1,368 reasons to work with DACRE
29 Nov 2024
It was the coldest night of the year.
My son had just been born.
I had just started my paternity leave.
Between nappies, sterilising bottles and feeling joy. Pure unconditional joy.
My brain had started to unwind.
From the sizzling phonetic energy of agency life to Dad life.
When we stop. Stepping out of our busy lives. How we feel and what we actually want have a funny way of coming up for air.
This is where the agency DACRE was born.
From a place of joy.
Long chats, quiet times and fresh air.
Starting from a simple idea. Growing with every thought, chat and push of pen on paper. A whisper of thoughts, feelings and beliefs.
So these are our reasons. Why we exist. Why we are here. Why we are unique.
It’s our mantra, manifesto, call it our vision… it's our reference point.
DACRE isn’t ashamed of its name
We’re not a shop, studio, consultancy or even an evangelical church of creativity & content.
We’re an agency. We create advertising. And our aim is to create the very best. We do this with one goal in mind. Unlock long-term growth and deliver back shareholder value to brands.
We fish upstream.
DACRE works where the tensions lies
Our value as agencies comes from solving tough problems.
It’s about cutting through the layers of fluff, egos, naysayers and bureaucracy to get to the crux of it all. It’s about unravelling the knots, meandering through the twists and turns of commerce, communities and capitalism.
It’s going where the tension lies.
Where others are afraid to go.
It’s being comfortable in the uncomfortable.
It’s in these moments of change, special things happen.
DACRE brings the living room into the boardroom
Success is found in unexpected thinking.
Ten minutes of desk research isn’t going to cut it.
An internal Slack poll, ChatGPT and a meme isn’t going to unlock it.
Our industry for far too long has begged, borrowed and stolen time. To the point we have skip buttons, ad blockers and our audiences depart with their hard earned cash to avoid.
Working based on assumptions from our warped view of the world.
Real people, our customers, don’t feel listened to. They feel shunned, misunderstood and spoken down to.
They can’t pay their bills.
They work hard and still can’t put enough food on the table.
With little hope on the horizon.
Brands play a small role in peoples lives. But that role should be enriching, educating, entertaining and honest.
If we do this, people will reward us. By buying from us and becoming loyal to us.
It’s time to be quiet.
It’s time to speak less.
It’s time to see things from different perspectives.
Go on, argue the other side. Go and read something you disagree with. Study it. Try to understand it, before dismissing it.
It’s about taking a genuine interest in people and why they do the things they do.
Even if you disagree.
It’s about opening ourselves up.
This is where the most nourishing work comes from.
It’s what will pull us apart from algorithms and AI.
Our critical thinking and creative ingenuity.
Unmatched, untapped and what brands are desperately searching for.
Because we’re in the business of people.
Let us not forget.
DACRE seeks new ways of seeing, fresh perspectives and the unusual & unexpected
When I was on holiday in France, I stumbled upon a shrine to the artist Marius Rossillon, known as O’Galop.
The two brothers, Edouard & André Michelin, asked O’Galop to bring to life a character who would later become their iconic brand mascot: The Michelin Man.
One of the world's most distinctive brand assets.
Pair this with the Michelin Guide, the most renowned list of restaurants and hotels in the world. All geared towards getting people out and using their tires more…
It’s simple.
It’s upstream.
It’s pure genius.
It’s why over 130 years on Michelin is still the market leader today.
This clash of commerciality and artistry is what makes our industry unique.
It’s in this tension some of the strongest ideas are forged.
This type of thinking happens when people outside the walled garden enter our industry.
The renegades. The misfits. The thinkers and doers of our time. Mixed together in the melting pot of business and commerce. The slickness of the suit with the freedom of the paintbrush.
For far too long we’ve forgotten the artist's hand.
Leaning far too heavily into the artificial exactness painted by science, data and numbers.
Under the backdrop of skyscrapers, fancy jargon, quarterly planning and last clicks to remember where our ‘why’ lies.
When we just look at ads. Our reference points are ads. Our research is on ads.
We end up creating just another ad.
The most liberating thing is knowing that it doesn’t have to be like this.
You don’t have to be the same.
Because best practice is the paved road to mediocrity.
It’s time to focus on talent outside the norm.
Mixing the 9-5ers with the night owls, gig workers and side hustlers. Across time zones, cultures and communities.
It’s time to think outside the confines of standard formats, placements and campaigns.
It’s time to break the silos of Advertising, PR, Social, Experiential and so on.
It’s time to think idea out. Audience first.
It’s time to unleash our creativity.
DACRE is human led, tech enabled
AI will change the course of our lives. It will be one of the largest accelerators of our time.
It will get us to answers quicker.
Faster to insights, concepts and production.
It will fundamentally change how our industry operates.
It’s about balancing it between enabling us, without letting it consume us.
It’s mixing our own critical thinking, creative ingenuity, and emotional intelligence… all our glorious messiness with the machine of efficiency, greater effectiveness and the ability to do more with less.
It’s finding where the gaps lie.
It’s about leaning into what makes us unique.
Our realness. Taste. Even imperfections.
It’s about the power of our craft, the power of our slowness and the power of being mortal.
Our faults. Our differences. Our diversity. Become some of our biggest USPs.
It’s how we will mix the old with the new. The human and the machine. The real and the artificial.
It’s not one or the other. Us vs them.
It’s in this tension, this moment of change, we will find new magic.
DACRE doesn’t sell time. It sells an advantage.
Our industry's time based model is outdated, dysfunctional and at worse deluded.
It’s a hangover from the media commissions days.
It’s a hangover that we just can’t seem to shift.
It’s one that has commoditised our services. Through a lack of accountability, understanding of our clients businesses and value delivered back.
We’ve quickly slipped down stream.
We’ve become a cost.
Procurement going line by line. Comparing rates, profit margins and mark ups. With agencies waiting in the wings ready to do it for less. It’s the race to the bottom.
It’s not procurement's fault. It’s not AI’s fault. It’s not even the economy's fault.
It’s our fault.
We’ve for far too long taken the easy option. The one we know best. Carrying out unknown amounts of work, for fees plucked out of thin air, shouting from the rooftops ‘‘give them what they want no matter what’.
It’s time to rebrand ourselves.
Moving from throwing bodies at problems to partnerships based on clear outcomes.
Moving from selling creativity and big ideas to selling products built to deliver success.
Moving from a lack of accountability to a culture of people who understand and care deeply about clients and their businesses.
This doesn’t mean we lose our creativity. It’s still our form and function.
Our fuel to our fires. It’s our oxygen.
It’s about pointing it in the right direction.
It’s how we move from being seen as a cost to an advantage.
It’s being the economist, artist and philosopher in the room.
Speaking the language of the people that own, run and are responsible for our clients businesses.
Partnerships that unlock growth, reinvigorate brands and unleash creativity.
It’s time we migrate back upstream.
It’s time we stand tall.
Accountable. Honest. And proud of who we are.