Following our recent feature City Brand Leaders – Edinburgh, we interviewed a select group of leaders from Edinburgh’s top agencies to help focus on the Edinburgh brand and consider their own agency vision.

Creativebrief Founder & Chairman Tom Holmes talks to Chris Watson, Creative Director of Newhaven

TH: Chris, what does the Edinburgh brand stand for?

CW: The Edinburgh brand stands for arts, culture, and beauty with a down to earth, friendly soul. Oh, and fresh air.

TH: How do you think Edinburgh should position itself?

CW: The biggest cultural festival in the world happens here every year. Some of the greatest writing has come from the city. It’s a really creative town. I think Edinburgh should position itself as a nice place to do great work.

TH: Are the city’s brand values reflected in your own agency culture?

CW: I think so. At Newhaven our goal is to come up with famous ideas. We don’t consider ourselves to be a Scottish agency. We want to be an international agency and we come up with communication ideas that are as good as anywhere. Like the city itself, we attract people from all over the world. We have had employees from Spain, Germany, America, and New Zealand. We want to come up with fresh ideas but we also try and work in an inclusive way with our clients. We try and get rid of ego. I think at Newhaven you’ll find a nice, down to earth bunch of people to work with.

TH: Does being based in Edinburgh influence your creative output? If so, how?

CW: I think being in Edinburgh gives us a realistic view of the world. We aren’t trapped in a Soho bubble so we’re less worried about impressing our advertising peers, and more worried about impressing normal punters in the street. This produces fresh work. Another way Edinburgh affects us is best summed up by this quote from Raymond Myers, ‘If you seek creative ideas go walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.” Edinburgh is one of the best cities for walking in the world. There’s inspiration on every corner. I mean we’ve a mountain right in the middle of it. If you’re looking for angels for your brand, you might just find them here.

TH: What makes your agency offer different?

CW: At Newhaven we want to compete with the best. Our motto is ‘Make Famous Stuff. Make Clients Famous.’ To do this we don’t believe in being yes men. We want to surprise our clients, and working together with them surprise and delight their customers. This sometimes means feeling uncomfortable with new ideas, but often the best ideas are the ones that a take a bit of getting used to. It’s like that difficult album you’re not sure about the first time you listen, then, after a few plays, it’s your all time favourite. Sometimes being different can be scary but if you think about it, the ads you probably love are the ones that you didn’t see coming. If Newhaven is a restaurant, we’ll try and serve you something fresh every day, not the same bland dish, day in, day out.

Also when you work with us you get the best. We execute our work with the best directors, photographers and illustrators we can find. And we do it on different budgets because we find like-minded passionate people who care deeply about what they do. The internet makes the world a small place and makes anything possible these days. There’s so much talent out there if you’re willing to look for it. I think what makes us different is that we still believe in the power of craft and writing. There is so much stuff competing for attention out there, you have to do things brilliantly to be noticed. I hope the clients that we work with respect our passion to push things, to come up with the right idea and do things well for them.

TH: Why should clients consider sourcing work from Edinburgh agencies?

CW: I think with Edinburgh agencies you’ll get a great product. You’ll get a more personal relationship. And you’ll get damn good value for money.

I think if clients give Edinburgh, or let’s say Newhaven, a chance they might find we’re Britain’s Portland.

TH: What sort of clients do you want to attract?

CW: We want to attract clients who want to join us on a fabulous, exciting ride to get to brilliant work.

TH: What work have you done recently makes you really proud?

CW: We’ve been doing some nice work on Tennent’s. We had great fun on our Hugh Tennent campaign creating a Victorian world and we got to work with some of the best directors in the business. Our Twin Town poster campaign we enjoyed making. The punters liked it too and they’ve sent in loads of suggestions of their own. Historic Scotland have been great to work with, our Dynasty campaign did really great for them. I’m proud of the work we did for a small brand called Bawbags. On a tiny budget we were shortlisted at Cannes. We’ve been working with the Scottish Government and recently did work that was nominated for a D&AD Yellow Pencil. Our digital campaign for The Children’s Panel was really satisfying. It got record responses for a great cause. There’s a lot of other nice stuff. The best place to see what we’ve been up to is at our website

TH: What Scottish brands do you most admire and why?

CW: I admire Tennent’s Lager, not just because I work for them, but they have believed in the power of great work for a very long time and that has to be applauded. I admire Irn-Bru. Used to work on it. I love Tunnocks, what a brand, what classic design. Harris Tweed. I could go on and on.

TH: Are there any local marketers who have inspired you?

CW: There are a lot of great people in Scotland. To list them all you’d need a bigger internet.

TH: What business would you most like to win?

CW: Choosing just one would be like saying you have a favourite child. I’d love to talk with anyone who gets excited about doing great work.

TH: Thanks Chris.

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