Stoke & Dagger

Please describe your company and your position there.

I was the Head of Social Media and Content for Paddy Power Betfair part of Flutter Entertainment

For what projects/services did your company hire Stoke & Dagger?

• Full brief content activations around key sports events.
• Video and motion graphics production to execute concepts created by my team.
• Motion graphics support for our internal video production team for online edits.
• Retainer for ongoing social media and content executions.

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

Before starting with Stoke & Dagger, they already served our internal creative department for motion graphic needs. Upon seeing the quality of their work, we engage with them more to deliver the volume of outputs needed. Their PM team is top class in managing our work, on top of their business model to have design and production resource available for quick turnaround of projects. To deliver at pace and the quality received is second to none.

Describe the project in detail and walk through the stages of the project.

As the project varied in scale and ways we briefed in, it would take thousands of words to explain the support and quality of their work. Paul & Amanda manage our day to day and long lead needs equally the same. The longer lead concepts took a more traditional route: - Informing them of incoming work. - Submitting a brief - Kick-off call to discuss the brief in detail - Rounds of tissues and response to the brief And so on. Short lead or reactive could be brief in a number of ways, but regardless of how vague or detail we were projects were taken, interpreted and develop at pace, sometimes in a matter of hours.

How many resources from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

Normally we would work with two-three client-facing members of the team. Project managers the main contact and creative directors coming into the process if/when responding to a creative brief.

Can you share any outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I but rate the quality of their design/motion graphics, as we developed our concepts and content on our channels we saw in tandem growth in reach and engagement with the quality of the design/production a pivotal role in grabbing attention across social media feeds.

How effective was the workflow between your team and theirs?

As a team, we were chaotic for the majority of briefs given to Stoke & Dagger but they supported and delivered no matter how vague or detailed our briefs were. The quality of their account management and design outputs are some of the best I've worked with.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

I'm always blown away by the quality of their output and turnaround time. Now that's not to endorse others to act in the same way as if we brief better and gave longer lead times - the quality would improve even more. They felt like an extension of my team, our relationship was great and working with Amanda and Paul was always a pleasure.

They love their work as much as I do so it made work too easy. Lastly many agencies in the traditional groups give an impression of understanding social media creative/production however this was NOT the case with Stoke and Dagger. Spending wasteful time and amends over the basics of knowing the platforms with other agencies was irritating and added to cost, whereas Stoke and Dagger know the platforms and this was rarely an issue saving time and money.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

No. Simply they should charge more as I have not mentioned this until now. They are a huge value for money when compared to other agencies/production houses.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I’m the design lead at OMD UK, which is part of the Omnicom Group. We work with a lot of travel companies and some cruise lines.

What challenge were you trying to address with Stoke & Dagger?

When I moved over to OMD in 2015, we were always on the lookout for pressure release or work expansion, so if there was anything that we couldn’t produce in-house, Stoke & Dagger was there to get the job done.

At the time, we were doing a lot of the work on motion graphics. I was in charge of all the social media accounts for our major clients. Video and animation usually take quite a long time, and we were finding that we didn’t have the necessary in-house resources, especially as video grew across social platforms.

We take care of a lot of our business and usual content for the clients. However, for any kind of select projects or campaigns, we usually outsource it just to make sure we have a whole team working on it and the quality is as good as it could be.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Stoke & Dagger mainly worked with a train franchise. Here in the UK, our rail networks are managed by several franchises and then broken out into smaller companies. We have the GTR franchise on our books, which takes care of most of the Southeast and South of England. It includes London Midland, Southern Trains, and City Thameslink Trains, three of the biggest commuting rail operators.

In 2017, we had a massive campaign that was geared around student fares. We had produced a ton of in-house graphics for that campaign, but then the client said they wanted it animated. At the time, Paul (Managing Director) and Caroline (Creative Director) at Stoke & Dagger picked up the pieces and saved our bacon on production.

Overall, Stoke & Dagger did a lot of creative work, leveling up our static work and adding animation, which is a service that we were more than happy to offer clients. If we’d already started a project with static layouts, like the one I just mentioned, they were capable of bringing them to life. Aside from that, their specialty was end-to-end bespoke animation. Additionally, if there was anything beyond our capabilities, like 3D rendering, long-form animation, film editing, or production, they took care of that as well.

What is the team composition?

Aside from Paul and Caroline, I worked with Amanda (Producer), who was their lead producer, and she was the main point of contact for the accounts team and us. She took care of absolutely everything and was great to deal with. She was organized, friendly, and professional, and she could get on direct calls with clients and manage projects as an add-on for us. 

How did you come to work with Stoke & Dagger?

Our connection to Stoke & Dagger runs a lot further. I actually worked with Caroline, Paul’s wife, back in 2012 when I was a senior designer at a different agency. She came on board as one of our senior motion graphics designers, and Paul then came in and worked with us as well. Then, they left and set up Stoke & Dagger, but I kept in touch and kept the connection going.

We chose them because the quality of their work was excellent. Also, they were local to us, and Paul was always great at translating things into what we wanted since it was quite a big jump for me, as I’m not an animator. In that sense, they were great at connecting what they can do and taking it into the animation realm.

How much have you invested in them?

The cost was around £50,000 (approximately $69,000 USD).

What is the status of this engagement?

The project began in March 2017. We had £6,000 (approximately $8,000 USD) as budget, and it was a six-day turnaround, which we wouldn’t have gotten through on our own.  

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The main thing for us was actually delivering the projects. The timelines were tight, and animation is tricky and takes time. Therefore, getting the stuff through the door for the clients was the main objective.

We had numerous occasions where Stoke & Dagger helped us out with those. Also, campaign results were all really positive. It was tough for some clients because not everything goes viral, but considering what we needed, the numbers did more than hitting the KPIs or benchmarks.

How did Stoke & Dagger perform from a project management standpoint?

It was great. Everything from start to end was perfectly planned and executed. Amanda was absolutely amazing. She was a safe pair of hands — we never felt like we were in trouble; everything was under control. She always told us how long it would take and if they could do it. She laid everything out as an easily visible path to success.

Most of the stuff was done through email and calls. We used Asana a little bit to share links, and we tried Slack as well.

What did you find most impressive about them?

Stoke & Dagger was great at bringing things to life and understanding how to realize the project since clients can come back with the most ridiculous briefs.

One time, we had a particularly difficult client who wanted to film a food advert for their menu because one of the big selling points of a cruise line is the menu. As someone who doesn’t ever personally work with animation, filming, or production, I didn’t know where to start. They came in, and it was great to have complete experts to lay out how it would work. It was just effortless for them.

Therefore, what I found most impressive about them was that they could take a tough brief and make it happen.

Are there any areas they could improve?

Emerging technologies and VR were some of the things that may have been out of reach on some of the projects. We had a couple of things thrown out there about doing VR, but they weren’t in that space yet.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Don’t hesitate; they’re amazing.

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I was the senior social and digital producer for a telecoms company that did broadband calls and TV — I worked a lot of the TV side of the business. I was responsible for doing the moving image promotions across digital and social media.

What challenge were you trying to address with Stoke & Dagger?

The previous agency we used to work with was very good at doing TV ads, posters, and billboards. However, we were looking for great execution across all social media and digital channels.

What was the scope of their involvement?

Stoke & Dagger brought along the expertise in turning above-the-line creative and animation into digital and social channels.

Initially, I would deliver a brief to them and they'd come back with very good ideas, as well as the range of budgets for different executions. From there, they moved on to the production phase, where they managed the project with me from the beginning to the final delivery. We also had to create videos for the on-demand platforms that were flexible enough to be updated regularly.

What is the team composition?

I worked closely with Paul (Managing Director), Caz (Creative Director), and Amanda (Producer).

How did you come to work with Stoke & Dagger?

I actually worked with Caz and Paul in a previous company, and I knew that they’d set up a business that has been going on for a couple of years. There was this specific job that one of our other agencies failed to deliver on, and I basically thought Stoke & Dagger were the ideal agency to come in and bail us out.

They helped us out and from there, we increased the work we did with them because they specialized in social, and that’s where we needed help with.

How much have you invested with them?

We probably invested close to ￡1,000,000 (approximately $1,300,100 USD) in over five years.

What is the status of this engagement?

My partnership with Stoke & Dagger ran from November 2014–March 2019. I left the company, but I know for a fact that they carried on working with a lot of my colleagues.

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement? 

Stoke & Dagger increased the engagement and clicks on our digital channels. They also drove us to innovate on social channels such as Facebook, which was very good. In addition, they also did a lot of promotions and educational stuff on YouTube, and were driving average watch times on our videos.

Moreover, besides coming up with ideas and a range for the budget, they were very good at scoping out the projects to give us more flexibility on options.

How did Stoke & Dagger perform from a project management standpoint?

They were always good at feeding back and they never missed a deadline. They never failed to deliver a task and if they said they’d get something done, they would. Moreover, they managed our expectations particularly well, and they made my life easy regarding that.

What did you find most impressive about them?

One thing that distinguished Stoke & Dagger from other providers was their quick response time, and the fact that they don’t just present one solution. They presented a host of ideas from a budget and execution point of view. They always came back to us with a number of approaches, especially with briefs with a lot of ambiguity.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, nothing really jumps out.

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

You should definitely meet Stoke & Dagger in person because they’re very personable, and they’re very good at helping you shape the brief. By all means, have a brief developed to a degree that you possibly can.