Culture

Mother agency visit

Their Mother's would be proud of them.

Following on from the agency visit to Anomaly Ellie Hogarth explains more about the next agency on the itinerary.

'It was only 3 hours after leaving Anomaly before we were waiting outside Mother, a building contrasting both in size and style to where we were earlier. The buildings situated 5 minutes away from the train station, but in the time between the two, we passed 1 giant rat, about 45 trainers hanging from a telephone wire and about 100 hipsters, it was awesome. As we walked into the reception area of Mother we were greeted by the slogan “Graffiti is advertising to me” in massive font above the elevators, this pretty much summed up Mother’s creative and youthful style.

An elephant is about to sit on Jonny.


Mother’s policy is about “doing work that makes your mother proud”, and to emphasise this every employee has a picture of their mother up on the wall in the corner of the foyer. As I sat there, admiring the obvious ambition and creative feel of the place, I realised how good it would feel to see my mother up on that wall, and how proud that would make me feel.

However, my daydreaming was soon interrupted as we were shown into their meeting room, the only room in the whole agency with a door. This was not the most interesting aspect of the room though. There was a massive elephants arse coming out of the wall apparently for two reasons, acoustics, and “to kill the elephant in the room” so that people feel more comfortable speaking.

Jonny and Georgie playing with their friend.

We were then lucky enough to be given a presentation by two creative directors Martin and Kyle, as well as Ben Heap. The guys told us all about Mother and its work, all of which I recognized and appreciated. It was not long before I got the sense that this was an amazing place to work. They described how they have events almost every night; they take part in their own projects and they work together around a massive table, like a big family. To me it seemed like a place where everyone is appreciated and you can truly be yourself. It was not long before question time. They answered a variety of questions, some told us about the importance of pairing up with someone that challenges you and also highlighted the necessity of creative pairs in the industry, now, and for the foreseeable future, and one answer in particular disappointed second year Simon, “No, the agency isn’t like Mad Men.”
Unfortunately, it was not long before our time in London was up. But I can tell you, after that day, I wont be gone for long.'