Becoming a member of Bristol Creative Industries brings many benefits. We regularly add new opportunities so here is a guide to the latest benefits you can enjoy by signing up. We’ll keep this post regularly updated.
Join Bristol Creative Industries from only £4.50 a month.
Showcase your best work and attract new clients with a company profile in the Bristol Creative Industries member directory. The directory receives lots of visits every month from people looking for services from creative businesses.
Got some business advice or news to share? As a Bristol Creative Industries member you can self-publish content on our website and it will appear on your member profile. We upgrade great content to the newsfeed and include four posts in our monthly email newsletter.
To get an idea of the content topics that do well, here are the top 20 posts by members in 2022.
Bristol Creative Industries member Jessica Morgan from Carnsight Communications discussed the benefits of posting content in this interview.
The Bristol Creative Industries jobs board attracts thousands of job hunters every month. As part of your membership, you can post unlimited free job adverts, saving you on average £3,500 per candidate.
Piers Tincknell, co-founder of Atomic Smash, is one of BCI’s longest serving members and he told us in a member profile interview how he regularly uses the jobs board to recruit new employees.
BCI’s monthly members’ lunches are a perfect opportunity for members to catch up with fellow members and the BCI team.
Everyone has a slot of up to three minutes to tell the others a little about who they are and what they do and share any news and/or challenges. You don’t need to fill the full three minutes. We usually find some common themes emerge to discuss over the course of the session. It’s all very informal with no need to stand up and present slides.
The events are free to attend for members. They are a mix of in person and virtual events. The in person sessions are at The Square Club in Bristol and include a free buffet lunch.
Check the events section of details of the next lunches.
Big thanks to everyone who joined the recent BCI Members’ Lunch.
Great to see you all and thankyou to @SquareClifton for hosting us.
The next lunch is a virtual one on 5 Oct: https://t.co/wxAbGKc5l4 with an in-person event on 10 Nov: https://t.co/xF4OvVjHlP pic.twitter.com/E66orlkvFI
— Bristol Creative Industries (@Bristol_CI) September 20, 2022
Our flagship keynote events and workshops feature world class speakers sharing their expertise. It’s a unique opportunity to access valuable insights for growing your business. Bristol Creative Industries members receive a ticket discount.
Keen an eye on the events section for the latest events. You can also sign up to the monthly BCI Bulletin to be notified of events.
Wake Up Call is a member exclusive live webinar that takes place every other Friday at 8.30-9am. The content is delivered by members for members.
Attending the free event gives you access to valuable insights from your fellow members and if you host a Wake Up Call, you can share your expertise and attract potential new clients.
See details for upcoming Wake Up Call events in our events section.
If you’re a BCI member and you’d liked to deliver a presentation on a topic of your choice during Wake Up Call, email Sian Pitman.
The regular BCI Walk & Talk networking sessions are for a group of 12 people who are keen to don their walking boots and explore the stunning countryside around Bristol and Bath.
It’s a great opportunity for members to make some new connections whilst getting some much needed fresh air!
The next Walk & Talk is on 12 May at 9.30am. Sign up here.
We host regular roundtables for agency leaders to discuss strategic challenges. These events are vital for us to hear from the member community about the key issues you are facing and how we can help. A roundtable on funding led to us creating this popular and regularly updated guide to the latest finance on offer to creative businesses.
If you are interested in getting involved with future roundtables, email Sian Pitman.
We regularly deliver other benefits.
We are currently providing free legal surgeries with business lawyer Rebecca Steer.
Reductions on co-working spaces, meeting rooms, hotel accommodation, a recruitment strategy review and a coffee subscription are just some of the many discounts and offers we’ve negotiated for members.
Join Bristol Creative Industries from only £4.50 a month.
If you have any questions about membership, email Alli Nicholas
Catherine Frankpitt has a 20+ year career working in PR and communications. In 2020, she decided to launch her own business. Strike Communications works with organisations that are doing something positive in the world, such as delivering education, creating cultural opportunities and supporting disadvantaged communities.
Catherine launched her business just a few weeks before the start of the first coronavirus pandemic lockdown. A year into her entrepreneurial venture, she joined Bristol Creative Industries.
She tells Dan Martin about starting a business during the pandemic, how it has grown and the benefits of being part of the BCI community.
“I started out at the Mail on Sunday’s You Magazine as a 21-year-old. They had regular features called ‘My Last Good Read’ and ‘My Last Good Buy’. I phoned up celebrities to interview them. I spoke to Lloyd Grossman, Carol Smillie, Ulrika Jonnson and others
“I had a media degree and didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do although I knew it was on the editorial side of things. At the magazine most of the stories were coming from press releases and the copy was just rewritten. I decided that I wanted to go into PR because they were the ones actually having the fun writing the stories and coming up with the ideas.”
“While working at a big agency, the clients that I was really interested in were the likes of charities who had lean in house teams and were not able to maximise the opportunity to do bigger and better things, reach more people and get more funding etc because they hadn’t got the capacity and resources to do it. They need the support, but can’t afford the bigger agency fees.
“I’m motivated by working on communications that I think people need to know about. I work on a lot of causes, charities and culture where the comms plays more of a role than just selling. It’s not just a transactional thing. It’s reaching people that benefit from knowing about it.
“That’s why I decided to set up Strike Communications, to provide a full service agency offering but keep the costs leaner than a bigger agency.”
“I was director of communications at UWE. There are some brilliant people doing great things at the university, but while managing a big team, I missed being hands-on. I like to get stuck in and ask ‘what’s the problem?’, ‘what are the objectives?’, ‘let’s get creative’.
“I wanted to do my own thing so I went from running a department with 85 staff to running a business on my own during lockdown in my spare room!
“I’ve been a single parent with a single income for a while and I’ve always been careful with money. I took out a loan in advance of starting the business just in case something went wrong. That was the best decision I could have made. I very quickly needed it because I launched the business with two anchor clients but within a few weeks of lockdown, everybody went insular.
“It was scary to start with because I didn’t qualify for any of the support that the government introduced. All of my network was in Bristol and that’s where I had planned the work to come from but I had to rethink the plan and widen my reach.
“Eight weeks or so into the first lockdown people started realising that they needed to communicate more than ever. A previous boss once said to me that in a crisis, the first thing to go is the comms and marketing and the first thing to come back is the comms and marketing. She was absolutely right.
“Suddenly people were knocking on the door and saying they needed extra support. I worked with two London universities because their comms teams were so busy doing internal activities and keeping the students informed.
“My networks changed almost overnight and I teamed up with people in the same situation. My experience during lockdown shaped the business in a way that I didn’t expect. We were working with organisations in Devon, Basingstoke and London which we probably wouldn’t have done without the pandemic and everyone being online.”
“There are now three of us full time and two associates who work with us regularly plus a few others we bring in as required.
“In March, we celebrated our third birthday and appointed Scott Fletcher as our new creative director.
“I got some advice from a business coach who said in year one, you do anything for anybody. Year two, you start working out the things that you don’t want to do. Year three, you work out who you are. That’s absolutely what I’ve found.
“In terms of reasons for success, I’ve got a really good network because I’ve worked with a lot of organisations and that has been really helpful.
“Also, I very much operate on gut instinct and my idea for the sorts of organisations that I wanted to work with that I thought needed the help at a certain price point has proven to be true. Whether it’s dealing with COVID-19 or the cost of living crisis, there is always a need for support at a certain level and a certain price. While there are plenty of creative people in Bristol we have created our own niche.
“I find it very hard to do anything other than be honest and transparent. I have strong values and the people that work with us, whether it’s staff or clients, buy into those values. People look at how we talk about ourselves and see that we’re authentic. There’s an appeal to that. There are certain organisations that we just wouldn’t work with because it wouldn’t be right for us. There are others that we really care about and want to help.”
“It’s important to be part of an organisation that is championing your sector, listening and supporting you. It’s also very useful for learning, networking and meeting people.
“I love the Friday morning Wake Up Call webinars with bite-sized advice. The members’ lunches have also been very helpful and I’ve made interesting connections. You can’t underestimate the importance of peer-to-peer support and solidarity, particularly for the founders of smaller businesses like mine. By talking to others, it makes it feel less overwhelming and less of a lonely place.
“The Bristol Creative Industries jobs board has been really useful when recruiting.”
Watching Wake Up Call webinars, attending free member lunches and unlimited job postings are some of the benefits of Bristol Creative Industries membership. Find out more.
“You need to know what it is that you’re trying to achieve, who it is that’s going to help you get there, what they are going to be interested in hearing to help you get there and where you will find them. Your comms should frame around that.
“People get really bogged down by saying things like ‘we need to be on TikTok’ and ‘we need to be on Twitter’ but they are being led by the activity. You should take a strategic approach and know what you are trying to achieve and how the comms can support you to get there. It’s about working out who your audiences, stakeholders or customers are and where they are, whether that’s online, the media they read or where you can physically find them.”
Fancy joining Catherine Frankpitt as a Bristol Creative Industries member? Benefit from industry expertise, training, leads, curated news, kudos and more. Sign up here.
Along with being a great place to meet like-minded creatives, We’ll be screening the brilliant short ‘Swiped’ by Luke Collins & hosting guest speaker, Tom Brereton Downs!
This is an exclusive opportunity to:
February’s guest speaker is Screenology‘s Tom Brereton Downs. Tom dares you to take more risks, make more mistakes, do less of what you’re “supposed” to do, and more of what works! All within his purpose-built talk, “Ten Dangerous Ideas for Filmmakers”.
Find out more info and sign up here!
There are lots of brilliant events and other opportunities for creative businesses this February and March. See the full list below.
Events are either free or discounted for Bristol Creative Industries members. Some other opportunities are exclusive to members. Not a member? Join today.
However big or small your business, nothing has more commercial impact than fame. Join us in Bristol to hear Pete Bracegirdle share the incredible story of ‘Fearless Girl’ and what she can teach us about how to make your brand more famous. Book your ticket here.
Join Inkwell founder Chris Goodfellow for advice on how to create your own high-quality videos.
Wake Up Call is an online event exclusive to BCI members. Book your ticket here.
Join Rebecca Steer, Steer & Co’s award-winning lawyer, for this talk at Watershed in Bristol on data privacy laws in the UK and Europe and how they affect creative, digital and tech businesses. Book your ticket here.
Join Mette Davis for top tips on how to deliver a great workshop experience for your team and clients.
Wake Up Call is an online event exclusive to BCI members. Book your ticket here.
BCI members can book a free 30 minute call with Rebecca Steer, an award winning business lawyer. Book your call here.
The free BCI members’ lunch at The Square Club in Bristol is an opportunity for members to build connections while enjoy a delicious buffet lunch. Book your ticket here.
A networking event with a difference! A great opportunity for BCI members to make some new creative industry connections whilst exploring the countryside. Book your ticket here.
Come along to our freelancer networking drinks at The Square Club in Bristol to widen your networks, make new connections, discuss common problems, and discover potential opportunities for collaboration. Free for BCI members. Book your ticket here.
Ruth Clarke discusses six new big trends and ideas for how we look after our people.
Wake Up Call is an online event exclusive to BCI members. Book your ticket here.
The free BCI members’ lunch at The Square Club in Bristol is an opportunity for members to build connections while enjoy a delicious buffet lunch. Book your ticket here.
BCI members can book a free 30 minute call with Rebecca Steer, an award winning business lawyer. Book your call here.
Forward Space is offering BCI members with turnover below £150,000 the chance to win a free office for three months in Bristol’s Boxworks. Find out more.
A new partnership between BCI and LawBite gives members access to free and affordable legal expertise. Find out more.
Our friends at The Wow Company have launched BenchPress 2023, the largest survey of independent agency owners in the UK.
It’s the perfect opportunity for Bristol Creative Industries members to benchmark themselves against their peers and build a picture of the latest trends impacting agencies across the country. Find out more.
Event: The CMO’s Guide to Customer Acquisition
Microsoft will join a select panel of senior marketing professionals in Bristol this March to discuss how businesses can best drive more online customers through digital marketing.
Hosted by South West performance agency Launch, the breakfast event will be held on March 22nd at the Showcase Cinema de Lux in Bristol from 8:30 – 11am.
The CMO’s Guide to Customer Acquisition will provide a vital opportunity for like-minded marketers and brands to listen and debate with other CMOs about their successes, challenges and their strategies around data, conversion optimisation and paid media.
Marion Gould, Client Partner Lead at Microsoft, will be speaking on ‘Marketing with purpose: how to create a strong brand in digital marketing.’ Also on the schedule is the managing director of Launch, Jaye Cowle, who will chair a panel debate with senior marketing leaders to open the event, discussing the evolution of performance marketing.
Jaye Cowle says: “This is set to be a really insightful event for marketers, brands, and business owners. Together with our brilliant guests, and media partner Microsoft, you can learn how brands like yours are getting the most from their performance marketing activity.”
In addition to Microsoft, there will be panel discussion with Barney Bell, Head of Marketing for David Salisbury; Piers Tincknell from Atomic Smash and Harriet Barter, Account Director at Launch, on ‘Why channel diversification is key to converting and finding new audiences.’
Data Strategist, Michael Patten, will discuss the countdown to GA4 in ‘Leverage your data to target new customers.’ In addition, Launch’s Conversion Director Joe Johnston will be joined by Account Manager Josh Marinaro to discuss the customer experience: ‘How incremental website changes can bring big results.’
Find out more about the schedule and book a place at this event
Picture: Marion Gould, Client Partner Lead at Microsoft, will be speaking on Marketing with Purpose.
Think of your ideal client? How would the relationship be? Simple and easy? Low maintenance? Drama-free? When you’re juggling a million and one other things, smooth and breezy interactions seem incredibly appealing. But to build long-lasting and fruitful relationships with clients, our interactions need to be honest, and we need to create a genuine connection with them.
So how can we go from transaction to connection?
Be there in the storm and the calm
How do your clients see you? Are you the saviour who sweeps in to save the day in their time of need? Or are you the quiet confident, ready to lend an ear at any time? If you can be both, you’ll be in a good place.
It’s something David Ogilvy talks about in Confessions of an Ad Man:
“The head of an agency has so much on his plate that he is apt to see his clients only in time of crisis. This is a mistake. If you can get into the habit of seeing clients when the weather is calm, you will establish an easy relationship which may save your life when a storm blows up.”
To be able to help solve clients’ problems and challenges you need to be armed with the insight into what works for them, how they see success and what their goals are. To get an understanding of this goes beyond their top-level strategy, it’s what makes them tick on a day-to-day basis, and the more interaction you have the deeper your understanding will be.
Don’t flatter to deceive
Think your client’s product or service is flawless? Brilliant, be sure to tell them. But if it’s not, don’t flatter to deceive – there’s a strong chance it will come back to bite you.
Ogilvy has words of wisdom on this too:
“It is difficult for a doctor to tell a patient he is suffering from a serious disease, and equally difficult to tell a client his product has a serious fault. But the time comes in the life of every advertising agent when he must grasp this nettle. When I told one client that I had doubts about the consistency of his spaghetti, his reaction was to question whether I could do a good job for any product I disliked… On the whole, however, I have observed an increasing tendency on the part of clients to welcome candour.”
Tell people their offer is flawless, and they will expect immediate outstanding results. And if those results don’t materialise? It’s likely you’ll be in the firing line. Tell clients where you think their strengths and challenges lie and you can focus on amplifying the strengths and together you can work on the challenges.
For a well-functioning relationship, both parties need to feel free to speak their minds. It takes time to build trust but inviting honest feedback from clients from the off and accepting this without pride and hostility will set the tone for open communication as the relationship progresses. Sometimes the client will know their industry and market the best and sometimes you will have the expertise and ideas to change their perspective. But when you have established honesty and openness in the relationship, these discussions become constructive rather than destructive.
Build deeper relationships
Deeper, more honest and connected relationships with clients take time. But the investment is worth it. It will allow you to set realistic goals, expectations, and deliverables – and meet them. You’ll be better positioned to address bottlenecks and potential challenges. And you’ll be armed with all the information and insight you need to better report on your success.
Every relationship is different, but have a think about your current clients – do you really know what their motivations are? Have you a firm grasp of what success looks like for them? Are you investing the right kind of time with them? Do you need more face-to-face meetings and less reporting? Could they benefit from networking in your circle?
The easy client relationship might on the surface free your time up to concentrate on other things. But you might be missing opportunities to foster a deeper and longer-lasting connection.
Founded in 1990, The Square is Bristol’s Private Members Club for the creative industries, located on Berkeley Square. Members of The Square are part of a unique community of like-minded creative professionals. The Square provides an arena of original thought and discussion, and members enjoy a range of personal and professional benefits.
Along with a vibrant events programme and an award-winning restaurant, The Square provides a dynamic social environment and a flexible workspace. Equipped with a boutique lounge, the Square Kitchen restaurant, the Lower Deck Cocktail Bar and hidden city-centre Terrace, The Square is ideal for working, socialising, holding events and meeting new people.
The Square Club connects creatives across the world, and has reciprocal arrangements with clubs in the following locations:
BCI members can apply for discounted membership at a rate of £60 per quarter. This not only gives members access to The Square Club, but to all of the reciprocal venues around the world.
For an additional fee, membership can be upgraded to include access to Square Works, The Square’s high-end, part and full time serviced offices and co-working space.
Square Member Benefits include:
To apply for discounted membership, please email [email protected].
GYDA is thrilled to announce its repositioning as a Mastermind-centred business. The relaunch which happened in June 2022, sees GYDA increase its focus from being a business consultancy who helped agency leaders through traditional consultancy methods, to one that focuses on peer-to-peer Mastermind groups for agencies leaders all over the world.
The relaunch was the culmination of a six month project initiated by the managing partners Robert Craven and Janusz Stabik.
Robert said:
‘Our experience of running Mastermind programs spans back over seven years and includes the renowned Google Elevator program. It made sense to pivot the business to focus on the tools that work for agency leaders. We continue to support our clients with additional 1-2-1 coaching and growth centered consulting.’
The project included an in-depth strategy phase where GYDA collaborated with their growth experts and agency clients. Followed by a rebrand project with TinyBrand.
Janusz said:
‘We were so excited to work with Jemma at Tiny Brand again. Helping us to solidify and refine our brand strategy, they went on to create a new visual identity and collateral for GYDA. We are over the moon with the results. Our beautiful new brand fits perfectly with our audience and confirms GYDA’s position as market leader for mastermind programs.’
Visit GYDA.co to learn more about GYDA Mastermind
Visit Tiny Brand
We have a jam-packed events agenda in July so we thought we’d summarise the education and inspiration you can enjoy.
All Bristol Creative Industries-run events are free for BCI members. If you’re not a member, sign up from only £4.50 a month.
1 July, 8.30am. Free for BCI members only.
Wake Up Call is our online event exclusively for BCI members that’s delivered by BCI members. It features a 30 minute practical presentation and Q&A every other Friday at 8.30am.
First up in July is copywriting expert Rin Hamburgh from Rin Hamburgh & Co.
On 1 July at 8.30am, Rin will look at the different types of blog post you might use to engage your audience at each stage of their buyer journey and guide them one step closer to doing business with you.
5 July, 12.30pm. Free for members, £25 for non-members.
Women over 50 are the fastest growing demographic in the workforce, and a significant percentage are likely to be in senior/leadership roles, plus on the front line of client relationships. 25% of menopausal woman say it can have a ‘debilitating’ effect on their ability to do their job, but unfortunately due to lack of awareness and societal shame, this is issue is not acknowledged enough in the workplace.
What can you do if you manage a team that includes women who could be heading towards menopause if you know nothing about it, and wouldn’t have much of a clue how to tackle a conversation about it?
In this online session, executive coach Fi Craig and Kinneir Dufort’s Tamsin Chambers discuss why this menopause is such a relevant topic for the workplace, why is it not spoken about enough, and what business leaders can do to address it.
14 July, 12.30pm. Free for BCI members, £25 for non-members.
In this online workshop, recruitment Liz Gadd will cover the affects of the pandemic, Brexit, the ‘Great Resignation’ of 2021, the gig economy and how they’ve have contributed to businesses’ current recruitment challenges.
She will suggest solutions and ideas on how you can better recruit including perfecting your recruitment process, advertising the roles, using job boards, working with recruiters, and much more.
15 July, 8.30am. Free for BCI members only.
This online session will demonstrate how you can drive lead quality through the roof and bid more efficiently using value-based bidding.
Harriet Barter, from paid media agency Launch, will guide you through what value-based bidding is, how it works and how to start using it right away, so you can target the conversions that mean the most to your business.
Running your own event? Submit details here for listing on the website.
All Bristol Creative Industries-run events are free for BCI members. If you’re not a member, sign up from only £4.50 a month.
At AUK we not only make a meaningful difference through our work, but we have a strong focus on creating positive impacts on the health and wellbeing of our team. Our strong values surrounding health and wellbeing mean we get the best out of our day, both mentally and physically. Creating a working environment that supports good nutrition is key to AUK’s approach as it’s the backbone to how we function, especially as a creative agency. We need to get those creative juices flowing!
In 2021 we joined forces with Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant Laura Clark to become our own AUK nutrition and diet advisor, guiding us on our learning and development. Laura has already helped the team take a look at the connection between mental health and nutrition, and this year we have a strong focus on maintaining our energy levels.
“How we choose to fuel our working day has the potential to have a profound impact on our productivity, energy levels and mental resilience. However, we seem to be fond of creating a structure in which we expect our brains to do it all simultaneously. Food should be tasted, savoured and enjoyed, if only for a few brief moments away from the keyboard. We tend to succeed more with all tasks that we decide to devote our attention to. Appetite regulation and energy management are no different.” Laura Clark, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant
Being an agency for all means we love to give back, so we wanted to share our ways of working to our AUK friends to give them a deeper understanding of our values surrounding nutrition and our approach to the work we create. Check out their thoughts:
“We spend a lot of our lives at work, so ensuring that we are fuelling ourselves with the best possible things to optimise energy feels really important to me, now more than ever after attending Laura’s talk. It also made me realise that it’s not just all about me. It’s about the impact I have on others too. If I’m running low on energy or having a slump, others will feel that impact too.” Kate Gray, Cookpad
“Good nutrition fuels our minds and bodies – our two biggest tools when it comes to doing impactful creative work. Feed your body, nourish your brain. It was great to see Laura take a realistic look at nutrition and wellness. She explained how to balance a diet that is realistic and sustainable for working professionals.” Alyssa Jaffer, Deliveroo
“Creating a flexible culture where breaks to eat at a time that is right for individuals, away from the desk and in a mindful way, is encouraged will foster empowerment to personalise wellbeing through food, which ultimately will benefit all.” Amanda Butterworth, Trust My Care
“Managing energy levels is key to productivity across a team, and nutrition plays such a huge role in this and affects everyone regardless of their exercise habits or sporting interests.” Simon Rollings, The Canned Wine Co.
“We all deserve the opportunity to fuel our brilliance. With small tweaks and an ethos that supports the foundational aspects of employee wellbeing, we can really set ourselves up for success,” says Laura Clark, Registered Dietitian & Nutrition Consultant.