Agency Collective Tales Ellie Hale

In this episode of the Agency Collective Tales, Ellie spoke to Tony Hallett, founder of Collective Content about founding an agency following on from a successful career in journalism, his policy of openness, honesty and upfront information about staff wages and about keeping the balance between growth and retaining your ethos.

After working for a number of years in tech journalism, following the fallout from the 2008 crash, Tony started Collective Content and used the wealth of relationships he had formed over the years to establish and grow it into a thriving business.

Staff retention can be hard at the best of times, but when you find yourself in the middle of a global pandemic and you are niched within the hospitality sector, just how can you hold on to your staff?

Harry Fielder, Managing Director of Umi Digital joined to me to discuss exactly how he achieved this.

Starting an agency can be a bit of a wild ride, full of stress and uncertainty but also hugely rewarding. But how do you then make a move from a creative role to becoming a leader?

We spoke to Kelly Molson, Founder and MD of Rubber Cheese to see how she made the transition.

Diversity and inclusion has been on everyone’s lips for the past few years, but our recent focus on this area hasn’t necessarily translated to the equitable society that we had hoped for. How to make our agencies diverse in a way that takes it in a new and better direction? How do we meaningfully engage with people from different backgrounds and experiences from ourselves and include them in the conversations that need to be had. In this episode, we are joined by Tomasz Dyl, MD of GottaBe! who knows more than most on this issue.

Understanding the subtleties and nuances of different cultures and subcultures can give a huge boost to any product launch, so why are so many businesses trying to create a campaign to suit a different culture, rather than creating a product specifically for that culture? In this episode, Ellie speaks to Serdar Paktin, founder of holistic sense-making agency, Pakt, to find out more about how understanding a culture can not only improve your current offerings but create new opportunities too.

In this episode, Ellie speaks to Co-Founder and MD of Digital Firefly, Mel Berry, about her journey and how we can use our experiences to enrich our businesses and to support our teams, should they choose to embark on parenthood - In terms of wellbeing and practical help, including parental leave.