Introducing – What we think

When we set up Grapevine Ads, we wanted to create a workplace that reflected what we believed in – both personally & professionally. Why do we go to work? Here’s a look at our recipe for being *genuinely* useful and driving serious growth. 

Creativity is king

Given the range of automation and ‘smart’ features on offer within almost all the ad platforms, there’s less of a need for an office full of traditional, maths-ey, “PPC people”. Yes, being good with numbers, having strong attention to detail and being able to properly connect & analyse data is important, but we think its more important to have as many ‘creative people’ in-house too. High performing, memorable adverts should be the heart of your marketing strategy and we can help you think of them, design them and create them.

Be more ambitious

As a team, we challenge ourselves to ‘be more ambitious’ on a daily basis. As well as ourselves, we also want our clients to do the same but think this applies slightly differently dependent on their size:

• “Smaller” companies (SMEs) – We think most (and we want to stress the word most here) SMEs should start adopting more of the tactics used by supposed ‘bigger brands’. The barriers to entry in doing high quality ad creative (image or video) have dropped considerably over the last couple of years and almost all ads people view (including TV) are bought programmatically. You can reach your audience at scale with a good looking, professionally made advert and, given the way web analytics has evolved, you should be able to definitively unpick the performance off the back of it. Regardless of your perceived ‘size’.
• “Bigger” brands – Having worked with a number of larger brands, they are often characterised as having large (and cumbersome) teams running their digital marketing. We’d prefer them to trust smaller, more agile teams who are hyper focussed on adding real, actionable value. It doesn’t take a team of 4 to run a search account anymore, regardless of the media spend and you shouldn’t need a siloed strategy team to devise where to put your adverts. We think smaller, multi-skilled teams can do more, better work.

The power of the office

We believe in the importance of coming into the office and close working.  And by ‘close’, we mean under 50 feet away.  We employ people who live locally and who want to work collaboratively in an office. We think a vibrant office culture creates better structure, more creativity, better teamwork and is best for your mental health. You don’t have to come into the office every day, our job is to make you want to.

Happy people = busy people

We believe that busy days at work are the most fulfilling and that actively immersing ourselves in tasks, whatever they are, sparks interest and delight. Happy people are given the autonomy and the resource to do whatever it takes to get the job done. We encourage team members to take ownership and remember they are experts and not just ‘do-ers’. We don’t want to work late, and we won’t work weekends, but you can be totally confident that we will work effectively.

No energy vampires

No doubt you’ve all been in a job you hated, but how long did you complain about it before you did anything? More to the point, how long did you complain about it to people you work with, at work? Being negative about things every now and again is normal, but we want people who suck the fun out of things to speak up, or shift off. If people don’t like something, we make positive changes, fast. We actively encourage people to try and keep a positive mindset at all times. Ask yourself, what are you grateful for?

Be curious & more than “our services”

Its not uncommon for agencies to avoid doing things ‘outside their remit’. You’re not allowed to build landing pages or design ads because, basically, you’re not getting paid to do them. In order to be genuinely useful we want to feel like a real part of our client’s team. (Yes, we know everyone says that). We believe that being more than “our services” creates a kind of virtuous circle – it speaks to us being curious and helping solve our clients’ problems, but it also means we are learning new, transferable skills that could one day become part of our core offering.

Email < Phone Call < Zoom < Face To Face

No, I don’t want to do a murder mystery night on Zoom. The Covid-19 restrictions have (basically) ended, and we are loving being back amongst the hustle and bustle. In our experience, working remotely and meetings on Zoom give only the illusion of comfortability and collaboration. Worse still, they de-socialize us and make going out in groups feel weird and overwhelming. Too much screen time makes Jack a dull boy. A culture of face-to-face meetings whenever possible help us really feel part of our client’s team and creates a focus around getting stuff done. Plus, whoever’s hosting usually pays for lunch.

“Keep it simple, stupid” (KISS)

We want to avoid acronyms (apart from the one above), and don’t want to overcomplicate simple processes. We prefer jargon free language and to ensure that what we do, doesn’t feel like some exclusionary members-only club. What we do is important, but there are more important things out there. We encourage our team to speak openly, directly and compassionately, but without fear or favour. People can handle it.