The Team: The Creative Branding and Comms agency that came back better
Steve Waker is Creative Services Director at award-winning Creative Branding and Communications agency The Team.
We last spoke to Steve in 2020, when the pandemic was at its peak, and The Team were collaborating and creating completely remotely. We’ve touched base once more, to find out how things have changed for him and his creative team since then.
- Gabriele know and love The Team, but can you explain what you guys do – for those who may be less acquainted?
The Team are about brand communications – connecting people to brands, whether they’re employees, customers or citizens.
We have three pillars to our capability – brand strategy, employee experience and content & campaigns. We work across all mediums too, from digital to print. We set up a behavioural science capability just over a year ago which has transformed the effectiveness of our external and internal campaigns. And about the same time, we also onboarded an employee reward and recognition specialist too.
2. What’s been The Team’s biggest achievement over the last two years?
Given the current economic climate, I think we’ve done well to build our business – and reward our people too. We’re turning 40 this year, so it’s a big year for us.
It’s our 40th year, so we’re calling it ‘Full 40 Team’ and celebrating in a major way
Over the next few months, we’re going to post a range of social stories about our work over the years. Some past colleagues and clients have come back to help us do this, sharing their stories and experiences, to celebrate the 40 years that we’ve been in business. We’ll be showcasing some of the iconic work we’ve done for clients like Comic Relief, The Beatles and the NHS. As well as more recent work. Keep an eye out for them on our social channels.
3. Sounds exciting. Has business changed in any areas, since we last spoke?
Our core hasn’t changed, we still and always will have brand at our heart, so we’ve simply built on what we’re good at. And really, that’s the key.
We’ve added depth to some of our capabilities – like investing in motion, and behavioural science as I mentioned.
Our applied behavioural scientist joined us last year. He’s adding value across a range of client work and has certainly transformed our client strategies with accurate and effective insight.
4. Have your opinions/policies on hybrid working changed? During the pandemic, it was forced but are you still WFH out of choice?
Yes it was forced. And I think at the time, it caught everybody by surprise. But, being a creative business helped, because we’re natural problem solvers.
I manage the studio side of things so at first I personally couldn’t imagine how it could work for me. I found it a little difficult to start with, but then I started to find a way, and a hybrid way of working is actually good for me!
When it comes to the studio, it’s always good to be hands-on and talk to people on a daily basis and hourly basis. But I think that Zoom and Teams has made that manageable.
We put our staff first – we’ve got to. So we try and bring everyone together in our TeamSpace at least twice a week, usually a Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday, and it seems to work pretty well. Sometimes it’s easier to work at home, especially when you’ve got meetings that you need to do some prep for it. But you can’t beat the buzz of the studio and the ideas that come from just chatting to your colleagues.
5. Have you been working with the same clients or new ones?
A little bit of both really. We’ve been lucky enough to keep many of our clients for the long term, which is really nice as you build up really, really good relationships. So we must be doing something right! But over the last 2-3 years, we’ve also started working with some interesting new clients and sectors.
We’ve managed, even in this tough environment, to develop new client relationships and build our client base. And I think it’s testament to how well we think, create and deliver for our current clients, as well as a clear vision for knowing where we’re going to be able to add value and do our best work for new clients.
We’ve been working with clients like National Savings and Investments, and Gas Safe for a very long time on numerous projects. But we also have relatively new clients like Coca-Cola and RedStar tomatoes too.
Then we have other clients who may not work with us for a little while, but then come back again, busier than ever. For example, we worked with BP quite solidly until around five years ago and now they’re back in full force, which is great.
6. Is there a particular type of project you’ve worked on most?
Yeah, we’ve been doing a lot of brand activation. We’ve done some successful campaigns for Southeastern Trains that’s gone on to the next campaign and the next campaign.
We’ve done a nice activation for Moneyfarm recently too. But then we’ve also worked on core rebrands as well. So, it’s a bit of a blend, really.
7. Will you be moving into new areas of business? (E.g., AI, VR, the Metaverse?)
We have a digital side that has always been busy, and we do a lot of digital work for clients like NS&I. So we naturally adopt and are interested in new ideas, technologies and ways of doing things.
We’re not going to reinvent ourselves, we know what we’re good at and we’ll stay consistent to that. And I think that’s a key element.
Yes we’ve added behavioural science to our offer, but we’ve applied it across what we’re already doing: employee experience, brand activation etc. If new aspects, like AI, are relevant for our clients and enable us to do what we do, but better, then of course we’d look at what that means for us.
8. Are you happy with your forecasts?
I think we’re on track this year and we’ve been on track for the last couple of years. There was a slight blip when COVID hit. But from September 2020 onwards, we started to get busy again. And I think we’ve been busy ever since.
We’ll likely to end the year on budget.
So because of this, we’ve needed to add a few more members to the team recently. And bolted-on freelancers, especially in project management and creative, as Gabriele are aware of.
9. Have you experienced a reduction in client spend?
I think there are two trends here. Client spend is more fragmented – it has to go further, do more. So we do more project work, rather than a continual stream. And there can be delays mid-project and getting started too. Its understandable as the landscape is harder than ever for our clients and us to navigate, so it can take longer to work that through and agree on the best way.
10. What obstacles as your team face when it comes to recruiting?
I think IR35 is probably the probably the biggest. We’re finding that a lot of talent want to stay outside. Or if they’re coming inside then the rates are going quite high as well. So getting that balance right has been a bit of a juggling act to keep on the side of of being legal.
11. Have you diversified in terms of skills or background to find the right talent?
We managed to get a graduate scheme up and running in our creative team over the last few years which has been fruitful
Two younger members of the team were tasked by the Creative Director to look after the scheme, and they’ve really put their heart and soul into it. They’ve gone out to different universities and grad shows, and we now have two grads joining us over the coming months.
We want to focus on building our younger talent pool, it’s important for the industry as a whole, as well as inspiring the existing team. If they work well with us then we love to be able to offer them a permanent position – if we can, it’s not always possible.
We made a couple of hires during peak-COVID, that were further afield than we would have done previously.
COVID enabled us to extend our new talent far and wide within the UK. And we now have two full-timers who are based in Sheffield and Bristol! As well as an intern from Ukraine.
12. So, you said many freelancers want to stay outside of IR35, but have you noticed any other change in attitude? Are they more reluctant to come into the office?
I don’t think so. I mean, because we do the two-day minimum in the office, that seems to work for most.
Obviously, the guys coming in from Sheffield and Bristol aren’t in every week, but we stay connected via Teams – and a weekly, virtual company meeting.
Because of Teams, not everything is affected by location. So I think that aspect has been good for us. Being in office helps the collaboration. We work with virtual whiteboards like Miro, but we do like to put the work up on the walls, as you know. So I think we’ve had to work hard to adjust to that.
13. And lastly, do you have a funny or cautionary recruitment story to tell?
I’m going to let you down because I don’t actually! Most of the Freelancers we bring in have been absolutely brilliant.
You get the occasional disorganised one. It’s a little bit frustrating when a freelancer hasn’t got the tech or the software that they need to do their job. Because I think you need the best tools to do the best job.
But apart from that, I don’t have any funny ones. I mean, we’ve had some pretty good freelancers coming in to work with us. Thanks to Gabriele.
Find out more about Steve Waker, The Team and their fantastic work here.