We had a great time talking about all things branding with Sean Thomas, Executive Creative Director of Jones Knowles Ritchie in London. JKR is a global creative agency that has been reigniting some of the world’s most well-known brands for over 30 years, from Budweiser, Burger King, Dunkin to Heinz, Snickers, The National Lottery and many others. Sean shares his thoughts on how to create an effective brand strategy as well as his learnings on winning and losing clients.
Here are some of our highlights from the conversation:
ST: I joined JKR as a freelancer for a few weeks, and it was two of the creative directors at the time, Della and John who kept me around and spoke to me. Then I got to know Ian Ritchie, one of the founding partners, I thought there's something I can learn from all of these people. Della was trying to change JKRs’ reputation at the time - it had done great work in the past but the work they produced had got a bit stagnant. I think this was partly to do with what the world of marketing was like at the time - everything was researched to death and the gains brands made were incremental.
ST: The major change was how Ian changed the way he worked. Before, everything was going through him, which I think started to make the work look the same. He acknowledged that and said that ‘I keep hiring these great designers, but then I don’t let them do their job’. The second thing that made a big difference was when Tosh joined from the New York office. It was almost annoying how good his work was and made me want to create work like that again. Six months later, with the work that was being produced, it felt like a completely different business. It’s not that we changed anyone or fired anyone, it’s just that the talent we had wasn’t motivated or engaged.
ST: I think there are a couple of things to mention. Firstly, do not base your strategy on visual and creative trends because they are the antithesis of creativity. The whole point of creativity is that you’re doing something original - the moment something’s a trend is a problem because if loads of people are doing it, then you’re not being creative anymore. Secondly, include words in your design brief that you can visualise - that’s a really key part of what we do. Make sure you have words that designers can use. One of my biggest pet hates is that when brands promise ‘game-changing’ or ‘crafted’ or ‘premium’ which are just hollow, empty words.
If you want to hear more stories from Sean, listen to the full interview on our Creative Capes Podcast:
If you want to see JKRs’ work and our faces, watch it below on our Youtube Channel @futurelondonacademy.
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