thousands of vans, uniforms, offices and documents to refresh (and the fact they choose big, expensive networked agencies to do the work).

Startups don’t have to operate with those parameters, so the costs can be much lower. We are currently working on branding for a startup which has the not-so-hefty price tag of £5,100 for a selection of logos, colour palette, typography and business card designs.

Social media

Again this is not an area where you need to over-think: The startup’s mantra of “Fail fast” is the name of the game.

Experiment with different channels, see what type of content works for your audience and which platforms deliver the best results.

Which leads me nicely on to one key element of your social media plan – KPIs. As my recent exploits on LinkedIn showed, simply getting impressions isn’t usually enough. So set clear and realistic KPIs that you can measure against each week / month / quarter to make your strategic decisions.

That’s just a quick brain-fart of thoughts and considerations around startup marketing.

Regardless of the stage of your business or brand, marketing investment decisions are complex and multi-faceted – it’s important not to over-think them but also not to take them lightly.

If you need an outside point of view, give us a shout.

As many of us know, asking “how was it for you” is a BIG question.

The answer can cause egos to swell massively.

Or for hearts to sink beyond repair.

So when we ask our clients what it’s like to work with G&T, the confidence we have in our work and the effort we put into delighting every single client gets put to one side and tiny beads of sweat inevitably start to form on our foreheads.

But fortunately for us, the results are brilliant.

We ask our clients to rate us on a number of criteria that matter most, from creativity through to client service.

Here’s how we stack up:

Overall score: 9.1 out of 10

The average of averages, making us one of the top rated agencies in Birmingham.

Client service: 9.6 out of 10

We’re really proud of this rating. As a boutique agency, great service is baked into our core which is why it was so cool when Sarah from Beiersdorf said “They provide far better service than I have experienced from much larger, global agencies.”

Creativity & innovation: 9.3 out of 10

This is kinda important when you’re a creative, digital & social agency. Our case studies show the breadth of our creative thinking but it’s also great when senior marketers at a prestigious brand like Penhaligon’s says stuff like “The initial ideas G&T presented blew us away and the final work was even stronger! We love the attention to detail and the way the team understood our brand personality from day one.”

Effectiveness: 9.1 out of 10

As David Ogilvy said: “If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative”. We never forget that our work has to deliver results, so to score 9.1 out of 10 for effectiveness makes us really happy. And we were really chuffed when Alex from SWPS said “I’m not exaggerating when I say that the work you have done has transformed our brand. Every key metric has improved and the feedback we are receiving is exemplary.”

Value for money: 9.4 out of 10

We will never be the cheapest agency – the quality of our work and skill of our team is too high for that – but the combination of capability, experience, passion and creativity that we offer at extremely competitive cost means that we offer unbeatable value for money. Indeed Rob at Kaspersky said “Their quality is comparable with bigger agencies… pound for pound, they’re truly Giants & Titans.”

On time & budget: 9.6 out of 10

None of the above matters if the work is delivered late and runs over budget, so our high score here is something we protect fiercely. But don’t just take our word for it, check this out from Darren at SuperYacht Content: “They work very quickly to ensure that deadlines are met and their communication is always on-point and clear. In 6 years, they’ve never let me down.”

Instead of giving ourselves a pat on the back and lighting the cigars, we’ll keep on striving for even better scores next time around by delivering brilliant work, outstanding results and exemplary service to every single client we have the privilege of partnering with.

Get in touch if you’d like that to be you.

Have you heard that conventional wisdom says that big brands need big agencies?

Well, that’s long been established as horse shit trotted out by big agencies.

More and more iconic brands, from Pepsi to First Direct, Levi’s to General Motors, are finding that a vast-sized agency has a smaller impact than ever on their business results.

A lot of the time, the contrary is true.

So if simply hiring a big agency is not the silver bullet, what is?

Creative flair.

Obviously a ‘must’ for creative agencies. Boutiques know that to compete with the multi-award winning, world famous colossuses they have to bring their creative A-Game.

‘That’ll do’ won’t cut the mustard but an original, insight-driven, beautifully crafted idea can put any concerns over size to bed in an instant.

Because does it take 200 people to concept a solid piece? No.

It takes a handful of smart people, who’ve done their research and know their craft inside out.

(ok, so there’s a wee bit more than just that, but you get the point)

Value for money.

By value, we don’t mean cheap but price is rarely the deciding factor – marketing professionals are always keen to spend their budget, and it’s unusual for the cheapest solution to be the best.

As proven by Aldi and countless other smart brands, finding the sweet spot where quality, price and efficacy intersect is the win.

Savvy marketers are getting wise to the over-inflated prices quoted by big agencies and are demanding more ‘value‘ from their partners so that their budget can be spent on delivering results rather than swanky postcodes, agency bars and Cannes Lions trips.

Chemistry.

People buy People – it’s fact.

Surely you want to work with people you like, who are attentive, smart and responsive. Ambitious brands know that boutique agencies are geared up to work as an extension of their team – outsiders on the inside if you will – which makes it much easier to forge successful working relationships.

If you don’t have a close relationship, and I don’t just mean posh dinners in Claridges, then you can’t act as a solid team.

The subservient client > agency model has been dead for a decade now, so without solid chemistry, you’re dead in the water.

Lean agency management

I don’t mean small or cheap, I mean ‘not having to repeat yourself’.

Given the staff churn at bigger agencies it’s almost inevitable that clients will find themselves involved in a seemingly endless repeat-cycle of brand immersion sessions, integration meetings, history lessons and so on as the months go by.

At boutiques, this is very rare because not only is continuity provided by the founders themselves, the team has keen and motivated players too, both of whom rarely leave.

Final thoughts

While the big agencies will argue that their size trumps all, we all know that regardless of the size of the overall agency, the core team is made up of a handful of people that are key.

The plethora of others who might be spoken of as ‘part of the team’ at pitch stage have their own clients to look after, so the perceived advantage is actually a mirage.

And let’s not forget the ‘pitch & switch’ – the big guns pitch, the smaller guns deliver. Is that what you bought and wanted? I doubt it.

And it’s an open secret that bigger agencies regularly outsource work to their smaller peers – they know that the boutiques can more than match them for creativity while bringing agility and pace.

This means the work gets done quicker but to the exacting standards you expect and pay for!

Driven brands who are striving to stand out in increasingly crowded markets have realised that size isn’t everything – success comes from working with agencies that match their ambitions, not their size.

While the big behemoth agencies struggle to adapt, a new breed of agile, high quality boutique agencies is quietly and efficiently transforming the landscape and eating their lunch… Yum!