CASE STUDIES

• Add Juice
• AG Design
• Altcom Ltd
• Atlantic FM
• Business Cornwall
• Channel Computing
• Clarity
• Design for Sport
• German IT Development
• Go24
• InfoTeam
• IntoArt Solutions LLP
• Leap Media
• Niddocks
• Richard Quick Design
• Roskear Holdings
• Sea Communications
• Seed Brand Communications
• Webfooted Designs
• Wild Card PR

REPORTS

ICT and Media

Wayne Deakin has worked all over the world. Australian born, he had undertaken branding and design projects in South East Asia, China and USA before moving to the UK over ten years ago.  Having built up significant creative marketing expertise, Wayne teamed up with friends and fellow creative professionals, Mark, Sue and Matt. Between them they had a range of large agency experience and they all shared the desire to create a new kind of agency.

Wayne says "Although we are an independent agency, we are also now part of a bigger agency network which means we have access to our sister offices in Bristol, London and Cardiff. This means clients can now choose to work just with us or can call on our network relationship to deliver national media buying and major branding and advertising skills and benefits. This has worked really well for our Cornish clients that are looking to grow their sales on a national level and not just in the county. "We are all passionate about our work and see it as more than just a day job. Between us we have won over 30 awards for our creative work, so collectively clients benefit from our big agency expertise".

The Seed Brand team were based all around the country so choosing the location for their business was up for discussion.  "We all wanted to work in a creative environment and had discussed the possibility of working flexibly, and we also wanted to seek a better lifestyle. Any location was open to us. Matt is from Cornwall and I have some Cornish heritage, so we decided to check out how feasible it was. We are also surfers, so the prospect of being close to the sea was very appealing!" says Wayne.

The environment is also very important to Seed Brand; "Cornwall was also chosen as a suitable business location as we felt as a county it was committed to the environment. We are keen to be as sustainable a business as possible and Cornwall supports this ethos - which makes good business sense for us and our clients".

The business is located in a former piggery on a working Dairy Farm that is part of the Bolitho Estate in Penzance. The company operates a flexible working policy. All employees are linked to their virtual private network, providing secure access to files both on and off site 24/7.

"This means that wherever we are, be it stuck in an airport for two hours or in Cornwall, we have immediate, secure access to work files which brings better return on investment for our clients and provides our staff with a quality of life that is not attainable when working for a big agency."

Workforce
Wayne says "All employees bring different skills to the team and operate a flat structure to ensure clients get the right mix of expertise for each project and we can match skills to the job at hand."

Technology
All employees are Mac based and have access to remote desktops and video conferencing. "We believe the ability to work flexibly encourages creativity and lets us work successfully wherever we might be. You don't often get your best idea sitting at your desk. At Seed we have created a new working structure, which results in motivated employees, better creative output and happy clients."

Support
The Council helped set up introductions for Seed with local business networks and groups. Cornwall Pure Business (now known as InvestinCornwall) has provided advice and guidance with regard to networking and marketing and Seed sourced its premises on InvestinCornwall's website.

Clients
Seed works with retained clients and on one- off projects with clients including: Vitacress, the salad company for whom Seed rebranded several products resulting in contracts with leading supermarkets in the UK and Europe; for Emmi, an International Swiss Dairy Drinks Brand; high profile brands including Jack Daniels, Southern Comfort and Spy. New clients include: P&G, Cable and Wireless, LS, Sure, London Transport, First and Yukos Oil. Seed have also recently rebranded and launched the UK Festival Awards (The UK music industry awards for music festivals).

The business has secured a number of local clients too, undertaking advertising/branding for Valcent EU, Cornwall Care, Global Borders, West Cornwall Business Network, Kerrier Council, Concerts Penzance, Inside Cornwall Magazine, Spiezia, Hotpod Designer Stoves and Cornwall Retail Skills.