*BRAND* WPR Agency. Get The World Talking.
I have long-held affinity with this Birmingham-based public relations company. I worked at an agency during the majority of the 90s and early 00s that shared office space with them. My wife worked there. Still does actually.
Over the years, they have become one of the best agencies around, nurturing a happy team, an impressive client roster and routinely cleaning up at creative award ceremonies.
They asked me to take a look at their brand persona as we were emerging from the pandemic. This is one of the first branding projects where I've dealt purely with the narrative aspect. WPR have a very talented design team in-house and I was required to energise them with a clear position and duty for the agency.
Once again, I fired up my brand workshop process and we set to work. Four very clear themes emerged:
#1. People and Relationships.
‘People’ was the very first word that was mentioned by anyone and the dominant theme throughout the workshop. More specifically, the strong relationships between those people – inter-agency and agency/client – are what really make the difference.
Over time, WPR has built an impressive reputation that attracts high-calibre individuals and welcomes them into a success-driven, award-winning team environment. These people are then given all the mechanisms they need to build these trusted relationships with a varied and enviable roster of clients. It’s this relationship nurturing that enables WPR's authenticity.
By building rapport, we can pitch challenging ideas without fear. We may take our client out of their comfort zone but with diligence and hard work allied to our creativity, they know and trust us to do the right thing.
#2. Relevant creativity.
“Ideas worth talking about” was a particular one-liner that came out and landed well across the board with serious tagline potential. It cropped up in several exercises. But WPR makes these ideas worthy of conversation by making them relevant to the situation and the client. They have been doing this for a long time and a track record of success offers a ‘sixth sense’ about what will work for any given client and situation.
#3. The ‘Birmingham’ thing.
WPR does business on a global level and finds itself on pitch lists with famous global marketing names more and more often. There is a need to NOT be seen as part of a gene pool of regional agencies doing ‘local PR’. In the time that WPR has existed the perceptions of Birmingham have changed immeasurably. The city is now widely accepted as place where international and global business is done by many household name companies, but legacy opinions do still exist. We need to be bold if we are to escape this localism which is mostly of our own making.
This is an independent agency doing international business. We just happen to be doing it in Birmingham — and that’s okay.
#4: Positivity.
There is absolutely no reason why WPR shouldn’t be supremely positive about how it presents itself. The people love working for WPR, the clients love working with WPR and the work WPR does is lauded. They can and should enter every situation with confidence and, dare I say it, swagger.
My process gave WPR confidence where it was previously lacking. By stepping back and looking in, they were able to see the quality they offer.
The brand narrative elements talked this up and the tagline – Get The World Talking – speaks of global pedigree. But in a client context, it speaks of ‘your world’. WPR defines that world and then sets to work engaging it in meaningful, powerful conversation.
