Southpaw describe themselves as “a creative advertising agency that helps challenger brands punch above their weight”. What began 10 years ago as a feisty start-up with a mission to prove that a small shop based outside of London could hold its own with the big agencies, has matured into a clever and collaborative band of strategy-led creatives, who specialise in helping brands outsmart their competition.
“Big agency talent with small agency love,” is another defining mantra of the Tunbridge Wells-based creative shop, speaking of their impressive staff roster of former big agency strategists and creatives, who are united in their commitment to a way of working that is as sustainable as it is passionate.
Operating like a nimble independent with the firepower of being under the umbrella of Hakuhodo, gives Southpaw the reach and resources to boost their relationships with international clients, especially across Asia.
DCA spoke with MD Claire Lambell, Head of Strategy Niki Jones and Creative Director Glenn Smith about what they do differently, and their truly strategy-first approach.
Challenger-brand mindset
If there is a common thread that runs through Southpaw’s clients it’s a start-up mentality, with Southpaw’s own challenger beginnings making them the perfect partner for brands wanting to make waves in their categories.
When beauty brand e.l.f cosmetics looked to grow in the UK, it was Southpaw’s nuanced insight into Gen Z’s approach to beauty and identity that led to the “Express your e.l.f” campaign that sparked a doubling of brand awareness. “It’s having those clients with real ambition, those that aren't afraid to push boundaries, challenge the norms, they're massively inspiring to us. We speak the same language,” says Lambell.
And with Spanish beer brand Estrella Galicia, Southpaw’s strategy team uncovered an insight via digging deep into Reddit that unlocked a stratospherically successful campaign. What they discovered was the beginnings of the beer community learning that many ‘Spanish’ beers are actually not brewed in Spain at all, and they were feeling duped. “We developed a really powerful, challenging campaign which we called ‘Spanish not Span-ish’. And we started calling out all the fake-Spanish beers online, and the provocative out-of-home campaign we delivered encouraged behavior change of people to actually look at where your beer is brewed,” explains Jones.
The campaign kicked off a storm, beer influencers took up the mantle of calling out the pretenders and they earned media coverage in the likes of The Telegraph. According to the latest update from the client, it helped the brand to grow 51% in the past year. “It was that smart thinking and smart creativity that really helped them punch above their weight,” adds Jones.
Insight first
It was while working on a pitch for their very first client Sanctuary Spa, that Smith realised the dynamic between himself as a creative, and Jones as a strategist, was beginning to generate brilliant creative concepts. “Niki (Jones) was bringing strategies with creative thoughts to the table, and I was able to riff off her and we started just getting more and more into a rhythm. It was very comfortable, quick and insightful,” he explains. The resultant film – a story of age, wisdom and simply being instead of doing – garnered over 80 million views.
Over time, the collaboration between strategy and creative at Southpaw has developed to a way of working that prioritises strategy and insight, enabling category-disrupting work. Now, an in-house AI powered neuromapping tool is providing even smarter working. “Every agency will say, ‘We've got insight or consumers at the heart of everything’, but we genuinely have developed some unique tools that help us get insights other people can't get to.”
The tool combines behavioural science and neuroscience to get to deeper, emotionally resonating insights. The creative work you’ll get with Southpaw is always rooted in insight and strategy. “We would never, ever present a piece of creative that hadn't gone in the order of insight, strategy and then creative. It's just something we won't do,” says Smith.
Culture and collaboration
Having all previously worked at big creative agencies, the sorts with global outposts and offices with hundreds of people across account management, creative and strategy, the team are especially proud of building a creative agency that integrates departments and speeds up processes. “Glenn (Smith) and I, we pretty much sit together, we talk all day long, working so closely together everyday and we're inspiring the teams beneath us to also do that,” says Jones, who leads strategy. “We are an agency that I think uniquely combines those disciplines in a really strong way without disjointedness,” adds Smith.
Though their scrappy start-up days have levelled out to an even keel with a smarter, more premium approach, there are some parts of the hustle mentality that inform their continued tenacity, and an ongoing curiosity about contemporary culture.
“We encourage all of our staff to be really furiously curious about culture,” says Jones. This manifests in daily chats, breakfast presentations on culture and what’s hot, and challenges that look for learnings to support the work we’re doing for the challenger brands we work with. Southpaw is the result of a challenger agency growing up while staying true to its core belief in breaking the mold and redefining the norm.
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