Steve might be on paternity leave at the moment but he still found time to pen a piece for the Birmingham Post on the value of making friends through PACE. Rich also got his name in the press this week with his opinion on the quality of advertising and design agencies in the midlands in The Drum. Transcripts below.
Add to this, an article on the Bears doing the new PACE website in the post and a feature on our new offices in Fazeley Studios (more details to follow soon) and we really feel like the spotlight of the media has been well and truly shining upon us.
YOU NEED FRIENDS
I'm writing this having this night (12/11/08) been blessed with a second beautiful daughter. 'Get a life!' I hear you scream. I agree — why I'm bothering to write this passage while my wife recovers from the agony of childbirth is a question I will get around to asking myself in the days to come.
Honestly?, it's something to do. When I was asked to write this first PACE column, I did wonder how I'd fit it in but here I sit with time to kill waiting for the sleep to kick in (4am and no sign yet) and with what's about to happen in my life, I can't help but take stock.
It's been a challenging year. Business has been so-so. I run a small creative agency and a digital agency called Unsuitable and One Black Bear respectively both central Birmingham-based and things have been okay. On the conventional side — passable. On the digital side — excellent. So pretty much a microcosm of the marketing sector as a whole, then.
Then a couple of months ago, we all watched in horror and amazement and wondered if it was all a dream. Famous financial names became no more, our cosy little property bubble promptly burst and the marketing industry did what only the marketing industry could do in the onset of the worst recession since whenever — brand it!!! And thus the CreditCrunch™ was born.
So what's that got to do with PACE? well, as I read many emails, tweets and facebook messages of goodwill, it makes me grateful for my friends. Forget the booze-ups, seminars and training sessions, I have made some good friends through PACE and I value them all. When your back's against the wall, you'll need as many as you can get.
Get involved, after all, it's a small industry in a small world.
Steve Price.
1) No question, Birmingham more than deserves its second city tag. In my opinion, midland's agencies service the best brands outside London and have done for many years. What the area hasn't done historically is tell the masses just how much good stuff it gets up to. If I did have a criticism, it's that as a student, a junior creative and now partner in our own business, agencies in the midlands have always pretty much kept themselves to themselves - even going as far to treat other agencies with suspicion as though they're trying to muscle in on their patch. I've never held the opinion that Birmingham suffers from being 'too close to London' to maintain its own identity and that agencies further north benefit because of this. Ever expanding London is almost a country in itself and just being a few more miles up the M40 can only be a positive for the midlands in my book.
2) I think graduates will always use London as the pulse reading for the quality of their work - not a bad thing and certainly something we did as graduates. However, that's not to say the regions get left with the chaff as we consistently see quality candidates at Unsuitable & One Black Bear.
Yes, there is some dross but they will always crop up wherever you go. We often receive CV's from ex-London creatives - some of them seeking an easier ride and many of them just looking for a new challenge (and yes, a cheaper mortgage).
3) If there is any good to emerge from the grisly economic conditions at the moment, it's the fact that many brands will be forced to look harder at the weight, frequency (and often downright audacity) of those London franked invoices. By no means will every brand migrate to less expensive, regional agencies but Birmingham and the midlands are ideally placed to serve most clients geographically. It's also the many shapes & sizes of agencies on offer that make the midlands attractive to clients - everything from worldwide networks to small creative start-ups.
4) Churn in the midlands exists and it's true to say that if you worked with someone a few years ago, chances are you'll work with them somewhere else. The agency universe has always been a small one and I guess the churn of staff currently will increase as agencies big and small re-structure (or even grow) during these challenging times.
Richard Elwell.
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