Creative Consultancy
Creative Health-Check
North Star
Creative Direction & Ideation
Brand Tone Of Voice
As founder and creative partner of the brand consultancy, Harbour, I worked on a project basis with clients looking to bypass the retained agency model. Offering flexible access to senior talent to solve their most pressing problems, often plugging in to, or powering up, their In-House capability. Having sold Harbour earlier this year, I continue to work with brands directly in the same way.
“Mick is committed to great work; not just something that works. He understands great creative is necessary to solve business problems, and spares no effort to understand the business, the consumer and also the client as an organization and also as people.
He is a rare breed that can bring the business mind and the creative mind together to find wonderfully effective solutions to problems. He is a fantastic person to work with. He is collaborative, eager to listen but also kindly firm in defending what he believes is the right thing to do. “
Bilge Ciftci. Ex Head of Brand - Vodafone UK
“Mick is hugely talented. More importantly, he is one of the nicest people you will meet. He speaks in plain English, engages with everyone in the business, listens to feedback and will genuinely never settle for ‘good enough.’
He makes the process as rewarding as the end result and if you work with him you’re in for a fun and inspiring journey.“
Miruna Constantinescu. CMO - McCarthy Stone
“Mick has an incredible ability to distill a brand down to a 3 or 4 word phrase. I've been really lucky to work with him in completely different contexts and he's always produced excellent work.
His collaborative process is thorough, efficient and really enjoyable. It means he's able to bring stakeholders with him, regardless of their background and secure their support.”
Tom Gornall. HO Brand & Product Mkting - Vio.com
“Mick delivered creative for Fitbit/Google that not only stood out from anything in our category, but overdelivered on the brief of launching a piece of thought leading, premium brand film.
It was a challenging but successful answer to the client brief. Mick is an absolute pleasure to work with and really listens to clients needs at all times. I would highly recommend working him.”
Joanne Savage. Ex EMEA CMO - Fitbit/Google
Creative Health- Check.
Sometimes you just need someone who knows what they are doing to give you an independent audit of your communications. A health-check. So that you can move forward with clear diagnostics.
Just how do you compare to your competitors? What are the opportunities in the category that aren’t being exploited? Is your messaging as cut through as it could be? How consistent are you across all touch-points? How could it be improved? Are you working with the best people? I can give you answers to all of these questions using my 30+ years of world class experience. Includes in-person presentation and 2 hours of workshopping if required.
The Creative Health-Check process takes 1-3 weeks depending on level of detail & touch-points covered.
OUTPUT:
Presentation that contains:
You vs your competitors.
Category messaging tropes. How to stand out more.
What are the unexplored opportunities in your category?
How consistent are you across all touch-points?
Recommended ways forward.
Quick wins.
A North Star is the undeniable expression of what you do, and why that matters to your customers. Used to inspire consistency in all your internal and external brand behaviours. In product, services, and communications.
30+ years of experience have been distilled into a thorough, yet deceptively simple process to give a brand an unshakeable platform to build from.
But what makes my North Star unique is that it isn’t just a strategic document, it also delivers a long term creative platform with example comms messaging and organisation wide behaviours, so that it’s ready to go straight into creative executional development. Saving you a huge amount of time, and money because you won’t have to find someone else to brief it to, and hope that they get your brand as well as I do!
North Star.
The North Star process takes 5-8 weeks depending on timelines and budgets.
OUTPUT:
North Star platform.
Full internal sell-in deck/materials.
North Star Manifesto script/film.
Creative Platform expression.
Example Comms messaging.
Example Brand behaviours.
Stakeholder management.
Once developed , I can work with either: your in-house team, your agency partners, or my partners to execute it. Please get in contact for examples of North Star Projects.
“The North Star has been the critical underpinning of all facets of our long term brand strategy and behaviours. And I would highly recommend this approach to anyone looking to build a forever brand.
Barney Harrison. CMO, The Gym Group
“The North Star was what we needed before we put pen to paper on anything. Before we could brief anyone internally or externally we needed the one true direction from which everything could flow and follow. Put simply, that is the North Star.”
Simeon Bird. CMO, BT
Creative Direction & Ideation.
Whether you need help to develop the creative platform and executions that result from a Creative Health-Check or North Star project, or you just need flexible creative leadership support to help your in-house team develop a new campaign, I can get you to a brilliant creative outcome.
As a creative director I’ve run 7 of the UK’s top 10 most valuable brands. And a number of the world’s most valuable brands. I’ve CCO’d 3 of the most successful network agencies in the UK. And been included in Campaign’s list of top creative directors at each of them. I’ve written countless award winning ads in every medium imaginable: not so short-films for Johnnie Walker and Chivas, an ‘Integrated Christmas Blockbuster’ for Boots, press ads for Nike, TV ads for Vodafone, (yes, award winning tv ads for Vodafone! Not an easy feat) twitter posts for Amnesty, BBC interstitials, the list goes on.
As well as hundreds of brand ads and campaigns for the likes of BA, BBC, Boots, Barclays, Vodafone, Amnesty International, The British Legion, Sipsmith, Mondelez, Santander…
Once the work is developed I can oversee production if required. I can also help to keep future creative development on track with regular check-ins.
For more examples of work please take a look at the writing and creative direction sections of this site.
“Mick is a master of his craft, and a pleasure to watch at work. He operates with a quiet assurance that only comes from a lifetime of experience. He does this with innate empathy for people, cultures, brands and clients.”
Barney Harrison. CMO The Gym Group
“Mick is brilliant. An amazing creative director and creative mind. His talents produced incredible advertising campaigns for The Athletic. At the time, I knew working with him was special, I now know that it was a career highlight.“
Sinead Bunting. CMO The Athletic
Brand TOV.
As a result of a Creative Health Check or a North Star project, many clients have asked me to create a Brand Tone of Voice Guide for their in-house teams or agency partners.
The Brand TOV guide is an essential document for inspiring consistency through your team and wider organisation.
A consistency of tone, language, messaging, and imagery helps build recognition for your brand more efficiently. It will also help you to avoid misattribution, undermining your positioning, and erosion of brand value.
The Brand TOV guide process takes 2-4 weeks depending on level of detail and outputs required.
OUTPUT:
Detailed TOV explanation.
Example messaging.
Application across major touch-points.
Use of imagery.
