Team Darwin was started by Greg Phitidis and Nick Radley. Here’s a little bit about them.
Greg Phitidis
Founder, Chief Creative
In his first year in advertising Greg won his first award. On the plane from his native South Africa to pick it up in London, although excited, he felt a bit uneasy. There was no apparent evidence that his campaign for HP (the computers, not the sauce) had actually worked.
After 10 years as Creative Director, working a small agency into the UK’s top 30, and with more awards along the way, Greg’s preoccupation with effectiveness has only grown.
“I believe in the power of a great idea to accelerate a brand’s value. But we all know that ideas that seem good don’t always deliver the results. To me that says that something’s missing in the development phase.”
Greg believes we have to build our latest understanding of how the mind works when interpreting brand communications into the early development of ideas. It turned out that to achieve that required a complete rethink on how an agency works, from top to bottom.
Nick Radley
Founder, Chief Strategist
Nick grew up surrounded by creative directors and photographers and although this didn’t help him gain his two science degrees it did allow him to believe that creative ideas and science are not mutually exclusive.
Nick spent his formative years actively developing ideas through Qual research where he interviewed about 12,000 people in the UK and watched a whole lot more around the world. Working on the best brands at the highest level meant Nick learned fast the value of great insight and strategy.
It was during his time as a planning director though that Nick’s belief in the idea was re-affirmed. “You can have the best insight and strategy in the world but if you haven’t got a great idea to deliver it you end up with advertising that is clumsy at best, second rate at worst.” What’s more, Nick realised how crucial the creative development phase was in shaping that idea. He believes that all too often really useful insight and research feedback is not incorporated until later in the process (if at all) – when the idea has already been ‘set’.
“The best time for the ‘science’ and the idea to meet are early on and it shouldn’t just involve agency personnel, it should involve neuroscientists, digital experts and many more”.
To get this to happen without bias or the need to ‘sell the idea to the client’ requires a re-think in the way that clients get their campaign ideas.
The result of both their thinking is Team Darwin.
Charlie
CFO (Chief Flapping Officer)
This chap is a highly evolved member of the team. You can tell by his hat. He joined us almost as soon as we took the name Team Darwin, as finches were some of the first creatures in which Mr. Darwin observed the processes of evolution.
