Picture this: You’re a marketing director scrolling through design agency websites, after getting some recommendations from industry friends. Agency after agency promises to “transform your business,” “create bold brands for brave companies,” and “help ambitious brands thrive in a changing world.” Before long, your head starts to throb, your eyes glaze over, and you decide that rebrand might not be so urgent after all.
It’s an open industry secret: branding agencies are surprisingly bad at branding themselves. Our audit of 150 UK design agencies revealed a sector ably helping clients differentiate, but often failing to take its own medicine.
What’s holding agencies back?
After talking to dozens of industry insiders, we identified some core obstacles preventing agencies from thinking like brands. These include:
A portfolio mentality
Designers are raised on the belief that “the work speaks for itself.” This mindset, ingrained from design school through job interviews, creates agencies that treat their website like a glorified CV rather than a brand-building tool. Yes, clients need to see evidence. But if every agency focuses solely on showcasing past work without articulating a clear point of view, they might find themselves limited to simply doing more of the same.
A bias towards servicing clients
Agencies are so consumed by billable work that their own brand gets relegated to “whenever we have time.” As Bryan Kidd, founder of Maven, told us: “We’re brilliant at solving positioning challenges for clients, but when it’s our own turn, suddenly the clarity vanishes. It’s like trying to cut your own hair with a blindfold on.”
Wanting to impress peers
The design community is tight-knit, and, frankly, a bit incestuous. Awards and what other creatives think often occupy more headspace than what clients need to hear. This can end up meaning messages are crafted to impress other designers. Valuable for recruitment, perhaps, but unhelpful for clients trying to understand why you’re worth working with.
Focus-phobia
Design agencies are often terrified of narrowing down because they’re operating on financial knife-edges. When times are tough (and they have been), there’s enormous pressure to cast the widest possible net. But this defensive thinking creates the exact opposite of what brand strategy demands: standing for something specific.
The anti-marketing pose
In parts of the creative industry, there’s a belief that marketing is somehow beneath true artists. Some agencies wear their lack of messaging as a badge of honor, as if caring about commercial success sullies their creative purity. If you’re famous enough, you can get away with this. But for most agencies, it’s self-defeating.
Who’s getting it right?
We found 25 agencies across the UK that prove there’s another way—studios committing to clear and singular ideas and articulating their promise in language you haven’t heard before.
Take Boring, an agency that transforms brands “in the world’s dullest industries.” The name alone makes you pay attention, and there’s a clear promise of B2C-level creativity for B2B businesses in sectors like manufacturing and logistics. Founder Tash Peskin explained her thinking: “I knew that if I wanted the attention of the right marketing leaders, I had to let them self-select. Did they think their industry was boring? If not, brand was always going to be an uphill battle.”
Lucky Dip promises “building great brands is an undeniably good time,” addressing the joy-sucking nature of too many agency relationships. I Am Female leads with “We’re the queer-led brand communications agency for brands tired of the same-old sh*t.” And Crush have built their brand around craft, committing to this concept more fully than anyone else.
These agencies, along with 21 more in our showcase, understand that being the perfect agency for some people is more valuable than being an okay option for anyone.
18 ways to position your agency
The default agency positioning playbook revolves around three approaches: talk about transformation, claim sector expertise, or promise positive impact. But, using our BrandStrand® framework, we show how agencies can build a narrative around 18 different fundamental forms of value, from convenience and enjoyment to security and community.
Five messaging mantras
For agencies ready to escape commoditization, here are five principles to live by:
- Be authentic: Stop trying to be all things to all people. You already have a superpower—unearth it and amplify it.
- Think value: Translate your strengths into client benefits. Stop talking to other designers and give clients a reason to care.
- Keep it simple: Your brand idea should be graspable in seconds. The richness and texture comes from how you bring it to life.
- Own the words: Even if your promise isn’t unique, your language can be. Make your message unmissable and your words memorable.
- Go all in: This isn’t just web copy or a tagline. It’s how you show up everywhere, every day.
The stakes have never been higher
Clients are overwhelmed by options and budgets are tighter than ever. In this environment, being forgettable can be fatal. As one agency leader we spoke to put it: “Why would any client trust an agency to position and differentiate their brand if the agency can’t position and differentiate their own?”
Getting agency positioning right takes a little courage, and plenty of commitment, but it’s really not complicated at all. We hope our Fully Saturated masterclass and report will help agencies big and small find the ideas they’re excited to be known for—and communicate them like nobody else.
About Fully Saturated
Hosted by Emily Penny and Joel Stein, the Fully Saturated agency positioning masterclass takes place on September 16, 2025. You’ll discover 18 possible strategies, see real examples of agencies getting this right, and leave with a clear way forward for your own brand. When you book your spot, you’ll also receive an 80-page report and Google Sheet packed with agency messaging insight you won’t find anywhere else. Book your place at fully-saturated.com.
Joel Stein is a writer and creative consultant with an MA in Media & Journalism. Before going independent in 2023, Joel led the content practice at design and innovation agency Code Computerlove. His background spans copywriting, content strategy, and brand strategy. In 2022, he authored Idea Tactics (published by Pip Decks)—a creative thinking card deck used by teams at organizations like Nike, LEGO, and the UK Cabinet Office. Joel writes about brands and creativity for MediaCat Magazine, and publishes a newsletter—Weirdness Wins—exploring the fuzzy edges of culture, communication, and consciousness.
Emily Penny is a brand strategist and copywriter with a degree in fine art and art history and an MA in marketing. She has spent 25 years in branding including working with Circus, Together Design, Johnson Banks, Motto, Havas, and Sarah Robb, and with clients of all sizes from start-ups to high street names. She has worked as a lecturer teaching branding at London Metropolitan University and sat on award juries for D&AD and Design Week. Emily founded Becolourful in 2013 and heads up a team of associates from her office in Chichester, West Sussex. She launched her unique BrandStrand® positioning framework in 2024.
Leave a Reply