OUR STORY

From culture and experiences through to advertising and design, we’ve always been absolute suckers for great creative work. After hustling for work experience at Sky News and Smash Hits, Katie started working in advertising at the tender age of 17, leaving a lacklustre BTEC in ‘multimedia’ to hit the bright lights of work. Wanting to work in telly, Katie quickly secured a job as the only employee of a start-up ad agency. What a dizzying start to agency life. Advertising had won. Lucy’s background is undeniably rockstar. Her Dad was in music A&R, whilst her Mum was on Campaign’s front page, owing to her creating the world famous ‘finger of fudge’ jingle amongst other addictive and familiar sounds. Lucy’s Mum was a pre-adopter of Byron Sharp’s thinking…From these beginnings, Lucy sharpened her communication and negotiating skills at the cliff edge. Recruitment for creative agencies. Becoming a development partner for agencies was the natural next step.

Skipping on a couple of marketing posts later and coming back to the UK in 2002, Katie and Lucy found themselves sitting next to each other at a leading UK new business consultancy, for whom Katie, at a promotional marketing agency - when they were still called that - had been a client. Through this experience, and having that valuable client perspective, led us to create a different type of agency. One with an offer that puts the client at the heart and centre, where we share objectives and (pain). Where we operate as a true part of their business. That would save clients time and money, whilst representing a stronger offering than they could afford full-time. That would provide the right, experienced team to work with an agency to build reputation and growth.

It sounds straight-forward, but we just didn’t see that kind of offer in-market back then. Cherry was the first UK new business agency to create ‘in-house’ out of house. Our old boss told us it would never work. But that was more about not having ‘control’ over your team. In times of COVID-19, presenteeism is on the wane and that’s all to clients benefit. We’ve always believed in outcomes, not outputs. 

Our approach has been effective; we attracted smart people. Our team and alumni are famous strategists, leaders, entrepreneurs and founders in their own right. The quality of people and service has led to our clients referring us in, and coming back in some guise or other. We’re hugely proud that we have client relationships that span 5-16 years.

We’ve helped all types and shapes of agency from famous brands like Saatchi & Saatchi, Conran, Leo Burnett, MullenLowe and Publicis, to leading independents like Arthur, United Culture, Iris, Istoria Group and ico.