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

Creativebrief Founder & Chairman Tom Holmes talks to Julian Leighton, Managing Director of Orange Bus.

TH: Julian, what does the Newcastle brand stand for?

JL: I think lots of people tend to brand Newcastle based on the people, be it their honest and friendly nature or the rather more unflattering ‘hard-drinking-not-wearing-very-many-clothes-to-go-out’ stereotype. It’s a shame when there is so much positive stuff going on up here that the Geordie Shore image is the one so easily applied to the region’s brand.

TH: How do you think Newcastle should position itself?

JL: Over recent years the city and region as a whole has certainly positioned itself in the tech space, with the Thinking Digital conference attracting speakers and delegates from all over the world and accelerator programs like Ignite 100 and the Difference Engine helping to promote the start-up culture, which is certainly very prevalent up here.

We are an isolated and relatively small region really and I think this has encouraged a sense of camaraderie, which is very useful.

When pitching outside of the region we position Orange Bus by openly promoting the fact that all of these factors have enabled us to develop a team made up of people who are loyal and approachable but who are also incredibly comfortable working at the cutting edge of our industry. I can’t pretend that we don’t offer a good night out as well though and it’s something our far flung clients often comment on!

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

JL: Not entirely – the part of the city’s brand that we are involved in (within our sector) is great and we’re proud of the association, but the stereo types are a worry and we’d probably rather distance ourselves from that side of things where possible. We are extremely honest and friendly here though and naturally I see that as a positive.

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

JL: I don’t think so, perhaps in the way your mentality is shaped and the experiences you have had and continue to have, but we spend a lot of time reading blogs, magazines and watching videos that have their origins across the globe and, on the whole, this would have a greater influence in my opinion.

TH: What makes your agency offer different?

JL: Orange Bus’ differentiator is the combination of skills it can offer. Many companies are highly creative but can’t offer the technical expertise we can – and vice versa. Equally, our user experience capability is something many companies don’t even both with even if they do manage to be both fairly creative and technical at the same time. The fact we do it all and we do it so well is what works for clients.

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

JL: We’re used to doing business far from home that’s for sure, so our location shouldn’t and isn’t a factor – this is something our clients agree with. We have to work that little bit harder sometimes to convince new clients this is the case and I think that shows. In comparison to Leeds and Manchester, there really isn’t a huge number of large companies with their headquarters based up here to sustain the agencies that exist at the higher end of the market, so we all have to make ourselves more attractive than the local competition and I think that hopefully ensures our standards are consistently high.

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

JL: We like a nice mixture of corporate and cool in the studio as it keeps everyone interested, but I can’t say we’ve ever really concentrated too hard on any one vertical. We find our skills can be applied successfully across a wide range of businesses so we don’t specifically set out to attract one or another.

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

JL: We have been heavily involved in conversion optimisation for some time now and sometimes persuading clients it’s worth their while spending money making many small, iterative changes to a page to improve conversion can be tough. One of our leading clients, Sage, recently sent us some stats around their checkout process that we had been working on which I’m really proud of – we improved average order value by 31%, increased transactions by 21% and revenue by 57% after the first week of our pages going live.

For an agency that is perhaps better known for it’s technical and creative work it’s great for me to see areas like this being so successful.

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

JL: I tend to go for the more niche stuff personally, so Nigel Cabourn as a designer would feature more than perhaps the obvious stuff like Berghaus and Barbour – although both are fantastic brands. Working with Sage over the years really brings it home to you how successful they have been and that is a very strong brand right across the globe.

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

JL: I love the work that Drummond Central do and they’re ethos is pretty close to ours so they would certainly be my pick of the bunch! We also have a couple of older agencies still flourishing up here such as MTR and Cravens so longevity and success are perfectly attainable without a London HQ.

TH: What business would you most like to win?

JL: I’d love to work with Red Bull, their extreme sports and motor racing stuff is usually the stuff of fantasy – they take what everyone else is doing and multiply it by 10! It must be great to be constantly pushing boundaries like that!

TH: Thanks Julian.

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