Branding a Brand Agency

Why investing time and money in your own brand pays dividends in more ways than one.

If you’ve ever stumbled across any of MadeBrave’s social channels in the last 7 years, you might’ve noticed that we’re pretty active when it comes to our own brand, which is pretty unusual for a creative agency (the cobblers children have no shoes ‘n’ all that). Ever since I started - even when it was just me in a crappy office that I rented from a friend (it’s okay, we both used to say how crappy it was all the time) - I made a promise to always treat MadeBrave like a client, and it’s probably one of the best promises I’ve ever made. Here’s why…

It’s true to our values

Our purpose is to ‘inspire creativity in everyone’ and that’s something we live by. Whether it’s our team, our clients, or anyone who happens to come across what we do, we always aim to bring out that creative side and believe creativity (like bravery) lives in every single one of us. And if a video or a post we’ve put out inspires someone to do that thing they’ve wanted to do for ages, but have been too scared then we’re doing our job right.

It sounds simple, but to communicate any brand, you need to know it first - that’s why getting those values and brand purpose down on paper (or all over your walls) is so important. Once you know who you are, don’t be scared to shout about it! Also if you use your social platforms to inspire people rather than sell you are much more likely to attract people who’ll want to buy from you. Remember, people hate to be sold to but love to buy.

We practice what we preach

MadeBrave is a creative brand agency, which means we help clients to define and build their brands and then communicate those brands using design, social media, digital, tech and campaigns. We also have Campfire, our content production agency who produce brand films, content and motion graphics to help bring those brand to life.

Now, I don’t know about you - but I’d feel like I was contradicting myself if I was to stand in front of a client/crowd and sell the importance of brand and content if actually, I didn’t invest in it for my own business. By branding ourselves and making the effort to consistently bring our brand to life, we’re practicing what we preach (and I can sleep at night too).

It shows what we can do

Not only do we want to show that we practice what we preach, we want to show that we can do it in the best way possible. With an entire team of designers, strategists writers, photographers, content creators, developers and digital marketers - you name it - we have an entire in-house agency, so why the hell would we not make use of those skills for our own brand?

For me, MadeBrave has always been an opportunity to test things, get stuff wrong, push boundaries (there have been plenty of squeaky-bum moments in our time) and play with the latest tech to show clients what we can do for their brand. As our longest-standing client, we have an entire 7 year portfolio piece of MadeBrave content that’s worth its weight in Tunnocks tea cakes (that’s a lot of Tunnocks tea cakes).

It attracts the right clients

By putting ourselves out there we multiply our chance of a potential client seeing us, which then hopefully turns them into a customer.

In recent study by HubSpot called ‘2019 State of Agency Selling’ they found that the most common challenge in the sales process was getting in touch and connecting with prospects (which is a whole lot easier if they come to you) and that 62% use a Request for Proposal as their main selling tool. My fellow agency owners (and actually, anyone who owns a business) will know how time-consuming, expensive and sometimes disheartening the pitching process can be, especially when it involves developing full concepts to even be considered.

We’ve been really lucky over the years to have great opportunities come our way through the right people seeing what we do with our own brand, who want to create something with the same level of creativity and engagement for their business.

However, I’m under no false illusion that this attracts all clients. MadeBrave has a really unique personality - some people love it (great!) some people hate it (hey, that’s okay) - but by communicating ourselves in a way that’s authentic, we know that the clients who get in touch, want to work with us because they actually like who we are and what we do. It’s better to have 100 people love your brand and want to buy from you than 1000 people who ‘like’ it and will never spend a penny or bring you any value.

It attracts the right people

When I first started creating content about our culture at MadeBrave, I didn’t realise that I was actually building an employer brand at the same time (who knew?). Just like our story and personality attracts the right clients, it also - most importantly - attracts the right people to join our team. And if you can attract the best talent for your team, you then have the best team to create the best work for your clients, win-win right?

For a candidate, there’s no smoke and mirrors with MadeBrave - it’s pretty obvious who we are as a brand, which helps someone to make a quick decision. Finding a new job can be really daunting for someone and I think - for all businesses - it’s good for you and the candidates to be open and honest about what it would be like to work there 5 days out of 7. We spend more time at work than we do at home, so it should always feel right for that person. The more you share of your actual culture on social the better chance you’ll have attracting people who’ll love your business and want to stick with you.

It’s fun. This is life as well as work

Although we use our own brand to showcase what we can do for clients, I’d be lying if I said that none of our content was just about having fun. In my last article, I spoke about the power of passion projects and how they’re good for the soul - not just for you, but for your team too.

“But how do you find the time?”

We make time. One of my favourite quotes from Richard Branson is “if you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers” which is why we always put time aside to do something fun every once in a while. By writing our dream briefs and making them come true, everyone gets a chance to flex their creativity without limits and do the stuff that makes their heart sing (me included).

It’s team building that we actually like

If you’ve ever tried to direct a video with an office full of chickens, you’ll know that it takes one heck of a team to pull it off (more on that below).

Creativity is all about solving problems and coming up with solutions that tick a lot of boxes. There are so many people involved with answering a brief and there has to be a unanimous decision on the best route - no matter where the idea comes from. There’s creativity in everyone and when we do our own projects, it’s a team-wide effort - from our senior designers, to our account managers and our operations team. Without realising, we’re doing a team building exercise, thankfully with no trust-falls involved.

It creates a chronicle

Over the last 7 years or so, I’ve been telling the MadeBrave story and talking all things brand at events (I’m available internationally for speaking gigs) and when it comes to pulling together my slides, I thank my past self (and my team) for documenting MadeBrave through the ages.

Just like I do with my son, Finlay, I always have a camera at hand to capture the best bits of MadeBrave (and if I don’t, someone in our team does). By creating content in the last 7 years, I can scroll back and remember the fun projects we’ve worked on, how the team has changed, what our old office looked like and all the great memories we’ve had - sorry, I have something in my eye. Even without the benefits listed above, creating content for your business is worth this point alone. By documenting your journey you can then use that content to share the lessons (good and bad) that you’ve learned along the way.

Here are some of my favourites…

Newbie photos

It’s a MadeBrave tradition to shoot a first day photo that’s themed around a hobby or fun fact about our newbie. It’s a great way to get to know them and gives them a warm welcome from us and the wider MadeBrave family (aka: you guys!) I’m always excited to see what the team come up with.

MadeBrave Christmas

For years, we always shot a team Christmas photo - which involved a lot of photoshop work and a lot of time, but it was totally worth it. In the last few years, we’ve switched to video - if you haven’t already, check out or studio Christmas makeover.

Online Nerf Wars

I don’t quite remember how it started, but one thing led to another and we had a full online Nerf Gun war with Awesome Merchandise. In true MadeBrave style, we took it as a challenge and the result was this photo that still makes me laugh. Even though it’s about 5 years old, it’s always in my slides.

Clucks to bucks - The science behind farm animals in the workplace

Yep, I wasn’t lying when I said we had an office full of chickens. We always do an April Fool’s video and this was one of the most memorable. It also won us a Chip Shop Award for - you guessed it - Best Shameless Self Promotion.

Bringing our values to life

Last year, we briefed 3 amazing artists to paint our brand values all over the MadeBrave studio walls. We created a mini video series of content, along with three blogs that were put across all of our channels. It’s something we’ve wanted to do for ages and it’s great to see those values smack bang in front of us every day (instead of hiding in a Google doc somewhere). Keep your eyes peeled for a new video landing soon...

Office BallPit

To mark our 7th birthday, we channelled our inner 7 year olds and turned one of our meeting rooms in a giant ball pit (as you do). Of course we had to film it. I loved seeing our team create their own content of the day - we got great photos.

Every brand is different and this is how we tell our story - but if there’s anything I hope you can take away from this blog, it’s that it’s okay to put time aside for self promotion, whether you’re a business or a person. In fact, it’s more than okay. Don’t be afraid to celebrate your successes and get your voice heard! Remember though that make it unique to you. This is ‘my crazy’ and you have to find yours…

Drop me a message if you are struggling to define your brand or need a helping hand bringing it to life.

I’d love to hear your favourite stories from growing your brand?