We're featured in The Times

25 Sep 2025

Extract from the 'What I learnt' section that ran in The Times.

I like to keep things personal

Dacre is named after my grandfather. When you’re trying to name a company without sounding like someone off The Apprentice, it’s quite difficult.

I wanted something personal that was also fascinating. Like, “What does Dacre mean? How do you pronounce that?” It’s a bit of an icebreaker.

My grandfather’s family owned a very small mill in Kent, in a place called Tonge. Dacre means trickling stream, and the mill was above a trickling stream, hence why I think he was called Dacre.

It’s a very loose connection, but I like that water‘s always changing, you never step in the same river twice. I just felt connected to it. I’m really interested in that moment of change, in companies that need reviving, like a heritage brand or a brand that might be struggling.

I knew I needed to stand out

[I started writing letters] straight away because I needed a way that was going to cut through and be different to what everyone else is doing. Especially in a quite commoditised world like advertising, all agencies sound the same and do the same stuff unless you’re really big or established.

So I thought about what are these little pockets of differentiators that I have to my advantage? And I was like “I bet you no one’s writing letters”.

Read the full article here.