We’re not your typical advertising agency for two reasons:
Firstly, because some of the ideas we create are not always “advertising” in the conventional sense of the word. In fact, we believe we have already entered a world where many of the best ideas are not recognisable as advertising at all. It’s what we refer to as Magic Notions – a magic notion being an idea that changes everything and has a life of its own beyond the moment of its conception. That’s a long way from the one-way street of traditional advertising.
Secondly, any kind of agency – by definition – makes its money by connecting people who need something with people who have something and charging a fee. We don’t do that. Yes, we work with a lot of different people who make things for us – and we make it our business to know which ones can make them best – but we don’t charge a mark-up.
We make money by discovering and articulating the magic notions that can transform businesses and markets, from the magic notions in our own thinking, in the ideas that flow from that thinking and in the ever-changing ways we choose to bring those ideas to life.
Another thing we aren’t is “media-neutral” or whatever it’s being called this month. “Media-neutral” pisses us off. To us, “media-neutral” means “media-indifferent” – as in “media indifferent (because however you want it sliced, we still get a cut)”. The ability to cookie-cut an idea into every conceivable format is not a test of its rightness. In fact, it dilutes when it should be trying to concentrate, and encourages lowest common-denominator thinking. Magic notions travel, without a doubt. It’s one of their defining characteristics. However, we recognise that they don’t travel down every road. In fact, they usually go off-road, build their own bridges, blaze their own trails and mix metaphors even more wildly than this sentence just did.
There is a big difference between creating the best ideas that works in any medium and searching for the best ideas and best mediums for those ideas. We are driven by a search for the latter.
We grew out of a company with deep expertise in technology, an expertise that we draw on to this day. Technology is a fundamental driver of society, and many of the worlds’ most successful and influential companies started as and continue to be technological innovators. There are lessons to be learned from these companies that can be applied in the wider world. Their effects are already being felt by us all.
At a certain point, however, we realised that the clients we could do the best work for could not be defined by “product” or “category” or “audience”. In fact, we began to question whether those terms even meant anything. No, we realised that our best clients are united by attitude – an attitude of ceaseless innovation and relentless challenging of convention. Not because they want to provoke and rebel (although most of them do), but because they want to survive and prosper.
Our company is a work in progress, as you will discover very quickly when you explore this website. It changes all the time – as do we, because our culture demands constant learning and a constant flow of new ideas and new conversations. In fact, that’s exactly what this website is – not a window into our world, but a conversation – a conversation we invite you to join, and look forward to sharing with you.
