Vickie Lamb: What path did you follow to end up running a digital marketing agency?

Kaoru Sato: I went to art school, then had a try at film-making and didn’t do very well. I sort of stumbled into web stuff back in 1994 or 1995, which I’ve been doing ever since.

VL: Did you meet at a marketing agency?

Clint Golding: Yeah it was a really early digital agency that later became Razorfish [an internet consultancy].

It was my second career; when I was younger I worked in the music business, for a road management company. I used to organise the roadies, and made sure Suggs’ [from the ska-pop band Madness] jacket was ironed. I also had to help him up off the floor when he fell off the toilet, drunk!

I left that and went to film school. When I left a tutor said he had an ex-student looking for someone to work for him who knew about the internet. I went to an interview and they asked me if I knew what the internet was. I said “yes” and they said “can you start on Monday?”

Our story sounds accidental but there was a lot of drive there

Kaoru Sato, The Guild Network

VL: It’s strange that you both worked in film for a time?

KS: Well, at that time the digital media industry was full of people who hadn’t done very well in other industries – like film-makers, musicians and artists.

VL: So where did you go from Razorfish?

CG: We started to do follow-up work with an agency called Manifesto.

KS: It was a point where what we were doing [digital work] was gradually being squeezed out of the market, after the dot.com crash. They didn’t really understand what we were doing and eventually I was one of the first to leave.

I went to be a consultant on the Arts Council for a big web project that was about to kick off. They were tendering for an agency to do the work so I invited Manifesto to tender for it. They won, but when they decided to fold the digital side, we kept hold of the Arts Council job and formed a little company to service it – which was how The Guild Network formed.

VL: So it grew quite organically?

CG: Yeah, we never sat down and said, “right, let’s start a company”. And we’ve gradually picked up clients.

KS: It was opportunistic to a degree. Our story sounds accidental but there was a lot of drive there. If something feels natural and you have a good time then it’s going to go somewhere.

VL:So you have a really strong passion for what you do?

KS: You have to. A lot of the time you’re doing quite thankless work, the stuff that is ‘back-of-office’ and boring.

But we have fun working together – and if you don’t have fun working, then it’s not going to happen.

VL: Is it important to have staff who think the same way?

CG: Yeah, a lot of agencies we’ve worked for have been very po-faced and use a lot of management speak. We have a healthy disregard for that.

You should come to work everyday and act like you would anywhere else. It’s unhealthy to separate your social and home life from when you go to work. That creates a lot of stress.

VL: Is that what makes you different from the other marketing agencies out there?

KS: Yeah, our culture is based on having fun and learning while you’re working.

I think we’re also different in that we’re not fly-by-nights. There’s a lot of unprofessional practice in digital media, especially at our end of the market. We have very professional, well-developed systems that we’ve learnt about while working for bigger agencies.

VL: And how did you find the process of being a start-up business in this industry?

CG: We were lucky because we had ready-made clients. All our business has come through referrals from people recommending us.

VL: But in such a competitive sector how did you make sure you could compete?

CG: Start-ups and small companies need to adopt the same kind of systems and planning as big companies.

There’s so much competition out there that there is little margin for error. If you can’t communicate your idea then the business is dead in the water.

There are a lot of interesting possibilities out there at the moment. One or two agencies are willing to spend money on cutting-edge technology, but we are more than willing to look at new things, and we’re quite agile in our thinking.

VL: So what is the future of marketing? Will it all be digital in the end?

KS: I don’t see how it can’t be. Marketing is becoming much more fragmented; the age of broad-reach advertising is almost over. The only real way to assess how effective your marketing spend is, is through digital.

CG: We’re also excited about the concept of virtual worlds, like Second Life [which the agency uses as a platform from which to work]. The potential of such technology is immense; it’s possibly the future of entertainment and marketing.

VL: And what are your plans for the future?

KS: At the minute, we finish a piece of work and then we have to go out and find another piece of work. But it’s not sustainable and we can’t grow business that way. If we stay at the level we’re at now then we’ll stagnate.

CG: We’re hoping to grow and are working on a business plan – for the stuff there’s no getting away from. Although we’re excited by the futurology and virtual worlds, you do have to keep your feet on the ground.

VL: Is that the hardest part of your business? Having to deal with everyday practicalities after periods of wild creativity?

CG: I think a lot of small creative businesses fall over because of that. They’re so busy being creative that they forget to look after the numbers.

KS: Most creative individuals in small creative organisations spend their time navel gazing and ignoring the commercial aspect. However, I’d like to believe we have some commercial nous.

VL: And what is the one piece of advice you’d give to someone hoping to start up this kind of business?

CG: If you’re going to start a company, make sure you’ve got clients.

And then make sure that you spend as much time thinking about the boring stuff as the exciting stuff.