“You’re not in exile, you’re on the forefront of a change”

Creative Career Conundrums is a weekly advice column from If You Could Jobs. Each week their selected panel of professionals from the creative industry answers your burning career questions to help you navigate the creative journey.

This week’s question:

“After relocating back to my home in the Midlands, I find clients are reluctant to look further afield than their back gardens. As a working-class creative, I understand that regional pride is something to be celebrated, but navel-gazing only contributes to the brain drain down the M1. When working with cultural clients, if I make reference to things from London or abroad, it’s met with defensive disdain. Unfortunately, this hampers the scope of projects, as it quells ambition and potential. The prevailing attitude is that ‘if it worked ten years ago in a neighbouring town, it will work today’.

Comments have been many:

‘We don’t need that — that’s for Londoners.’

‘We’d be stupid to look further afield than X.’

‘Well, we do things differently here.’

My postcode is feeling like a creative exile imposed from the top down by arts institutes, universities, arts festivals and local councils who have no ambition to inspire their citizens or see out a successful project.

How do I convince clients outside the M25 that ‘good enough’ isn’t good enough?”

Katie Cadwell, co-founder of branding studio Lucky Dip and The NDA Podcast:

So much of our job is people management. We tend to forget that clients often don’t know the power of investing in your brand. It might not be glamorous, but we’re salespeople. Our work is only as good as our ability to get clients to sign it off. Here are some ways you can start to shift your conversations –

1. Stop referencing London. Expand your knowledge of brilliant regional design. Make sure the references you’re showing are local wins. Find projects from Wales, the South West, the Midlands. Studios like Lantern and Common Curiosity have some great work to use as regional inspiration.
2. Education is a huge piece of any project. Assume your clients know nothing, and take them on the journey. Start every project with a brand education piece. Use examples they know and love – like Apple. Show some of their most memorable campaigns, explain how their brand is enhanced by the store experience and packaging. Or pick a competitor in their space that’s doing a good shop, and show them how they’re winning.
3. Remember where they’re coming from. Their world is made up of meetings about conversion rates, investor pitches, agonising over P&Ls. You need to speak in their language – with data. Find evidence of regional brands who have broken the mold. Show how their competitors have grown customer awareness. Any figures or stats you can include will really strengthen your argument.
4. Start small. Convincing them to take one risk that’s a success will give you ammunition for the next project. You can even offer to test two versions of the creative. When the more ambitious one comes out on top, that’s hard to argue with.
5. Finally, remind them that we’re not looking to replicate what someone else has already done. We want to be the first. Appeal to the leaders & entrepreneurs in the business.

Any region that is now celebrated in design, started with frustrated creatives feeling the way you do now. You’re not in exile, you’re on the forefront of a change that hasn’t happened yet. Keep up the fight.

In answering your creative career conundrums we realise that some issues need expert support, so we’ve collated a list of additional resources that can support you across things that might arise at work.

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