Today, Lee Thawley & Vicky Pritchard, formerly part of the senior team at Sorted and AO.com, announce the launch of MuddyWellies, a new brand & culture agency.

Their aim – to create customers committed to buying from their clients, and people motivated to work for them.

Having spent the last month focusing on building out their model and approach, MuddyWellies is a powerful new agency on the North West scene with a very clear goal – to create destination brands for customers and employees alike. By putting brand & people at the forefront of everything, the North West based team believes they can ultimately bind, guide and attract people, business and partners.

With an already impressive track record, the new agency is set up to create cutting-edge experiences for clients, producing bespoke plans and building enviable initiatives that make a real difference to businesses, inside and out.

The new agency is co-founded by Lee Thawley & Vicky Pritchard, both formerly of Sorted and AO.com. Between them, they have experience working with some of the UK’s biggest brands across a variety of sectors including, Halfords, Green Flag, Mercedes-Benz, Authentic Food Company, and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Thawley & Pritchard met eight years ago on a project that would see Appliances Online relaunch as superbrand AO.com. Their paths continued to cross, and in 2017, they reunited at Sorted, with Pritchard as People Director and Thawley as Head of Brand. There, they built a powerful culture with purpose, through brand-driven experiences & initiatives.

Their new company aims to help businesses big or small, with the one stipulation that the senior leadership team must understand, or at least be prepared to understand, how brand and people combined is the key to a company’s success.

Thawley & Pritchard both believe that bringing brand and culture together is the key to engaged people and customers, and they will work together to create strong company cultures for each of their clients, putting this right at the core of each unique business plan.

This proves important for organisations of all shapes and sizes, from the well-established to the fledgling start-up, and can be achieved at any stage in a business’ journey.

While well-established organisations may need to review their position or vision, and start-ups may need to create a brand that can grow with them, MuddyWellies will work with businesses to bring people & purpose together. They will achieve this by bringing clarity & consistency to each & every business they work with; aligning employees, increasing internal efficiency, and therefore external outputs.

As well as re-engaging internal teams, and powering up both the employee & customer experience, MuddyWellies will help businesses to attract top talent & partners by building brand advocates.

Thawley & Pritchard describe themselves each as a welly, Thawley the reliable, tough left boot – a little bit of what you really need, & Pritchard the high gloss right, bringing the energy & sparkle.

Pritchard said “It’s hard work keeping everyone engaged within a business, it’s tough finding that point of differentiation, or the core purpose to our being and avoiding values being just words on a wall. But, when you get it right, it can create such great stories and memories – and deliver such a great business return.

Well, that’s where we come in. We dig deep, we get muddy, we focus on getting the wellies on the right feet – and your business going in the right direction.”

Thawley added “What you do internally, runs parallel to what you demonstrate externally. And that’s where the power lies. The greatest businesses – big or small – are built with brand and people at the heart of everything they do. So, we want to help more companies to build their perfect pair.

We want to create talkability. As we say on our site and our creds we don’t do dull, we create destination brands that stand out.”

The duo feel there’s a particular need to remember the importance of culture as many businesses go through a period of change due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Pritchard commented “There is so much noise & opinion around returning to work, remote working, the ‘new normal’ at the moment but to be quite frank nobody really knows what is right or wrong.”

“Not only is every business different, but the people within the teams are too, and this will create new challenges as we reintroduce the return to the office. Getting it right will be driven by leaders who ensure that the purpose and people are still at the core of the business – it will actually require more investment and more concerted initiatives to actually work differently”

MuddyWellies launches today, with full details on the team & their services available on their website – www.wearemuddywellies.com

Pixel Kicks, the full-service digital agency, has seen a surge in demand from clients for its digital marketing services since the onset of coronavirus. The Ancoats-based firm has reported a 125% jump in new enquiries for its SEO, social media, paid advertising and email marketing specialisms over the past three months.

The agency, which has also seen a rise in clients seeking content creation, short form videos and bespoke photography, has put the trend down to clients feeling more confident and realising the importance of having a strong web presence as consumer trends and buying behaviours continue to move online.

Particular growth sectors have included property, professional services, merchandise manufacturers and distributors, and healthcare brands. As a result, Pixel Kicks expects to expand its dedicated digital marketing team by around 30% by the end of 2020.

Andrew Flynn – digital marketing manager at Pixel Kicks – said: “Coronavirus has devastated many businesses, but for others it has been an opportunity to reassess their comms and marketing strategies to ensure they are positioned as strongly as possible for the future. There is no point having a cutting-edge website if it can’t be found by your target audiences. It’s great to see that more firms are now confident enough to invest in their digital marketing budgets which I think will continue strongly over the coming year.”

One of the biggest influencers in the world of beauty NikkieTutorials has collaborated with online beauty destination Beauty Bay to launch a new makeup palette, which is being backed by a multi-channel digital marketing campaign.

The YouTube sensation, who has more than 14m Instagram followers world-wide and 13.5m subscribers, worked with Manchester brand and design studio MERó (worksbymero.com) who developed her personal ideas into artwork for both the packaging and branding concept.

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MERó’s creative director Andy Culbert explains how they took meaningful aspects of Nikkie’s life to create the stunning and unique packaging concept:
“The packaging design is a clever combination of different aspects of Nikkie’s life and personality while staying true to the Beauty Bay brand.

“It’s based on the idea of a Temple, the name Nikkie gives to her studio where she creates her globally acclaimed makeup videos. The concept of the temple wraps around the packaging design and features illustrations and colours that are very personal to Nikkie.

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“One side of the gate fold plays on the colourful, happy and sweet side of Nikkie’s individuality – it’s bright, bold and beautiful. Under Nikkie’s guidance, in contrast we then show a darker side of the temple to reflect that most people have worries, fears and ups and downs in life.

“We also took inspiration from Nikkie’s tattoos, which portray these two contrasting but connected sides of her life, and her famous approach of showing two different looks on each half of a face.

“On the reverse, further illustrations show more of Nikkie’s life journey and personality, set within the 3D illustration of a Roman-style inspired temple. Some of the colours from the playful side were carefully introduced on the dark side so that it could show the connection between them.

“An outer sleeve portrays the idea of being able to peek into Nikkie’s life and this exciting new product ‘through a cut out key hole’ which reveals more.”

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Andy added: “It’s been amazing to work with both Nikkie and Beauty Bay on this project. Nikkie inspires so many people and is one of the most popular and beloved beauty make-up artists in the world, in part thanks to her honest and open approach. Being able to create something that’s so personal to her has been a phenomenal opportunity for us and we look forward to seeing the response to the new product and design.”

The new design was unveiled by both Nikkie and Beauty Bay on 27th August (6pm) and products are available from 31st August.

MERó has worked with Beauty Bay for more than three years. During this time the agency has created its full brand identity, digital experience and designed brand and packaging concepts for previous influencer collaborations.

Branding agency, Shoot the Moon have relocated to the Northern Quarter to a new 7500 sq. ft workspace after 16 years in Ancoats. The £250k investment forms part of a strategic plan to develop wider creative talent, as well as facilitate collaborative and flexible working between teams and clients.

The space has been designed to aid creativity and collaborative working, with creative, content and photography and video teams working seamlessly across one open plan floor. The team pride themselves on producing engaging content, with the flexibility and agility required by the pacy sectors they work within. The new Manchester space supports this ethos, with plenty of open space as teams come back together in the City Centre.

Phil Marshall, Managing Director comments, “A happy, engaged team is a proactive, enthused team. A great place to work is much more than a physical space. Combine it with flexible working, new technologies and a culture of continual learning and recognition, it comes together to create a positive environment for the team to perform and grow.”

Dan Hough, Head of Creative adds, “We’ve been really enjoying settling in and putting our stamp on the space. Our new coffee shop brand ‘Sadler & Swain’ was born during lockdown from a few conversations around the history of our new building. As creatives it’s important to take inspiration from your surroundings and the new space allows us to think, spark ideas and get together to produce awesome work.”

The agency has also announced future plans to host a series of events in the space, continuing to play an active role in the industry and share knowledge from their specialist teams and visiting thought leaders.

Shoot the Moon’s specialist photography and video team, Eat & Breathe, also have a North West base adjacent to the new Manchester space. Complementing the Leeds City Centre facility, it features new, airy studios and a content production kitchen and is led by specialist food photographer Chloe Warde.

The team works with food, retail and leisure brands including Pets at Home, Lakeland, Stoves, Morrisons and TUI.