Design Week: Coverage of Fully Saturated

As published in Design Week

Emily Penny and Joel Stein's new report aims to help design leaders level up their brand messaging and better capture their specific value.

“We transform businesses with rigorous thinking and crafted creativity. We build standout brands that create fans, fuel growth, and leave a lasting, positive impact in a fast-changing world.”

That’s what Chat GPT came up with when the authors of a new report asked it to write an example of a design studio “About us” statement using the most common ideas they unearthed in their research.

Emily Penny of Becolourful and Joel Stein of Chaos & Co have previously worked together on several brand voice projects for design agencies. During their competitor analysis, they kept seeing the same words and phrases cropping up again and again.

So the pair decided to conduct an “in-depth analysis identifying the patterns, challenges and opportunities when it comes to positioning a branding agency.” The result is Fully Saturated, a deep dive report which Penny describes as “therapy for the whole sector.”

“We’ve listened to people in the industry and want to air some of the reasons why creative agencies might be allergic to taking their own medicine,” she explains. “Because if we are all more aware of the challenges and obstacles, it takes us one step closer to addressing them.”

Characterful copy found on I Am Female’s website, featured in Fully Saturated

They have reviewed the websites of 150 design companies across the UK, compiling a list of what they call “the most tired terms” but also seeking out best-in-class examples that score highly for their angle, relevance and memorability.

Some of those praised in the report include Manchester-based EDIT, for its “niche expertise” in the arts and culture sector, Lucky Dip’s focus on the experience of working with the agency, and Small World, for its positioning around flexibility.

The report also highlights Bulletproof and Crush for owning ideas around desire and craft respectively, as well as I Am Female, “a proudly queer-led” studio that has a “provocative alternative attitude to match.”

But overall, Penny and Stein feel most agencies aren’t bringing the same level of thinking to their own brands that they offer clients.

“In particular, the well-known London agencies have familiar promises and language,” they write in the report. “The emphasis is on transformation and change, the ideas are abstract, vague and impersonal.

“Where is the bravery that branding agencies call for? Where are the big ideas and the memorable slogans? Why are branding agencies reluctant to see their own businesses as brands?”

“Clients don’t understand the bollocks we talk.”

They believe this sea of sameness poses a risk to the UK design industry, with the quality of these positioning statements not matching the world-leading work produced by UK design firms.

“The creative sector is under all sorts of pressure and agencies need to get clear on their proposition,” Penny says. “There’s a tendency not to think of agencies as ‘brands,’ and to skip on doing the homework. We want to inspire studios of all sizes to look beyond the same promises we see time and time again.

“We want to see some bold and clear thinking; a point of view. Too many agencies are trying to be all things to all people and operating like commodities.”

Stein agrees. “The UK is known for its creativity but agencies mustn’t get complacent. Agencies in the US and Europe are starting to lead the way with interesting angles and big personalities. As a client, it must be very hard sometimes to distinguish one agency from the next.”

Emily Penny and Joel Stein’s Fully Saturated report

The Fully Saturated findings echo what those who commission agencies told this year’s What Clients Thing report.

64% of clients said the “about us” sections of new business presentations “tend to be quite similar and undifferentiated” – those that do stand out usually have an “engaging story, consistent ethos and distinct culture.”

61% said they find it difficult to work out what an agency is best at when looking at their website, and 79% said it would be helpful if agencies “stated more clearly on their websites the type of clients they really want to work with.”

One of the problems, Stein says, is the tone of many agency positioning statements.

“The overall impression is of an industry that takes itself rather seriously,” Stein says. “There’s lots of talk of change and transformation, but often it’s the agencies that lead with more joyful, more playful messaging that feel most distinctive. Dollop, with its inimitable tone of voice, Analogue, with its absolute focus on play, and Stranger & Stranger, with the best origin story I’ve ever seen, all spring to mind.”

As part of the report, Stein and Penny have compiled a list of the most common “overused phrases” based on how often they appear in Google searches. The top five are:

Stand out in a crowded market

Make your brand unforgettable

Stand out and stand for something

We bring brands to life

Make your brand impossible to ignore

The list includes three variations on a similar theme – “We’re not just a design agency,” “We’re not like other agencies” and “We’re not your average agency” – which suggests that studios are aware of the need to differentiate, but are doing it in strikingly similar ways.

In fact, the authors of the report say that design leaders know that too many design businesses sound the same. “Most people in the sector know it’s an issue; they told us so,” they write. “We’re not revealing anything new here.”

Dave Corlette of Bristol-based agency Shaped By is one of those quoted in Fully Saturated. “We don’t spend enough time looking at just how homogenous the agency landscape is,” he says. “I genuinely think some founders think their agency is the only one that helps ambitious future-facing brands to thrive in a modern world.”

Magnus & Co founder Rebecca Magnus puts it even more succinctly – “Clients don’t understand the bollocks we talk.”

Penny and Stein suggest several explanations for this homogeneity, including a “portfolio mentality” that believes the work speaks for itself, challenges around making time to work on an agency’s own brand alongside client projects, ego, and a lack of diversity among design leaders.

“Diversity of people will naturally lead to wider perspectives and more varied brands,” they write.

Emily Penny and Joel Stein’s Fully Saturated report

And they propose five ways agencies can level up the way they talk about themselves, which include being specific about what they can do for clients that no other agency can, and using “ownable words” to make more memorable messaging.

And while the report contains some criticisms of the sector, Penny and Stein maintain this tough love will strengthen the UK design industry.

“We conclude with a call to arms,” they write.

“This is a saturated and competitive sector. But let’s not forget what we preach to clients: building a brand is how you make selling easier. We want agencies to step away from commoditisation, to lean into their genuine point of difference and to develop more substantial thought leadership about it.

“In the UK, we have a world-leading creative sector – let’s keep it that way as we navigate the inevitable challenges of the next few years.”

The report summary is available for free – you can download it and buy the full version here