At the end of June 2016, Natalie Graeme, Lucy Jameson and Nils Leonard, quit Grey London after turning it into the creative agency most talked about for its uncommon ad ideas, such as The Angina Monologues for the British Heart Foundation in 2010, and Life Paint for Volvo in 2015, both of which ignited the frustrations that led to their leaving big agency life.
Now the trio has launched Uncommon Creative Studio, an agency through which they intend to build brands “that people in the real world wish existed”. Uncommon plans to launch its own brands as well as working with existing ones and start-up businesses. It also hopes to work with existing clients, turning ideas within their businesses into brands and products people want.
What sets it apart from other agencies that start up brands or own products, the agency states, is that Uncommon cares about the types of brands it wants to build and the businesses it works with. It will build brands that do things differently and make a difference in the world, and businesses that people are happy exist.
The agency intends to set aside Fridays as a day when the staff and company as a whole will work only on Uncommon’s own brands.
Graeme has become business lead (ex-MD Grey London), Jameson, strategy lead (ex-CEO Grey London) and Leonard, creative lead (ex-CCO Grey London). It plans to use a team of affiliated strategists and creative specialists around the world to work on projects as swell as having its own core team in-house.
l-r: Natalie Graeme, Lucy Jameson and Nils Leonard
The foundation of the new agency’s philosophy is the research knowledge that the majority of people wouldn’t care if 75% of the world’s brands disappeared.
Uncommon launches with two clients, Leonard’s first fully compostable coffee capsule for home coffee machines, Halo, and Headstart, a business that is using machine learning to redefine how the business of recruitment works.
