We all love an underdog.
One of our Digital Designers, Mayumi Kurosawa, has overcome incredible odds to get to where she is today – a much-loved member of the Proctors’ team.
This is her story.
Act 1: A blessing in (deep, deep) disguise?
I may be happily settled in Bristol today, but the journey I took to get here started in Japan.
In 2018, I was working as a translator – my dream job back then. After five years in this role, my British-native husband told me he wanted to move back to the U.K. It wasn’t the best timing, but being the amazing wife I am, I agreed, making the decision to leave my job and challenge myself in a new country.
After along slog (another story in itself), I was finally granted permission to come and work in the UK. I landed an admin job working for a Japanese company dealing in imported car parts.
But bad timing struck again. The knock-on effects of Brexit were being felt in every industry, and within 8 months of starting my job, I was made redundant.
And to top it all off, my husband and I had just made the decision to move to a new city: Bristol.
Act 2: Kintsugi – Repairing what’s broken, with gold
After coming to terms with what had happened, I came to a realisation. Yes, I’d been dealt a few poor hands. But now I had a brand-new opportunity to discover what I really wanted from the next stage of my career.
So, I doubled down and made a plan: I gave myself one year to study and find out exactly what it was I wanted to do. And I had an idea of what that might be…
Act 3: The impossible dream
Since childhood, I’d dreamt of working within the creative industries. But I’d never felt confident enough to even talk about it – never mind found the guts to try. Nevertheless, the dream had stayed with me. And without the excuse of ‘being too busy’ now redundant, it was time for me to take a chance.
I knew I was interested in design, in its broadest sense. But, of course, modern ‘design’ covers a wide range of occupations.
It took me a while to focus on one discipline. First, I started studying UX/UI design with an online course called Interaction Design Foundation. Then, I moved into front-end web development with Codecademy – an online platform offering coding classes for people interested in developing their skills within the digital design sector. Finally, I studied graphic design, learning even more about the principles of aesthetics and creativity.
Every discipline had its merits, making it difficult to choose which specialism I was going to focus on. And just one year of learning seemed too short to become skilled enough in all of these different areas if I wanted to secure a job.
Act 4: The Great Battle of Imposter Syndrome
The truth is, I spent a lot of time over the course of that year doubting whether I was making the right choice. However, I’m stubborn by nature, and after every moment of uncertainty I would rebound into bursts of productively, further pushing and developing my professional skills.
There’s a cliché for a reason: the only difference between the people who succeed and the people who don’t, is whether they give up on what they want. And I just didn’t let myself give up.
So, I started creating a portfolio. I turned my skills to a selection of different websites that I felt could be improved with a mixture of design and UX. Not only did the process help me use the skills I had learnt, it also helped me to test myself – and prove to myself that I really could become a designer.
When I had three websites redesigned and mocked up, I took a chance and started to apply to some roles.
Act 5: An ending – and a beginning
To my surprise and delight, I received interest from some of the applications I sent, and managed to squeeze myself* into the creative industry. Now, I’m a digital designer for Proctor + Stevenson – and I got here without a relevant degree or industry experience.
Everyone is very warm, keen to help, and I genuinely enjoy working here. They are serious professionals, but at the same time they love to laugh and have fun.
I’ve just started my new career, so can’t give much industry insight yet. But I hope I can encourage people who want to learn something new, or want a career change, that if I could do it, you can do it too.
Post-credits
A quick comment from Proctors (and Mayumi’s manager, Dan Hardaker, Director of Digital Design).
*There was no squeezing necessary when it came to offering Mayumi a role with Proctors. Her portfolio – and her story – demonstrated so much potential and clear talent that we knew would make her a perfect fit for the role.
It’s important to us to look past a person’s work experience alone. Your drive and attitude are just as important as the places you’ve worked before. We believe in giving people the opportunity to develop their skills in a professional environment, and in supporting your goals with mentoring and training resources. So together, we can lay a career path just for you.
Why not take a look at our current career opportunities? There could be a new flagstone waiting for you…
Andy Nairn, who has been named the UK’s number one brand strategist for the past three years, joined us for a fascinating and entertaining event to share insights from his new book, Go Luck Yourself: 40 ways to stack the odds in your brand’s favour.
In the book, Andy explains how the history of marketing and advertising is full of brands that stumbled across great ideas by accident or turned misfortunes into huge successes. During the event, the co-founder of advertising agency Lucky Generals highlighted some examples and outlined the lessons for creative companies. Dan Martin summarises his insights.
Opening his talk, Andy Nairn explained that we have a strange relationship with luck in the UK. “Other parts of the world find it completely natural to talk about luck and it’s a perfectly acceptable part of business conversation,” he said, “In the West, we’re a bit snooty about the whole thing. We think of it as a bit primitive and not to be trifled with.”
The negativity around luck was cemented in Victorian times, Andy said. The Industrial Revolution and the Protestant work ethic created the belief that if you were rich, you were successful because you had worked really hard for your money and God had smiled upon you, but if you were poor, it meant you hadn’t tried hard enough, you were work-shy and you should try harder.
That attitude around only hard work can generate good results still prevails, shown by the blurring of work and personal lives during the pandemic, Andy said.
“We can all think of situations where working an extra hour hasn’t given us a creative breakthrough and it can actually sometimes make it worse. Working hard means we’re stuck in the middle of it and what we really need is to get some fresh air and space around us.
“The book says yes, hard work is a good thing but you also need a bit of luck. The more you think about luck and the more you’re conscious of it, the more you can do to increase the chance of it coming your way. If you just deny that luck exists, it’s very hard for you to do that.”
There are 40 tips in Andy’s book that fit under the following four themes:
You might not realise it but you are highly likely to have assets in your business that you are not taking full advantage of. Andy used three non-business examples to illustrate his point:
Many businesses are guilty of not appreciating what they’ve got, Andy said. Brand history, heritage and provenance are often neglected by brands but talking about the history of your business, where it’s from and why it’s called what it is could be a valuable benefit to your marketing and other business activities.
Other examples include the data your business holds and the window display in your business’ offices.
And what about your logo? Could that be used in a different way?
Andy’s business, Lucky Generals, was asked to come up with an advertising campaign for Amazon that worked in multiple countries. The answer turned out to be a simple but very powerful one that was inspired by the company’s existing smile-shaped logo. As the Lucky Generals website says: “We hit upon the simple idea of heroing Amazon’s iconic packages and the epic journeys they make, to put a smile on the faces of people around the world.”
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To illustrate this point, Andy highlighted a 10-year study into the nature of luck by Professor Richard Wiseman. As part of it, he gave a group of people a newspaper and asked them to count the number of photographs. The unlucky people took around two minutes whereas the lucky people took just three seconds. The reason was that on the second page of the newspaper was the message: “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.”
The study concluded that lucky people are good at constantly looking for opportunities beyond what they’re working on or the thing they’ve been told to do.
This can also be illustrated by the world of science, Andy said. Several important discoveries have been made accidentally and of the most famous is Alexander Fleming who discovered penicillin after spotting some mould that had accidentally developed on a plate.
Diversity of teams is important here too. It’s easy to recruit people who are the same as you but that can mean you’ll just come up with the same ideas. However, if you take on people from different cultures, backgrounds and experiences, “it gives you a much better chance of striking it lucky” and spotting opportunities you might never have discovered.
There are many examples of businesses converting a bad experience into a good one. One brilliant one is Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, an early character created by Walt Disney in 1927. It was popular but a contract dispute with his producer led to Disney quitting work on the cartoons. On the train home from a meeting, he came up with a new idea. It developed into Mickey Mouse, the most successful cartoon character of all time.
“We’ve all experienced our ideas being pulled, budgets being cut, timings being changed and clients changing their minds, but what we have to do is go again and come up with something that is even better, like Walt Disney did,” Andy said.
“The best companies don’t just deal with a bit of bad luck, it’s almost like they go running towards the bad luck. There’s a good energy that comes out of that.”
Steve Jobs was known for killing off his own products (the iMac killed the Macintosh and the iPhone killed the iPod) because, as Andy said, “his attitude was, if I don’t kill them off, someone else will.”
There are also some brands that take on taboos and talk about them directly. Bodyform and periods is an example.
Others take what could be seen as an annoying product flaw and turn it into a positive. Think of Guinness and “good things come to those who wait”.
When working with a big brand, Andy said he goes to the “darkest corners of social media” to find the negative conversation about that brand. “The jokes and nasty comments often have a truth and by acknowledging them, you can own the joke, turn it on its head and turn against those people.”
Andy’s last point is about deliberately building luck into your processes. He illustrated it with examples from music.
What similar techniques can you build into your business processes so you constantly generate ideas?
Be lucky!
The next Bristol Creative Industries online keynote is with Anne Thistleton, marketing veteran and former strategy lead for The Coca-Cola Company in South Africa. She will share easy and practical lessons from mind science to make sure your audience really hears you. BCI members get £15 off tickets. Book your place here for the event on 21 October.
In his book on creativity, Dave Birrs (ex Poke, McCann, etc.) explores what creativity is and isn’t. He presents an approach to help individuals and organisations develop better ideas.
In the first half of “How To Get To Great Ideas” Dave debunks a few of the myths surrounding creativity. These include “creativity = art”, “creativity = originality,” and “you can’t develop creativity”. He concludes that creativity is more of a path to get to ideas. The book continues on to explore the relationship of creativity to human development from our neolithic selves to the present day. Along the way, we learn that the human brain is shrinking, curiosity is the foundation of creative thought, and that it may be almost entirely impossible for a single person to discover something new in the modern day.
The second half of the book focuses on the process. Dave introduces us to his R.I.G.H.T. thinking framework. While it would be great to have a little more meat on the bone in the form of activities and examples, overall, he delivers enough practical advice here to work into your own creative processes. The framework starts with Research. So often, we are put off of researching by its dry nature. However, it is a powerful tool. When data is given context by adding information and knowledge, we can get to wisdom. It is from this wisdom that good ideas take shape. Dave is keen to encourage us to create divergence from habits and routines, use play within our team sessions, develop our individual creativity, learn how to judge good ideas, and then hone them into great ideas.
I like the book because it provides a balance of insight and practical tips. These help you develop your creative thinking prowess and build out a culture of curiosity and creativity in your team. I found that I picked up quite a few points that I missed on the first reading. So, I recommend keeping it around to refer to while you tweak your ideas generating machine.
Head over to Amazon to get your copy.
If you would like to find out more about our creative process, check out Chris’s article on creative workshops.
Prolonged work stress and burnout are on the rise in employees according to a study conducted last year by Indeed. The findings showed that over half of those that took the study (52%) had experienced burnout in 2021 and that burnout is affecting employees of all ages and types of workers in 2022.
Encouraging and supporting employee wellbeing is becoming more of a concern for management and those in positions of leadership. Having happy and healthy employees is good for productivity, talent retention, and for the long term success of a business- but it’s also a concern on a very human level. For those managing and caring for a team of people, it’s hard to watch anyone struggle.
But how do you ensure that you are making the right steps for employee wellbeing? There are many solutions, but it all depends on the nature of your organisation and the people working within it. Companies such as Bumble and Nike have made headlines by giving their staff a week off to re-energise and others such as Google have wellness programmes that allow staff to spend more time with their families, choose how they best recharge, and allow them to pursue fulfilment outside of the office.
You don’t have to be a massive, global company to implement staff wellness practices. In fact, many small businesses and start-ups that rely on the efforts of a small, dedicated team have found the benefits of having a rewards package that looks after employee mental health.
At Yuup, we offer businesses the opportunity to purchase experience vouchers as rewards for their employees or to book group wellness sessions to refresh and rejuvenate their team. With a diverse range of lifestyle and wellness hosts and experiences on Yuup, we have something to suit and support any team.
One of the biggest issues plaguing the office is the lack of a decent night’s sleep. Irregular sleeping patterns, bad sleep habits, and disrupted sleep can cause fatigue, burnout, stress, and illness.
Working together with our host Giles, you’ll embark on a journey to demystify sleep and discover solutions to this nightly battle. As a coach, mentor, and author of ‘Positive Sleep – A Holistic Approach to Resolve Sleep Issues and Transform Your Life’, Giles has overcome his own obstacles with sleep and insomnia and is prepared to guide you through your own recovery.
After the session you will receive a copy of his book to take home and continue your journey.
We have a number of experiences to enjoy with Breathe Meditation, both for individuals and groups. This experience, in particular, is an excellent idea for team-building with a difference. Instead of after-work drinks or a challenge to get the cogs going, it might make a refreshing change to go for something that boosts everyone’s mood and gives you all time to connect on a deeper level.
Encourage harmony and peace among coworkers with a work lunch like no other.
Clare is an artist currently studying to become an art therapist. With a wealth of knowledge in emotional healing and de-stressing, Clare will guide you and your team through unwinding through both creativity and nature.
Set against the peaceful backdrop of Bridge Farm, their workshops centre around wellbeing and communication and their experience is a great way of creating a safe and open space for colleagues to open up about any internal difficulties they might be experiencing.
We’ve all lost our confidence at one time or another. Self-doubt, low-self esteem, and impostor syndrome can all creep in- especially if we aren’t feeling our best shiny selves. It’s hard to admit if you are lacking or have lost confidence in yourself, and it can seriously affect your performance at work.
Confidence is not all about being good at public speaking or being the loudest voice in the room, it’s about trusting in yourself and your abilities. If you have noticed an employee or colleague that seems to be wavering in their self-belief, offering support in this area could completely change their life and stop them from heading towards burnout or mental distress. Similarly, you might feel that you need to develop your inner cheerleader and would benefit from this one-on-one masterclass in confidence.
Creativity and Community: a Love Story
Calling the laptop cafe junkie, the kitchen table connoisseur and the battle-weary spare room crew. There’s a new way. A way with the flexibility, community and creativity you need at its centre. And the coffee is (probably) way better.
Shared office spaces have been popping up since San Fran paved the way and a generation of freelancers and startups are flourishing. Offices split across cities and a new approach to flexible working from modern start-ups mean that co-working is here to stay.
The benefits of joining a co-working space are as long as your to-do list;
Increased productivity
Spaces designed for your working day and with focus and efficiency in mind. A relaxing, comfortable space to break for a coffee is as important as a heads-down quiet space for deep thinking.
Peers
The inspiration of like-minded souls around you and a friend always on hand to give feedback.
Connections
Co-working spaces can’t promise lifelong friendships, but they do have chats over coffee and someone to share lunchtime with.
A work-life balance to be proud of
You get to go home! A different place to where you work! Such a novelty!
Networking
A whole load of independent, creative businesses looking to work with independent, creative businesses (just like you).
Cost Efficiency
Pay only for the space you need, with the flexibility you need as your business grows into a huge, massive, gigantic billionaire corporation.
Bristol’s favourite co-working space Gather Round know all about the benefits of co-working, and they know exactly what makes the perfect space. The team there couldn’t find what they were looking for so they decided to create their own; a space designed by creatives, for creatives.
After meeting Fiasco Design and Pixelfish at Gather Round and seeing the incredible work they were capable of, working with them on our launch was a natural choice. They helped the vision for Twelve, our sustainability strategy and communications consultancy, become a reality. – Jess Ferrow, Founder of Twelve
Gather Round; Community, Creativity, Collaboration
Bristol is a city long-known for its celebration of creativity. Tastemaking musicians, culture aplenty and a love of art found from the pavements of Clifton to the patched grass of Turbo Island (if you know, you know).
The decision to build a creative business here was a simple one for founders Ben and Jason. After a successful start, their design studio Fiasco Design grew quickly and they found themselves moving studios as they expanded. After struggling to find a workspace that wasn’t a corporate office with extortionate rates and a long term contract, the idea of Gather Round was born.
The Southville residence at the old Cigar Factory proudly hosts creative thinkers and doers that call it home. Morning coffee chats, lunchtime collabs and a deep understanding and respect of one another is something that has happened naturally. They’ve created a space that allows that all to thrive. They’re soon to be heading north of the river to Brunswick Square to hold court for another incredible bunch of creatives.
Why Gather Round?
I met Amelie of Duo Hue when she joined Gather Round. She was looking for some imagery to further her brand, it felt like the perfect collaboration. Sharing a space made the planning and creative process easy and the work we produced featured in national press. – Nic Kane, Photographer/Director
Body
The Gather Round team have a few simple rules; no indoor caravans, tardis-style meeting rooms or beanbags; just beautiful spaces and good design. They’ve got all shapes and sizes covered with roomy co-working areas, permanent desk spaces for freelancers and separate offices for micro-businesses. There are spaces for collaboration, whether you’re musing over an idea, chatting out a project or need a full-blown meeting room to launch your world-takeover plan.
Mind
With Flexi desks, Resi memberships and dedicated studios for small businesses, there are flexible memberships for business needs.
For solo entrepreneurs, micro-businesses or small startups the support of peers is invaluable. Within the community at Gather Round, you’ll find support from like-minded people. Our campfire talks, morning workouts and members breakfasts, fuel the mind and body of all that attend. A day that starts with a croissant amongst friends and ends with a creative discussion on businesses in the climate emergency – is a day well spent.
Soul
Here at Gather Round, they take design seriously. Their buildings are chosen because of their character and soul. You won’t find grey walls, no-spill carpets and budget-friendly lighting. Beauty breeds beauty, and Gather Round have created a space that feels like home. If your home has deep velvet sofas, bespoke shelving and enough plants to start a greenery obsession.
The latest offering in the beautiful Brunswick Square is almost at the ribbon-cutting stage. An almost perfect location with Bristol greats such as Circomedia, Farro Bakery and Yoga on The Square, all just a stone’s throw away. Temple Meads station can be reached in 15 minutes and you can (almost, but not quite) hear the thrum of the city centre close by. They’ve created a slice of creativity in a building steeped in it and it awaits Bristol’s brightest and best.
Heather Wright is an executive producer and creative industries consultant with 30 years of experience. She spent 22 of those years at iconic animation studio and Bristol Creative Industries member Aardman Animations.
In 2020 Heather left the company that has given us legendary characters like Wallace and Gromit and Shaun the Sheep to launch Springboard Creative. She also joined the Bristol Creative Industries board.
Dan Martin speaks to Heather about her career, the storytelling and employee culture lessons other businesses can learn from Aardman, what she is up to now and why is supporting the work of BCI.
“The 1980s and 90s was an extraordinary time to be working at advertising agencies. They made you feel like anything was possible. I worked at Saatchi and Saatchi which had the slogan “nothing is impossible”. Although that was sometimes frustrating to try and deliver to, it did mean you were always looking for a creative solution to make something happen. It wasn’t just acceptable to say “this can’t be done”. I also worked for Chiat Day and their slogan was “good enough is not enough”.
“It made me realise that if you have the confidence to know that there could be a way around a problem, you just need to find the right questions, understand the motivation or think about the other person’s point of view and what makes them tick. I learned a lot about creativity, both artistically and in business, during that time.”
“They advertised for someone to run their commercials team. I thought “animation, that sounds good because I know nothing about it so if they want someone to stay after six o’clock and do some animation problem solving, they won’t ask me. But I do know a lot about what Aardman should be doing in the advertising world!
“I applied for the job and got it. I grew as the company grew. My whole experience was growing from that starting point to becoming an executive producer and working on a breadth of different activities. I was instrumental in setting up their computer animation team, I ran their immersive team for AR and VR games and I worked on a big Wallace and Gromit concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
“From not knowing about animation, I soon learned lots and I very quickly became an absolute devotee of the art form. I was lucky to be surrounded by other people who also absolutely loved it and because it is a world leader in animation, the calibre of people who came to work there was always high. You were constantly surrounded by great creative thinkers, problem solvers and technicians. Everybody grew together; that idea of a rising tide lifts all boats.
“Aardman is very good at making sure everyone feels involved in all the parts of the company. If there’s a new show being worked on, it is shared with the whole company. There were issues around secrecy but in the end, we decided we just needed to trust people because it is in all employees’ best interests for the ideas to be kept confidential.
“During a big project, we were aware that employees’ families weren’t seeing them for months on end, so getting friends and relatives involved was crucial to maintaining the wellbeing of all the staff in the studio. When a big movie was finished, there would be a friends and family tour day, and after the production was released, we would take over all the screens at Vue Cribbs Causeway.
“The business also encourages everyone to come up with creative ideas, not just the creative departments. I know of a couple of ideas thought up by somebody in the finance team.”
“Employee ownership was a vehicle that allowed Peter Lord and David Sproxton [the founders of Aaardman] to step out of the day-to-day running of the business and to ensure its independence. It could very easily have been bought by a big channel or network and have just become part of somebody’s balance sheet. Independence has always been a strong tenet of what the company is about; the ability to make their own shows, make their own decisions and to run it as they want to. When Pete and Dave decided to take a step back, employee ownership worked well because the company had always been about everybody contributing.
“It’s not a super easy ride becoming an employee owned trust, but I encourage any company that’s thinking about it to consider it very seriously. Everyone becomes a partner and there is a change in the culture because it makes people feel like they really do have ownership and they really do have a say. We set up a staff council for employees to be involved with strategic decisions and to have input on how things were done. It was much more than somewhere for people to go if they had a complaint.
“Companies that have that kind of approach with values that everybody should share in the success are proven to be more successful businesses.”
“Nobody wants a yes man on board and everybody wants an intelligent conversation. All you can do is be your authentic self, know that your product is good, believe that your product is good and be able to explain why it is good.
“Work with the client as a team and be open to their ideas as much as you expect them to be open to yours. Build a very strong collaborative working relationship with a shared vision. I always made sure that the vision of the people inside Aardman and the vision of the client were going in the same direction. The path to get there may be rocky and can take different turns at different times from either side, but that’s ok as long as everyone is heading in the same direction and knows where they want to get to.
“Create cohesion, build true working relationships and be fun to work with.
“The other tip I would advise is if a big brand wants to work with you but you don’t think you can properly answer the brief because of time or money, say so and don’t take it on. If you do, you’ll end up doing a bad or half hearted job and not delivering something you’re proud of. The client will be disappointed in you and never come back to work with you.”
“They believe in quality of craft, excellence and humour. They believe in themselves and the stories are told from a very British point of view because that’s who they are. They don’t pretend to be American; it’s always about authentic storytelling,
“They also focus strongly on independence and collaboration. Those are the kind of things that attract people. It’s always about the quality of the craft, the quality of the thinking and the quality of the ideas.”
“It took me about two years to make the decision. The company was going through a change and I was starting to have ideas. I thought to myself “have I got anything else in me other than working for Aardman for the rest of my life?” I had an idea and I just needed to find out if it would work.
“I’m still friends with them all at Aardman and I’m proud to be associated with the company.”
“The main thing I am working on is an animation app called Magic Fox. It enables children to make animated personalised, real time movies of their own. It’s about developing creativity in five to seven-year-olds. I’m working with two partners and we’re currently seeking seed funding.
“I also still get involved in exec producing and I’m working on a couple of really big projects that I can’t tell you about right now! The other string to my bow is working with Innovate UK Edge, who support small creative businesses to get started with their strategy.
“I love helping people to fulfil their potential and that’s what all of my endeavours are about.”
“The government has realised that the creative industries is a huge earner for UK PLC. The trouble is they haven’t really known how to invest in it because unlike most other industries where you end up with huge companies, most of the creative industries are small or micro businesses. The idea of how you actually support innovation in the creative industries is something that they are continuing to grapple with.
“Innovate UK Edge recently ran the new Creative Industries Fund which provided a small amount of start-up money. It’s very unusual to have such a broad funding competition that appeals to lots of people.
“That particular scheme is now closed but knowing Innovate UK Edge and the way they work, if lots of people applied and they got some good projects out of it, they will run it again. They will also run a scale up programme of some sort because they want to progress people from start-ups to scaling up to a growth phase and being investable. That proves that the innovation works.
“If you can kind of get into the system, they will support you through all phases of growth. Their ears are open right now and want to know how best they can do it. They are absolutely looking to have conversations with small and micro businesses in Bristol and the south west about what innovation means to them. It’s a unique time to get involved.”
Find out more about Innovate UK Edge here. You can also follow Innovate UK Edge South West on Twitter.
“The pandemic has been a disaster for performing arts venues in particular but I think the government has realised that there is huge value in culture due to the impact of having lots of places closed.
“People gain emotional intelligence and learn about how to be in the world through storytelling. The creative industries bring meaning to the world, whereas science and technology bring facts. The question is how do you quantify what that meaning and understanding is? Is it through storytelling, different types of apps, watching something on your phone etc? They are sometimes intangible ideas that are hard to grasp hold of, but that’s what people in the creative industries do; they make the intangible tangible.”
“The creative industries rely on freelancers and small businesses. Anything we can do to encourage people to start their own business will lead to success for the whole of the creative industries and the UK. I’m absolutely in favour of those kinds of measures.”
Read more about the report here.
“I’ve always been really interested in the Bristol creative scene. At Aardman although we believed in supporting Bristol, most of our customers weren’t Bristol based but I was always interested in what was going on it the city and went to events like First Friday at the Watershed.
“I could see cities like Manchester and Leeds getting ahead but Bristol has a huge amount to offer. I’m really keen to support Bristol to become a stronger creative industries hub than it already is. It needs to punch above its weight and I want to be part of making that happen. Bristol Creative Industries is a vehicle to galvanise us as a city and make sure that we have a strong ecosystem that supports each other to reach out beyond our city.”
“It absolutely needs to happen. You get a better quality of idea when you have lots of different windows on the world in front of you. Everybody comes with a different window and a different viewpoint. The more ideas you have in the room from different places the better. That’s the problem with the Westminster bubble; they talk to people like themselves all the time. The only way to break out of the bubble is to go further and have a greater diversity of ideas. That comes from a greater diversity of people including ethnic diversity as well as age, people who are less able bodied etc. It’s all about having people with something different to bring which is not the usual employing people in your image which is often the worst thing you can do.
“It will take time. Nobody wants to get a job just because of their ethnicity or age; they want to get a job because they are the best person to do it. It requires grassroots support from the industry. The creative industries wants to do it, but they sometimes struggle to know how to do it. That’s another area where Bristol Creative Industries can help by endorsing programmes that are working and advising on how you go about creating a more diverse workforce.
“We’ve got such a diversity of people in Bristol and the wider region. We have the opportunity to test some of the ideas and prove that they work.”
“Start with a character. Think about how they would do a particular thing, what type of issues that kind of person would have, who are their friends and where do they live. You will come up with a much stronger story that way than saying, for example, “wouldn’t it be great if our mobile phones could all talk to each other on the table.” That’s an idea but it isn’t that interesting. But what about a tiny little character that has a big nose who’s really good at sniffing out unusual smells or situations. Maybe he’s frightened so he hides a lot. Or maybe he just gets really huge so how does he deal with what happens to him. Starting from the point of view of a character is much better than starting from a plot or a set of circumstances.
“Tell stories that you know, understand and are authentic to you. There are universal truths such as love, hate, anger and jealousy that everybody in the world, no matter where they live, understand. Apply those to your own set of circumstances and those values will still come across. It will make the story interesting for everyone because they will recognise the love, hate, jealousy and anger, but they will see it set in the context that makes sense for the storyteller. If you start to tell stories from a place that you don’t really understand, that’s always going to be much harder.”
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Let’s face it….after almost 18 months of many of us being tied to our desks in our home offices feeling a little Zoomed out, we could all do with some fresh air and thinking space.
Our members’ lunches have long been a firm fixture in the BCI events calendar – the perfect opportunity for a small group of members to connect and exchange information about their businesses. That said, these sessions are way more than just pitching; they offer a shared space for connecting with your peers to share successes and discuss challenges….and boy, there’s been a few of those in recent times!
As the world starts to open up once again, we’re keen to offer our members more creative ways of networking so we’re teaming up with Outside for a BCI Walk & Talk session on Friday 17th September. Similar to our members’ lunches, we’ll gather a group of 12 people who are keen to don their walking boots and explore the beautiful countryside around Bristol and Bath.
Over the course of a 3 hour circular walk, you’ll get to spend 10-15 minutes chatting to each of your fellow walkers. No agenda as such, just clear open space for thinking, connecting, sharing experiences and exploring possibilities. Chris Thurling (BCI’s Chair) and Alli Nicholas (BCI’s Membership Manager) will be joining the group too so it’s a great chance to chat to them about getting the most out of your BCI membership.
The starting point for our first Walk & Talk will be in the beautiful Mendips, just south of Bristol. We’ll meet in the car park at Burrington Combe ready to leave at 9am. If this format proves popular, we’ll look to arrange future walks starting from different locations around the area.
This event is exclusively for BCI members. There’s no charge but you do need to register in advance here.
We all know how important it is to encourage equality through our culture in the workplace. But it’s no secret that women are underrepresented in senior leadership positions.
It’s everyone’s shared responsibility to become not only advocates, but champions of women from diverse backgrounds within their organisations – and in their lives at large. And in the creative sector, if we want to truly do our part to help women stake their claim, it means businesses taking ownership of their own equality scores in a number of ways – not least, by appointing women to the senior leadership positions we need them to be in.
At Proctor + Stevenson, we’re one of the UK’s longest-established independent marketing agencies. Despite this, we’ve never been conformists, and we’re a good step ahead of your traditional London-based agency in more ways than one.
Our Founder and Chairman, Roger Proctor, has always been an outspoken industry figure. He’s championed diverse young creative talent from the South West of England and Wales – an often neglected region for the arts – throughout his career.
Back in 1979, he laid in our bold and independent foundations in Bristol. And the rest is history. We’ve been challenging inequities and hiring diverse talent ever since – such as through hosting the South West Design + Digital Student Awards (which saw a particularly high volume of entries from young female designers this year).
In short, the talent is there. So what changes are being made?
At the start of 2021, Roger and the senior team restructured Proctor + Stevenson by splitting the larger brand into three companies: P+S Creative, P+S Technology and P+S Strategy, all overseen by the P+S Group (you can read more about these changes here). And this change marked a new milestone for the P+S team.
Our restructuring was the perfect opportunity to progress our own equality targets across the team at Proctors. It was at this point in our journey that we ensured the P+S Group met a target of 50/50 male-to-female directorship.
So, without further ado, meet our board…
· Joy Locke is our Company Secretary. She applies her 20+ years’ experience with us to take lead of everything operations, finance, accounts, and administration. She ensures that we were keeping on track with budgets.
· Ailsa Billington is one of our Directors. She leads our client services operations and takes charge of directing major global campaigns for our multinational portfolio of clients. She directs over all teams in the P+S Group to make sure that we deliver the best campaigns to transform our clients’ businesses for the better.
· Nikki Hunt is our Financial Director. CIMA-qualified, Nikki brings a wealth of experience in management accountancy, HR, payroll, and health and safety to our business, keeping us running efficiently and safely.
· Roger Proctor is our Chairman. He founded P+S in 1979 and has continued to lead its transformation ever since. Under his leadership, the business has grown from 2 people to more than 70, plus a network of freelance talent, and has won a global portfolio of clients such as Panasonic, National Grid, Saudi Arabian Airlines, and much more. He is passionate about the power of creativity to make positive change and is also heavily involved in strengthening the links between the creative industries and education.
· Mark Jamieson is another of our Directors. He helped establish our presence in the Middle East and is an expert in developing, building, and maintaining positive client relationships in across all sectors.
· Steve King is the final member of our current team of Directors. He leads our large-scale digital projects on everything concept creation, development, and project delivery. He’s worked on many innovative and world-first technology projects.
At Proctors, we’ve always taken equality and diversity extremely seriously. Because when we celebrate and empower women in business, it benefits everyone.
We strive to nurture careers amongst our female talent, building them up into more senior roles within our business. And we want to continue to progress further. We’re currently building a broader, transparent picture of our teams, our diversity, and our biases to discover how we can do better.
There’s lots more to be done to help narrow the gap between women in leadership across the UK. It’s a fact that only 5.6% of women in the UK run their own business and women only account for 33.8% of positions as directors on business boards in the UK, with only 16% of creative directors reported to be female.
We’ve just launched the first instalment of our Women in Business interview series. In it, our own Marketing Manager, Becca Peppiatt, sits down with Peaches Golding OBE CsJT, Her Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of the County and City of Bristol. This interview, like the rest of the series, delivers insight into the female perspective of working in business, so aspiring young women can see themselves represented in leadership roles. Stay tuned for more instalments of the series, coming soon.
We can all do our part to progress the important conversations which need to be had about an industry that is in many ways stuck in the past, ignoring some of its blatant inconsistencies. There’s lots more to be done and we intend to continue to work hard to narrow some of the gaps that exist. We need to think intersectionally about how we hire, and how we can create healthy, fair environments for women to succeed in.
For more information about Proctor + Stevenson, or to discuss our services or teams in more detail, please email us.
At Proctors, our people make us who we are. Bold. Brave. Imaginative. Resilient. But resilience doesn’t mean things are always easy.
It’s truly taken a village to see us through the last 12 months. And this article explains more about how our team spirit and collaborative culture have helped us to balance the books throughout these difficult times – and flourish, rather than just float.
When COVID first hit in the beginning of 2020, the consensus was this epidemic would be around for three months in the UK, and we should start to see signs of economic recovery beginning in July 2020. (No comment!)
At the time, we’d just finalised our financial forecasts for the year ending March 2021, but it was clear we needed to review these figures.
After revisiting our forecasts, we worked on a realistic model which would see a dip of around 30% in the company’s income for the first quarter of 2020, before gradually returning to 100% by the summer. We then expected we’d see an uptick in work – to around 130% by the end of the year – as clients rushed to spend already -approved budgets.
Despite knowing now that the information on the pandemic’s duration proved to be inaccurate, this approach placed us in excellent stead.
Our biggest challenge was managing cashflow. With fee income dropping, we still had to cover our business costs. It became crucial to cut costs wherever we could – and quickly.
We reviewed our overheads, and any payments deemed non-essential were stopped or placed on hold. The government also launched an initiative called the CBIL Scheme, and allowed us to defer our PAYE and VAT payments, helping us manage cashflow.
We also made the decision to place any money received from loans or PAYE and TAX deferments into a savings account. As we knew the funds were always going to have to be repaid in March 2021, we decided to only use them if we had to.
Employee utilisation is something we’ve always used to measure productivity across the business at Proctors. It describes how much time any staff member is spending on achieving paid work each month.
During the pandemic, we were able to use our employee utilisation data to forecast upcoming work, and quickly identify the staff members who would be under-utilised over the coming weeks and months, and the skillsets where there wouldn’t be a lot of work coming in from our clients. We could then place those affected employees on furlough, whilst ensuring all other staff had high utilisation levels, reducing our costs while keeping our clients happy.
Over the last few years, we’ve introduced a number of KPIs to ensure we’re always performing efficiently, aiming to be within the top 10% of agencies of our size, financially. This has given us a strong financial foundation, allowing us to continue to support our clients who were also struggling though uncertainty.
Our relationships
Externally, we’ve been part of a working group of Financial Directors within creative agencies for the last four years. Pre-COVID we would meet quarterly, discussing all things financial and operational as well as sharing ideas, best practice tips, and KPIs.
At the beginning of the pandemic we met via Zoom, and as usual shared our latest updates – only this time, we discussed how to approach the upcoming challenges which would affect all of us.
Many agencies cut back on their non-fee earning staff, including new business and marketing. But our own stance differed: as long as we weren’t at a net loss, we would continue to look for new clients and deliver new initiatives to our existing ones.
We kept our new business and marketing team together, giving them the creative and technology staff needed to work on pitches and ideas – and for us, it paid off, resulting in new clients and new business.
Despite a number of businesses in the aforementioned Financial Directors group making different decisions based on what might work best for them, being part of a community that shares knowledge, resources and support has been invaluable.
Those invaluable relationships have extended to our clients too. Like many other businesses, we’ve been there for our clients – and vice versa – during an incredibly testing year. In most cases, we’ve gotten to know each other even better, and have built even stronger business and personal relationships with many of them.
A challenging time for the world, for our business, and for our people. It was so important to us to ensure our employees felt valued, informed – and were able to have just a little fun wherever possible.
Over the last year we’ve introduced a number of new staff initiatives, including our Quarantine Quiz. We originally introduced the quiz to raise money for the Quartet Community Foundation, donating to their Coronavirus 2020 Response Fund, as well as to boost our teams’ morale while we’ve all been forced to work remotely.
And unlike many of the Zoom quizzes we might have held in our personal lives, to this day The Proctors Quarantine Quiz lives on! The format has now evolved slightly, with different staff members hosting each Wednesday, and one lucky winner claiming a £50 Amazon voucher in a nice little midweek boost.
We’ve been rewarding staff for more than just their general knowledge, too. 2021 has seen the return of our famous Proscars awards. The Proscars are our quarterly awards by employees, for employees, with every staff member able to vote for three colleagues they believe should be rewarded for their hard work. Our three winners then get to choose a prize – either £250 in cash or £400 in vouchers.
To get us all moving, we’ve been further breaking up the working week with weekly lunchtime fitness and yoga sessions, hosted by a personal trainer online. And if you’d rather gin than gym, on Fridays our weekly virtual social kicks off at 5pm – although, it’s strictly BYOB!
If all that wasn’t enough, each Friday afternoon our Chairman, Roger Proctor, sends out his weekly ‘Good News’ email. Just as it sounds, it’s a cross-department weekly catch up about all things good – inside and out of work – and an informal welcome to the weekend.
As well as looking after our finances, it was also critical our staff had access to the support they needed to look after their personal wellbeing.
We engaged a psychotherapist and Mental Health Consultant to run a series of wellbeing workshops and Q+A sessions with all Proctors employees. This was followed up with a further series of workshops with our managers, providing them with additional tools to guide and support their team, as well as handouts on working from home, managing stress and more.
Throughout the pandemic, we’ve continued to promote our Employee Assistance Programme, offering 24/7 GP, legal and financial helplines, with options for counselling and psychiatric therapy available through our private medical insurance.
We also felt it was important to offer extra help to those who might be struggling with the pressures of family life in lockdown. Therefore, we sought to share helpful guidance and tips to P+S parents for effective home school and balancing with work as well as providing additional flexibility for maintaining work balance and wellbeing during additional childcare and home schooling. We even set up regional and international remote working agreements for those who benefited from being with their family outside of Bristol.
Christmas looked different in 2020, but we still managed to celebrate in style. In lieu of our traditional knees-up, we sent a hamper brimming local treats and bubbles from The Mall Deli in Clifton to each of our staff. But it was also important for us to give back too.
We joined forces with Caring in Bristol to donate a video in aid of homelessness in our city, helping to raise over £20,000. And we’ve kicked off the new year in a similar way by sponsoring Lebeq Ladies – a local women’s football team, in our community of Easton, Bristol.
Our future
None of the positive action we’ve taken should be viewed as temporary.
We intend to continue treating Wellbeing as a priority across the Group, and are continuing with initiatives in this area, such as with Mental Health First Aid training for select staff in June.
Above all, our people will continue to steer our direction moving forward: whether that’s via team surveys, policy and process updates or with lots of creative ideas. Because this has been one of the hardest times in recent memory to manage and market a business. And tough times lie ahead. But with a strong foundation, and an overwhelming commitment to your original values, it is possible to stay above water – even in the most testing of times.
If you’d like to talk to a truly ‘people first’ agency, we’re herewith a listening ear. So talk to us, at marketing@proctors.co.uk.
Bristol’s world-renowned product development agency Kinneir Dufort (KD), has launched a new initiative, XXEquals – the UK’s first majority female team designing products for women across the consumer, industrial and medical markets.
Fuelled by the growing need to design more female-centred products, and to improve the gender balance in the design industry, XXEquals is already working on projects including smart femcare solutions, sustainable period products, voice recognition software, and futures research.
KD has previously developed pioneering women-centred products including a revolutionary breast scanning bed.
Comprising a multi-disciplinary collective of KD experts – 75% of whom are women – XXEquals is pushing for better gender balance across product development, in a move which is set to potentially benefit millions of female consumers worldwide and KD’s global blue chip clients.
The initiative breaks new ground in the product design industry, and is helping to pave the way for young women interested in careers in product and industrial design.
KD’s CEO, Merle Hall, says: “We are incredibly proud to be the first UK consultancy in the product design industry with an arm which pro-actively focuses on products and experiences for women. It feels like there is truly a need to bring more women to the forefront of innovation and product design.
“XXEquals offers female-focused insight and an empathic design approach, resulting in innately intuitive products. We need to develop a deeper consideration of the physiological or psychological differences for female users.
“As an agency with a strong purpose – to design a better world – we feel it is our responsibility to instigate change. We are proof that a better gender balance is possible in the product design industry and we would love to support other businesses driving equality where possible.
“We’re not where we want to be yet, representative of the world around us, but we’re focused on our goals. It’s important to us to remember that men always need to be part of the solution too, so we draw on the brilliant expertise of our male strategists, researchers, designers, engineers and makers, who are well versed in allyship and also very engaged in the initiative.”
Around half of the world’s population is female and women buy 85% of household products, yet data shows only 5% of the product and industrial design industry is female.
With the femtech market predicted to reach $50 billion by 2025 and 93% of women currently buying over-the-counter healthcare products, the business case for gender balance in this industry is powerful.
Merle Hall continues: “Without expert female representation throughout the innovation and development process now, more opportunities will be missed to leverage real life experience and create brands and products which close the gap between assumption and reality.
“XXEquals launches as we are seeing women being adversely affected by Covid, and shortly after the issuing of a Government call-out for views to inform the new Women’s Health Strategy for England, which aims to change the male-by-default approach to health and care system.”
KD has longstanding partnerships to help solve the design industry’s gender balance issue. One is with Kerning the Gap, a campaign to encourage more women into leadership roles in the industry.
Founder, Nat Maher: “I think XXEquals will be highlighting an issue that has been long understood and long accepted, and it should be accepted no more. But also, what I think KD will do as pioneers is work with their peers to work out how they get better at it. KD wants change for the industry, and not just for itself. That is why XXEquals has my full and unbridled support.”
KD’s CDO, Craig Wightman adds: “As a man working in design, I have, for too long, felt uncomfortable about the number of situations I’ve observed or been directly involved with, where products used by women are conceptualised, designed and developed by men. That is not to say that male designers cannot design well for women, but why would you not want to have your audience and users better reflected in your design and decision-making team? It just makes sense.
“I have always felt that it’s important to have respect for the people we are designing for. It is about empathy and putting yourself in the shoes of the product user. Having a more gender-balanced team is an important part of achieving that goal.”
The below XXEquals podcast episode is now available:
Twitter: twitter.com/xxequals
Instagram: www.instagram.com/xxequals
For more information visit: www.XXEquals.com and www.kinneirdufort.com.
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