Jonathan Sands on Elmwood's future
There’s no getting away from it: 2009 was every bit as tough as we expected it would be. That said, it was also a year of significant achievement. We opened our second office in the USA with the appointment of our Global President Eliot Schreiber in Chicago. In November, Advertising Age nominated the Walmart brand ‘Great Value’ as one of the hottest brands in the country. A brand bigger than Coke and McDonald’s in the States and a brand Elmwood has quietly been working on for the last 18 months. Elmwood also ended 2009 topping the DBA Design Effectiveness awards tables and were runners up in Marketing Magazine’s Agency of the Year.
Finally, our London office landed two global rebrands in December, meaning January will be a month where we are recruiting heavily (here and overseas) for senior account handling and design talent. It’s true 2009 was probably the toughest for us in a decade. Although we ended the year with a modest profit and a strong cash balance, 2009 was painful and a far cry from our bumper profit year of 2008.
DOWNSIZED
We significantly downsized our Edinburgh office although we are definitely not withdrawing completely from Scotland, as was rumoured. The truth is that there just aren’t the number of big brand projects around in Scotland to justify the full time overhead of a fully-fledged brand consultancy like ours. Of course there are many smaller interesting projects around but clients don’t need, and moreover shouldn’t have to pay for, an infrastructure that they only use a part of.
The good news is, I think, that we are staying with a small team in Edinburgh and we are currently having talks with a complementary agency to share office space so that we can redeploy the capital tied up in our Thistle Street office to aid our international expansion. Indeed, just before the Christmas break we agreed terms with former IDEO London MD Colin Burns (based in Dundee) to join our board as a non exec director to help us grow our innovation offer. So, whilst his role has a global remit, the fact that he is based in Scotland helps maintain our links with a market that we see as small but beautiful.
Many people would agree that Elmwood had two of the best designers in Scotland in Paul Sudron and Graham Sturzaker. They were a fantastic asset to Elmwood for nine years and both were in complete agreement that the numbers didn’t stack up for an Elmwood-type offer full time in Scotland.
Despite being offered the opportunity to relocate to one of the other Elmwood offices, they decided to make the move and set up their own shop. Maryanne Murray, also wanting to stay in Scotland, will join them in February.
As a helping hand and a mark of respect for what they have done for Elmwood, I have gifted them all the kit they need to set up shop and released them from almost all of their restrictive covenants, giving them a ready-made list of clients. So hopefully, the Edinburgh market will benefit from both Elmwood staying around offering a fully-fledged brand business that can easily and quickly be supported with appropriate project teams from its other offices and a new lean and mean boutique creative hot shop.
We are proud to be a regionally head-quartered business, however we do expect more than 50% of our revenue in 2010 to come from overseas. Not only are we moving into new territories but I actually believe that to be able to work on anything game-changing and of real substance, you will have to be a truly global businessin the next decade. All of our offices are looking further afield. Elmwood London’s two largest clients are based in Paris and Amsterdam, for example. Our US offices are already exploring opportunities in Canada and South America and in February, I will again be travelling to China, Singapore and Hong Kong to explore opportunities.
Expanding our offering is going to be a big theme in 2010. In December, we set up a new environmental consultancy (to be launched officially in the first quarter of 2010 once name and brand have been secured) that will be headed up by Mark Shayler, formerly of Eco3. We’ve been thinking along these lines for some time.
More of our clients are coming to us for advice on ‘brand sustainability’ and we wanted to make sure we were in a position to advise in this area with real in-depth insights.
We are also in talks with a couple of other businesses at the moment as we look to expand our offering with different skill sets and geographical footprints.
And then there are the Elmwood brands: Make Mine a Builders tea and Good Cheer Beer. Our very own brand of tea goes from strength to strength. It’s expanded its distribution in grocery multiples and wholesale and has taken tea into new channels by winning listings in builders’ merchants. Good Cheer Beer is doing well too. You can sup a pint of it in any one of around 200 pubs in Yorkshire at the moment. Next year, it’ll be more widely available thanks to a national listing in a major pub chain.
WRITING
In December, I retired as one of the Design Council’s longest ever serving council members after ten years on the board. So that leaves a little hole to fill. Alongside all the time sitting on aeroplanes, my big project for 2010 will see me working on a book on the ‘art of effectiveness’. I’m taking in everything from sculpture to fashion, architecture to branding and graphics. I might even include something about the Brazilian football team of 1970! What I am really looking forward to is working with new people and learning from them. I’ll be taking a little time out from Elmwood duties to nurture the book to fruition. We have registered the domain name theartofeffectiveness.com and co.uk.
I am actively looking for contributions via this website, which should be online in April, from anyone who has an interesting insight into how beautiful things, that appeal to the heart first, rather than the head, are supremely effective. I already have some amazing contributions.
CASUALTIES
2009 was hard and I believe 2010 will be equally hard. Indeed, I fear we will see a number of high-profile casualties in the first half of 2010 as the bleeding of cash from last year remains unabated. All business leaders will need to remain on their metal in 2010. They will need to keep one eye on cash and the other on new opportunities, new markets, new product offerings, while keeping existing clients happy. So everyone will need high levels of energy and some way of letting off steam when the pressure gets high.
I seek solace in playing golf badly, gardening and in something white and fluffy. Don’t worry, I’m not talking illegal stimulants. My family and I are novice alpaca farmers. Wonderful things, they make a soft humming sound when they’re content. It’s very soothing. So there you have it, straight from the alpaca farmer’s mouth: 2010 will be just as tough as 2009 but with a little luck, a lot of hard work and the odd alpaca, the year can still be fruitful.”