LOOKING BACK ON 2024
Straight off the bat, we want to make sure this doesn’t come across as an ego-driven, virtue-signalling kind of post, but instead, as an article that shows bucket loads of gratitude towards some incredible brands who put their faith in The Brand Weaver this year.
A QUICK RECAP
So, for those of you who have been paying close attention to The Brand Weaver journey, The Brand Weaver fully came into itself in the early part of this year when owner Tim stepped away from a cushy agency Creative Director role and set upon the task of going out and setting up an agency that was attracted to his ‘vibe’ and ‘style.’
OUR INCREDIBLE CLIENTS
Well, fast forward a year, and The Brand Weaver is now the proud partner of several incredible brands that truly align with our values. An honourable mention goes out to…
Vale Brewery - The first brewery to put their full faith in our abilities and is already reaping the rewards of a full brand strategy project that we are in the middle of, not to mention giving us the chance to design a whole host of pump clips that are popping up all over the home counties (how friggin' awesome is that!)
Biotat - For those of you who know Tim, you know how much he loves a good tattoo, and for The Brand Weaver to partner with such a revolutionary product is nothing short of incredible for us. The Biotat team has put oodles of faith in us as we have helped to define their brand, narrative, and visual identity throughout the year and create something genuinely revolutionary in the tattoo industry!
Black Tapestry Tattoo - A huge shout-out goes to Bintt at Black Tapestry Tattoo, who has become, dare we say… friends during the creation of their ace new studio website project. Bintt knew that he wanted something stand-out and put his faith in The Brand Weaver to come up with something that tips the scales in terms of quality and finish in the tattoo studio website design space. We can't wait to see other studios try and catch up now!
Ollie Eats - It’s not every day that you get the opportunity to work with one of the world’s leading food and beverage influencers, but The Brand Weaver did. We loved every minute of supporting Ollie on his mission to set the foundation for a game-changing influencer agency that he’s working on. We’re sure that 2024 will be the year to see this drop, and it’s going to be HUGE!
Kamado Joe & Masterbuilt - Finally, the ribbon around our Christmas gift this year was the incredible opportunity to partner up with not one but two of the world’s leading BBQ brands! We are deep in the middle of this project at the moment, but we are so humbled that the team has put their faith in us, and we are so excited to share the results over the next year!
As we said, there is a whole host of other incredible brands we have had the opportunity to work with that we would love to include as well, but we do worry that it would create an article that is so gosh darn tooting long that the algorithm itself would spit it back out and tell us to rein our neck in, haha!
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED
Now really does seem like a brilliant time to reflect on what we have learned that has contributed to us being in such an amazing place, working with incredible people, and generally being able to enjoy agency life on a higher level now…
Your vibe attracts your tribe - Yep, we know it sounds cheesy, but in our case, it’s 100% true. The Brand Weaver was set up to not look like another corporate, or ‘cool’ agency. We love tattoos, we love BBQ, we love heavy music, and our own identity and language show that. And what has that done for us?? …. Oh, would you look at that?! … It’s only gone and attracted the kind of brands that we love to us!
Marketing is weird! Everyone in the agency world knows they need to market and sell themselves, from consistent social content, to blog articles, to paid advertising, to face-to-face networking; the ways to get your name out there and in front of people is limitless. The big question is which one works the best. And in all honesty, we don’t know. Every piece of marketing we have tried has shown some kind of positive result, but right now, none of them are better than the others. So, we guess the one thing we can take away from this is, much like those kids who found themselves in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, you have to try it all!
Be a good student - We were blown away by the volume of incredible people that we met in such a short time into creating The Brand Weaver and were sure to soak up every tiny piece of knowledge that people were willing to share. This is, after all, our first outing into running our own agency, so it would be foolish of us to not listen to people who are running or have run successful businesses. So be a sponge for all that awesome stuff and take it on board; by all means, tweak it where you need to, but for goodness' sake, listen - these people know far more than you do, and you're best to remember that!
Communication is key - Much like the secret to a happy marriage, the secret to our happy client relationship is communication. We were sure to make sure we built The Brand Weaver on a foundation of good comms, from PPM tools to regular check-ins and email updates. We never want our clients to be in the dark. And the result? Clients who are happy, confident, and really enjoy the process - it’s pretty much the same as Uber showing you where your driver is en route to you, but this time it’s an agency and instead of a cab, it’s your project heading towards you!
You won’t know everything straight away - You can plan and plan and plan until you are blue in the face! You can think that you know what will make you special and will appeal to your market, but you really won’t know until it’s out there and you are trialing it. Our recommendation is to get something 50 to 70% of the way there with your brand and then get out there, get in front of people, start delivering work, and then listen carefully to their feedback. Look out for phrases like ‘that's really unique,’ ‘no one has done it like that before,’ and ‘you need to tell more people about this.’ If you hear those phrases, then double down on those golden nuggets and let everyone know!
AGAIN, THANK YOU!
Just to recap, this was never a show-off post, but something just to take the time to say a massive thank you to everyone who has been a part of this journey so far. We are so excited for 2024 and the opportunities it could bring, and we will be sure to keep you in the loop all the way.
From the bottom of our big squishy hearts,
Thank you,
The Brand Weaver