Creativebrief Founder & Chairman Tom Holmes talks to Neil Gibson, Founding Director of The BIG Partnership.
Neil Gibson, The Big Partnership
Neil Gibson is a founding director of The BIG Partnership, the largest PR and digital marketing agency outside London (PR Week top 150, 2013).
He began his career as a journalist, chasing fire engines and covering some of the biggest stories of the late 80s / early 90s – including Piper Alpha, Lockerbie, Hillsborough.
A far-sighted move to a new Scottish paper, The Sunday Scot (shut down after 14 weeks) propelled him into the world of PR. He launched BIG in 2000 with two colleagues and the agency now has 95 staff across five offices – Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Fife and Liverpool.
BIG’s 300-strong client list ranges from international and national brands through to Government and public sector bodies, small businesses and charities.
TH: What does the Glasgow brand stand for?
NG: Authenticity. Humour. Banter. Passion. Enterprise.
TH: What are your views on the city’s new slogan “People Make Glasgow” and the city’s marketing to date?
NG: First, I should declare an interest. BIG helped launch the last brand “Glasgow: Scotland with Style” (and generated wall-to-wall media coverage). The brand tended to divide opinion between those who thought it didn’t reflect the “real” Glasgow and those who realised it was aimed at selling Glasgow to an external audience of tourists, businesses and conference organisers. And on the latter, it delivered handsomely.
Against the backdrop of the massive industrial restructuring of the last 50 years, Glasgow has made a pretty fair fist of reinventing (or should that be reinforcing) its image as a big-hearted, welcoming international city.
But it was probably time for a refresh and I think Scott Taylor and the City Marketing Bureau should be commended for coming up with a campaign and brand that can project and fit the many faces of Glasgow in the social media age.
TH: How do you think Glasgow should position itself?
NG: Glasgow’s done well to avoid the stag and hen party excesses that have afflicted some other cities. It’s done a tremendous job promoting the city’s shopping, night life, architecture, museums and heritage. And not just to the rest of the UK and internationally, but to the rest of Scotland, too.
While the new Glasgow brand is still very much about destination marketing, ultimately I hope it will reflect the vibrancy of the city’s business culture, its entrepreneurial verve, its education and engineering prowess – and possibly a little bit more on creative industries.
TH: Are the city’s brand values reflected in your own agency culture?
NG: We launched our agency in Glasgow 13 years ago and have just moved to a bigger HQ in the city. This is our home.
Our culture does reflect Glasgow – we’re about hard work, results, having a bit of a laugh along the way and encouraging our people to think entrepreneurially. We’re aggressive – in a nice way!
Neil Gibson, The Big Partnership
I like to think there’s a little bit of Glasgow in all our offices.
TH: Why should clients from outside of Scotland consider sourcing work from Glasgow agencies?
NG: There’s a phenomenal amount of creative talent in Glasgow thanks to our educational assets and a vibrant communications community stretching back over decades. We never think of ourselves as ‘provincial’. Possibly because of the city’s trading heritage, we see no reason why we can’t take on London or international competition and do good work for clients, wherever they are.
TH: What makes your own agency offer different?
NG: BIG started life as a media relations shop. The journalistic ethos and nose for a story remains in our DNA, but it’s now about creating compelling content across multiple platforms and using a range of channels to influence our clients’ audiences. We also took a decision four years ago to put digital at the heart of our business and have invested heavily in staff and training, which has given us an edge.
TH: What sort of clients do you want to attract?
NG: My business partner Alex Barr has a mantra for clients – “Always tell us the truth, pay your bills on time and recommend us if we do a good job.” Clients that meet these aspirations are very welcome.
TH: What work have you done that makes you particularly proud and why?
NG: It’s difficult to pick out individual clients or campaigns. Some of the best work we do never sees the light of day. However, my co-director Zoe Ogilvie masterminded a tremendous campaign on behalf of Sir Ian Wood on the Aberdeen City Gardens project and, more recently, we were delighted with the impact of the “Name The Bridge” campaign to engage the public in choosing a name for the new Forth Bridge – Queensferry Crossing.
TH: Which Glaswegian brands do you most admire?
NG: Some of these may be manufactured in “greater Glasgow” but they are great Glaswegian brands – Tennent’s Lager, Tunnock’s and Irn Bru. All good for you in moderation, of course. Glasgow also has the finest Victorian parks in the UK, a “dear, green place” indeed.
TH: What business would you most like to win?
NG: For entirely selfish reasons, the PR account for the new Jaguar F-type would be nice.
TH: Thanks Neil.
Looks like you need to create a Creativebrief account to perform this action.
Create account Sign inLooks like you need to create a Creativebrief account to perform this action.
Create account Sign in
