20 year reflections

On cold wet Monday mornings when deadlines loom and projects are challenging, Noel Coward’s view that “work is more fun than fun” can leave me raising a eyebrow. But when I piece everything together over 20 years, and reflect on the fortune of running a creative business surrounded by brilliant people, I start to see his point of view.  

Early pitch success 

Our first pitch saw us land the food brand Ryvita. I remember sitting in their boardroom at their then offices in Poole, as we took on our first brief. Looking out of the window, onto the street, I remember a 48 sheet poster with an image of Daniel Craig advertising the movie Layer Cake. I didn’t know it at the time but Daniel Craig was to feature a few more times in the life of Spinnaker.  

Internet cafés and income  

Some weeks later I was perched in the corner of an internet café in Helston, Cornwall when I picked up an email with the news that we had won the Siemens mobile phone business that we had pitched for during the previous week. With still just Brooke, my business co-founder, and me (plus a few freelancers) in the day to day frame, there was a need to stay on it, even during times of family holiday. Back in the days before WiFi, this also meant hunting down the nearest internet café where you were forced to negotiate a space for a 3 stone laptop amidst sticky coke can rings, mars wrappers and stale cheese and onion crisp crumbs. No matter, because this heady day sparked the start of something new: a salary.  

Sony: the marquee new client 

If Siemens meant that we could now pay ourselves a little it was our next client win that would really shape things. It came in the form of Sony Pictures, a marquee win awarded by a client who we had known in our previous agency lives. When we were first planning the shape of our new agency Brooke and I had both agreed that we must always strive for clients whose work we found interesting, and who showed a mutual respect for us and our business. Our Sony client and his team have been the definition of this descriptor, and they remain a client to this day. A client who demands the best but, for whom it feels entirely natural to go the extra mile.  

Sony has also represented the opportunity to work on some of the most famous films of the last 20 years. These have included the five Bond films featuring Daniel Craig (with a note for accuracy: our work for No Time to Die was carried out whilst working for another client, MGM) - and it was of course under Daniel Craig’s gaze that we landed our crisp bread client back in our nascent stage.  

Ties with Ireland 

Many clients across many sectors have followed. Hotel chains, charities, numerous food & drink brands, and of course studios and streamers across the entertainment sector. We have also held a deep and enjoyable relationship over the years with the Irish. Whether it is our work with the Irish food board, the Irish mushroom bureau, or the Sony Ireland team, our respect for the enthusiasm of these clients and the quality of their products has never dimmed. We have spent as many days standing in Irish fields learning about the qualities of Irish beef or, wading across Irish oyster beds as we have in Irish cinemas at screenings and influencer events.  

Keeping good company  

As someone once said, it is good company that makes the journey shorter. Other than a very few examples - and I can count them on one hand - we have been blessed with a select group of partnership orientated clients. And happily, this sense of good company and teamwork has also sat at the heart of the 120 employees who have been part of the Spinnaker family.  

A new team for a new era 

Brooke, my original business partner, left the agency over 12 years ago to start a family, but the culture has been maintained and blossomed into a whole new era. Positivity defines the current Spinnaker generation, a group that in a post pandemic world, has exhibited natural tendencies to look forward and succeed.

So it has been, thanks to a mix of fortune and design, that two key senior members of the Spinnaker team have stepped forward with the commitment, tenacity, and skills to take things on in the form of an MBO. A natural opportunity for me to dilute equity and do a deal that provides a new platform for growth, whilst ensuring that we are still rooted in our maintained culture and beliefs. A new era for a new leadership team to shape new directions, and destinations. 

A future which will never stand still  

The last 20 years have been marked with world and local events that have proved challenging and opportunistic in equal measure. The next 20 will be the same again with technological, climate, and political moves that threaten and promise so much. So important therefore, for the new guardians of Spinnaker, to keep questioning, thinking, experimenting, and planning new visions and outcomes.  

And as I reflect and look forward, these words from Antoine de Saint Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince feel apt,  

“It is the time that you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important". 

Here’s to another 20 years of ‘wasted’ time. 

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