NEWS & VIEWS

As the holiday season hits Simon shares why giving yourself permission to waste your holiday and do nothing is sometimes the best thing you can do.

Why agency envy is a waste of time and how Animo avoids the bunfights to focus on what matters: doing great work.

From ego traps to pitch theatrics, Simon Culley shares the seven deadly sins he avoids as a creative agency founder. This week it's all about wrath

Why squeezing every penny out of your agency, or your client, leaves everyone poorer.

What I don’t do as a ‘Suit’ owning my own agency – the Seven Deadly Sins of Agency-land.  Pride: Because nothing says 'teamwork' like a four-hour ego battle and a cleaner’s opinion on beer.

In the creative world, B2B marketing has long been seen as the less exciting, more sensible sibling of B2C. The one who insists on an early night while B2C is out there leading the conga. While consumer brands revel in big ideas, emotional storytelling, and lavish campaigns, B2B often plays it safe – functional messaging, corporate jargon, and visuals that could double as stock images for a PowerPoint template titled ‘We’re business people’. But why? Are B2B customers wired differently? Are the stakes higher? Or has the industry just convinced itself that ‘serious’ has to mean ‘dry’? The truth is, B2B marketing has just as much potential to be bold, memorable and (dare I say it) actually enjoyable. Some brands are already proving it – including a few we’re proud to call clients. So, isn’t it about time the rest of the industry caught up?

For this edition of ‘Thoughts by Animo’, I’m taking a look at how creative teams turn a proposition into a big idea. Think of it as a creative hack pack; a guide to unlocking fresh, impactful concepts from a brief. And what better way to illustrate ‘7 Ways to Generate Big Ideas from a Brief’ than by showing them in action? So I dug into the archives and pulled out some ideas that never made the final cut from a past campaign for Octopus Investments. When we first tackled this brief a few years back, we came up with a whole range of ideas…some great, some less so… but all part of the creative process. Here are some of the strongest, demonstrating how these creative hacks work in practice.

Creativity needs habits. It needs curiosity, problem-solving, and play. It needs the kind of thinking that can’t be automated. That’s why our Creative Director, Chris, swears by a few go-to habits to keep ideas fresh and thinking sharp.

This year’s Super Bowl ads gave us plenty to talk about, from nostalgia done right to satire that actually respected the audience. But not every brand got it right… some left us baffled.

After 25 years in the industry, I’ve learned that being a decent Creative Director matters far more than being a ‘great’ one. Read on for thoughts on trust, feedback, and why sometimes, the best thing you can do is just get out of the way.

Copywriters are magpies hoarding ideas, remixing inspiration, and crafting brilliance. But with AI now 'interfering' with the creative process at scale, what happens next?

As we celebrate the beginning of the lunar new year, it's a perfect time for your brand to draw inspiration from the powerful qualities of the Dragon.

Biodexa Pharmaceuticals has enlisted the expertise of Animo as their creative agency for an upcoming USA-based clinical study on a groundbreaking brain tumour treatment.

Our compelling brand campaign has evolved into the show-stopping 'Impossible Stand,' unveiled by sensXPERT at JEC World 2023.