Creative Director Joe Murgatroyd speaks to Natalie Clement about Brandnation’s Creativity. Multiplied. philosophy, explaining the thinking behind it and how it’s shaping the agency’s future.
Brandnation is an integrated creative marketing and communications agency. Driven by its Creativity. Multiplied. philosophy, the agency has produced award-winning work for some of the world’s biggest brands.
The Creativity. Multiplied. philosophy is the belief that bold ideas (creativity) amplified intelligently (multiplied) create maximum brand impact. This guiding principle forms the foundation of all the agency’s work.
Brandnation leads with creativity to develop bold, culturally relevant ideas for clients. But it’s not just creative for creative sake. It’s always purposeful. And it always links back to business objectives.
The agency uses data and insights to craft effective channel strategies that amplify the big ideas. When the idea resonates and the channel strategy reaches, Brandnation’s clients benefit from innovative work that drives tangible business impact.
What inspired the Creativity. Multiplied. philosophy?
“What we wanted to do was capture a concept that articulates Brandnation’s superpower. And at Brandnation, everything is driven by that big idea.
“Our approach is to be idea first and channel agnostic – we place importance on the creative having the elasticity to naturally inhabit multiple channels rather than limit its scope by being channel centric.
“As an integrated agency, that’s where the magic of the multiplier comes in. We have been integrated since Brandnation’s inception, well before it became an industry standard, which gives us a competitive edge.
“We have dedicated teams that are specialists in PR, social, influencer marketing and digital marketing – through this multi-disciplinary strength we apply that multiplier on those big ideas.
“With this approach – one that’s rooted in talkability, cultural relevance and effective integration – we create a rock-solid foundation for our work.
“This unlocks significant benefits when implementing paid media amplification as the idea is already working smarter and harder for the client to stimulate greater commercial impact.”
How does the philosophy set Brandnation apart?
“There are other agencies that are out there that are creative and can do that creative idea. But I don’t think there are that many that can amplify a creative idea as seamlessly as Brandnation.
“It goes back to the point of there being specialist dedicated teams that are working in harmony to be able to make sure that that creative idea is being implemented.
“That creative idea lands as seamlessly and as coherently across multiple channels as possible, and that has huge impact for the brands that we work with in terms of that delivery, execution and commercial impact.”
Can you tell me about a campaign that uses the Creativity. Multiplied. philosophy in practice?
“One of my favourite examples of Creativity. Multiplied. in action is a campaign that we delivered for Merrell entitled Trail 2032. The brief was to launch a new trail running shoe for Merrell to the UK trail running scene. The client wanted to place storytelling at the campaign’s heart and build the blocks to re-establish the brand as a category leader in the sport.”
“In the ideation process, the team’s curiosity whilst undertaking research led to the discovery of a fateful insight. With the Olympic Games set to roll into Paris that summer, we uncovered the insight that trail running hadn’t been part of the Olympic programme since 1924 – it was its centenary year of being in the Olympic wilderness.
“Armed with this knowledge the big idea was to launch Trail 2032 – an international campaign spearheaded by Merrell to lobby for trail running to be reinstated back into the Olympic programme for the next cycle at Brisbane in 2032. It provided an opportunity to mobilise a global movement around trail running that was ownable to Merrell – this was the “creativity” element of Creativity. Multiplied. locked in.
“For the multiplier, we told this beautiful story in PR where we traced relatives of a Team GB athlete, who ran in the 1924 race and penned an open letter to the International Olympic Committee. We used influencers by mobilising several different culture-driven run crews here in the UK to undertake a “protest trail run” from London to Paris to call on trail running to be reconsidered for the Olympic programme – documenting the experience through social media.
“The content cascaded down into full-funnel paid media strategy – driving awareness of the campaign and driving purchase of the new Merrell product to deliver commercial gains after taking our audience on a journey.
“For me it really expressed the power and possibilities of Creativity. Multiplied. – it captured the imagination of our audience, travelled internationally organically and exceeded expectations in terms of KPIs and return on investment.”
So, the creativity element involves crafting a bold idea that’s culturally relevant to a specific audience and aligned with the brand. What impact does the ‘multiplied’ part of the philosophy have?
“I think the power of the multiplier here is that it landed naturally across so many different channels, and at its core, it had a story that our audience wanted to share and engage in.
“There is a tonne of benefits the multiplier has – from consistency of message across channels, the cadence of reaching and engaging our audience through multiple touchpoints, as well as building a much stronger emotional connection.
“There are cost efficiencies too – executing all elements of a campaign under one roof, making content work harder and utilising channel data.”
Can you tell me about the role of research and insights in Creativity. Multiplied.?
“We believe that all the best ideas start with strong insights. So, going back to that Trail 2032 example, the insight there was that trail running hadn’t been part of the Olympic programme for a hundred years. It doesn’t have to be necessarily data led. It can be a universal truth or eyebrow-raising fact too.
“And I think all the best creative starts with that unique insight. And I think what we do as an agency and the feedback that we often get from our clients is that these insight driven ideas, that are easy to understand and resonate are really refreshing.
“Research is always going to be an incredibly important part of the creative process. Not just in terms of look and feel, but looking at those audience insights, those universal truths.”
And how does this approach support client objectives like brand growth, engagement, sales?
“If you have that creative idea, you’re naturally going to be able to drive brand awareness and engagement. Because it is interesting, because it is different, it’s thumb stopping.
“With ideas that we’ve generated for different clients, if the creative is really strong and it has that insight that it is propped up by, the natural engagement and awareness peaks alongside that.
“From a commercial impact perspective, the multiplier element is where there is the biggest opportunity. When there is a brilliant idea that is delivered across earned, owned and paid channels – its far more commercially effective amplify an idea that has natural talkability with paid media.”
The relationship between human creativity and AI is a hot topic at the moment. What's your take?
“I think they go hand in hand. I think AI isn’t at that point yet where it is replacing the human mind, human ingenuity or creativity.
“There are tools that develop visual creative executions like Midjourney, and that can help sell an idea, bring it to life for the client.
“One of the biggest areas is going back to that research. That desk research that could have taken days now takes minutes, and I think that is one of the most powerful areas that we’re using it within Creativity. Multiplied., because everything goes back to that original research and insight and that is helping us then build that creative idea where the human element comes into it.”
And how do you see Brandnation’s creative approach evolving in the next few years?
“Brandnation’s creative approach will evolve in line with technical advancements, and I think it’s going to be important as an agency to keep on top of that as it is changing so quickly, right?
“There are always new tools and new creative resources that are democratizing creativity and helping new creatives emerge – it’s a really positive thing that is going to help evolve our offering.
“Bolstering the creative department within the agency as well is going to be key – bringing in new ideas, new approaches and new perspectives.”
What advice would you give to brands trying to adopt a more creative mindset?
“Get inspired by what’s out there in the industry and look at what joins the dots between different successful creative campaigns, because there is a makeup of each of those that unifies them all.
“Being able to do that research, investigate and really unpick why an idea is successful is a good starting point.”
Want to know how Brandnation’s Creativity. Multiplied. philosophy can create impact for your brand? Get in touch.
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