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 Sarah Ronald, Founder and Managing Director of Nile, Experience and Service Design

TH: What does the Edinburgh brand stand for?

SR: Depends who you ask, but if your looking from an outside perspective: tourists would probably say it majors on picture postcard city streets, people with a sort of elegant and gentile charm imbued with the warmth of whisky, that it has a strong sense of and pride in it’s history. Those who come for the fringe would say it comes alive with counter culture and a provocative and self assured sense of humour. I think they’re both probably right Edinburgh has many faces rather than a brand per se.

TH: How do you think Edinburgh should position itself?

SR: Working in the digital industry I think we need focus more on the exciting mix of alternative culture and resourceful and innovative industry in Edinburgh. London has such a strong pull that people don’t realise what great talent we have up here or the feeling of being part of scene that you don’t get in large town.

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

SR: Not consciously but we’re a product of the town so yes, we have pretty traditional values when it comes to quality and dependability… but we like to push boundaries and provoke different thinking.

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

SR: Again not consciously or conspicuously but we are very active locally via BIMA (British Interactive Media Association) so we’re influenced by local talent. 

I think having a nice walk to work and being in a beautiful city certainly helps though.

TH: What makes your agency offer different?

SR: Wherever possible we don’t take the easy way out! We work in human centred way to get a deep understanding of both customers and clients, so we can ‘engineer’ systemic service solutions. Too often agencies take a sticking plaster approach, a new ad campaign here, and brand refresh or website there very few are prepared to grasp the nettle and help clients change the way the do things for the better and for the long-term.

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

SR: I think clients should source work from good agencies, regardless of location.

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

SR: Ambitious ones, ones that have sense of vision or a feeling that thing could be done differently, ones who want to be the best at what they do and that see the value in a longer term partnership with their agencies.

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

SR: We recently won a BIMA innovation award for the RBS Mobile banking app and Get Cash service, which we shared with our project partners Sapient Nitro and Monetise. We’re proud of that, it’s a great example of how we can use technology to make people’s lifes (in this case access to money) that little bit easier.

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

SR: I love Irn Bru, their ads are great and they don’t take themselves too seriously.

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

SR: Yes, if Robbie Burns can be considered local. His early marketing efforts still make a huge impact world wide.

TH: What business would you most like to win?

SR: We’re an experience service design agency, so our aim is to improve the way business and consumers interact at a fundamental level.  We want to have a big impact, so we’d love to get our teeth into a meaty service problem like helping making transport more integrated in Edinburgh, or transforming financial services companies so they benefit their customers in the long-term & make sustainable profits.

TH: Thanks Sarah.

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