Creative founders of advertising and production agency Who Wot Why, Sean Thompson and Matt Gooden have worked together for 25 years in total, picking up Cannes Lions and D&AD Awards for their creative work for the likes of Honda at Wieden+Kennedy. Back then, people would anticipate Honda ads, such was their reputation for game-changing creativity.
With Who Wot Why representing a move away from the big agency network way of working, they have established an approach that represents value for clients, with big thinking and creative ideas designed to take brands through their next 25 years. They represent value for brands looking to do more than make a momentary splash.
The pair, along with joint managing directors Charles Faircloth and Marissa Jennings, spoke to DCA about what sets them apart.
Questioning nature
“The name [Who Wot Why] is embedded in everything we do from the strategy to the screens,” says Thompson. “We start by asking questions,” adds Gooden. “Simple questions lead to great answers”. They are quick to clarify that this does not mean being provocative or confrontational with the client, describing it rather as “the grit in the oyster” – nuanced thinking around a topic that leads to unexplored avenues and ideas that work to define brands and elevate them into a league of their own within a category.
“We call it the Who Wot Why Way, and it is all about making people feel something and want to take part. Our particular method of asking questions and the leaps that we take from the answers, generates proven results,” says Thompson. “The output is designed to smash categories and redefine the way brands communicate. We deliver exceptionally crafted work that wins the hearts and minds of consumers and sells their product or service,” says Gooden.
Their work defines new standards of creative excellence. The team’s Spotify ‘Listen Like You Used To’ speaks in the language of a generation who were initially skeptical of the platform, yet love music. WWW’s research discovered that people’s musical tastes are set in their teenage years, and how they listen before is a powerful way to communicate right now.
Part of the Who Wot Why Way is to redefine the market. They put the unspoken subject of responsible gambling to the fore of major Sky Bet multi-media advertising, and they developed tools to use within the app to prompt people to take time out. This led to a revolution in the industry and helped make responsible gambling a category requirement.
Their branding for tofu company Tofoo has turned the mindset of the tricky-to-work-with ingredient into a convenience staple. Their latest work for Pip & Nut taps into the major fixation of the nutbutter’s superfans, digging into the truth of how people interact with the product. “The ideas are very much particular to that brand and can be really owned by that brand,” says Jennings.
They don’t limit themselves to particular categories, delivering across multiple verticals, working with everyone from food and drink, to sport, to entertainment, to financial, to charity to environmental campaigning and from big established brands to those new to the market. However, there is something clients that work well with Who Wot Why tend to have in common: an entrepreneurial mindset and a desire to really put their budgets to work.
Ideas that travel
The Who Wot Why team explain their work as “ideas that travel”, a metaphor that speaks to the business nouse behind the creative execution. Their work not only ‘travels’ globally, but also through time, built to define the brand positioning, setting it up for a long and fruitful future. “There are some great ideas out there in the world of advertising, but then next year it's not the same thing. There’s no DNA going on. And that’s what sets us apart,” says Jennings.
“We don't like making wallpaper. We like to challenge the way that a client will think. When we talk about the best bang for your buck, we mean don’t spend £400,000 on an out-of-home campaign that everybody walks by.”
They couple this with fast-moving high-end production, which is delivered as a pillar of the business. The company has a full production capability that includes directing, and this offering has been increasingly compelling to clients over the last few years as they push for efficiencies without impacting quality. The benefits of this, says Gooden are, “We find that it does lead to great work that really sticks to the plan, and that’s quite unusual in our industry. It also means more can be delivered with a more achievable budget as well”.
A fine-tuned flat structure
Providing their own antidote to their earlier career experiences at big agencies, the Who Wot Why team favour a way of working that cuts the bloat and the hierarchy. Though they bring big agency backgrounds, they operate more nimbly.
“We believe in being a really tight core team so you know we're not inflated. But everyone we've got is really, really good. And then we expand when we need to. So we're a bit like a magazine. You would bring in an expert when you need to,” explains Thompson. “We don’t just think that’s the future for our business, but for all business. This is the way small companies beat huge conglomerates, it is through their people. A tight group of people is better than a broad 150.”
“We don’t have loads of layers, which means we can be quite nimble,” adds Jennings, who describes the culture as “not hierarchical”, where the senior leadership makes the tea, and decisions can be made quickly. And when you work with Who Wot Why, it’s that experienced team who’ll be doing the work, unlike larger companies when you might only see them in the pitch.
“There's none of the inefficiencies that you get in bigger places. It's just a set of people with a belief,” says MD Faircloth. “And the great thing is when you're founded by creatives, there is no different agenda. There is one agenda, which is to get the best product out the door.
.jpg)
.jpg)
