Happy birthday to us! Five highlights from our first five years…
It started on 5 November 2013 with the idea that going to work shouldn’t feel like hard work. And here we are, all grown up on our 5th birthday. If we can’t be all about us today, when can we be…?! Here are 5 highlights from our first 5 years…
1. Moving into Welbeck
All agencies think that their offices are the best. But honestly, ours are the best.
Before becoming Storycatchers we’d visited The Harley Gallery, bought raw milk from the Welbeck Farm Shop, visited the Ice Age cave system at Creswell Crags, heard the stories about the innovative 5th Duke of Portland and his magical tunnel network, and cycled and walked our dogs across the glorious 15,000 acre estate all the way to Clumber Park… All without realising that in the heart of all that idyllic, Pride & Prejudice-esque splendour was the 19th century carriage house we’d one day call home.
It genuinely feels like a privilege to be based on the estate. Driving to work is a joy, and it’s just so lovely to sit here and watch the skies and seasons change – every day, the view has something new to offer. We’re proudly flying the flag for Worksop. Oh yes. Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, WORKSOP. The creative powerhouses of the North… 😉
2. Doing things our own way
We’ve never had a drum to bang about the traditional agency model. Is it broken? We’re not arrogant enough to presume we could fix it, if it is… We just wanted to find a way to work that works for us and our clients. The fact that, 5 years in, we’re still true to our flexible remote, and networked model is testament to our people and our commitment and determination to make it work.
3. Christmas x five
We asked everyone here for their highlights, and our Christmas parties and nights out featured very, very highly. We’re not ones to blow our own trumpets, but we do give good Christmas party… So good, that we have barely any images, and the ones we do have are heavily influenced by alcohol, as you can see. Ahem. It’s not long until this year’s – we will instruct the cameraman to remain sober…
4. Our Mercedes-Benz Vans Keeping Businesses Moving brand work
We’ve worked on some amazing projects, with some amazing people. But we’re particularly proud of our brand positioning work for Mercedes-Benz Vans and were thrilled to bits when it won the Masters of Marketing B2B award last month. Watching ‘Keeping businesses moving’ spread through the business as the mission driving every department and initiative feels really good, and it really was a wonderful project to work on.
5. Growing the Storycatchers family
We’ve never had any desire to build an empire. It’s not about scale for us. Nevertheless, we are growing, and from just two of us in 2013 there are now 15 Storycatchers (16 if you count the utterly edible Etta, our first Storycatchers baby…). Welcoming new Storycatchers is always a highlight, and we plan to welcome a few more in 2019.
Thanks for allowing us our shamelessly self-indulgent birthday retrospective – here’s to the next 5 years…