Creating transformation superheroes

We like to practice what we preach here at Studio North, especially when it comes to our own brand.

So last week the team temporarily downed tools for clients and headed off-site for a hybrid business planning and brand activation session.

We’d originally intended to dive into our own boardroom for a few hours dedicated to the year ahead; strategy, sales and marketing, operations, that kind of stuff. But an idea to take that session away from Waulk Mill soon morphed into an action-packed day of colleague engagement and fun.

Luckily, us Northerners are pretty down to earth so despite internal rumours we’d hired a private jet to take us to Dubai, there were no eyes rolled when we announced we’d all be taking the tram to Oldham instead. And there were definitely no grumbles when we arrived at the incredible space of the guys up at Team Spirit, our hosts for the day. We’ll let the photos do the talking on that front but what a veritable treasure trove of inspiring space and facilities greeted us. As well as some very friendly faces. This was a brand experience we could easily get on board with.

After a quick bite to eat, the team enjoyed a series of agency presentations as part of our planning for 2018 and to avoid death by Keynote, these were kept as interactive and varied in approach as possible. But the best was yet to come.

Behind the scenes, we’ve been evolving our own brand and wanted an exercise to help us think more about our revised proposition of Create Transformation. Team Spirit split us up into teams and set a shared task of storyboarding, filming and acting out adverts to deliver that very message. All inside an hour within a specific theme (Wild West or Superheroes). Nothing like pressure?

Aside from being loads of fun, the exercise really got us working as a team and thinking about what creating transformation actually means. We were quite proud of the final outputs given the constraints. Needless to say, when the day was over, we found a local pub and rounded things off with a few drinks before the journey back into Manchester.

A huge thank you to Ian, Katie and the rest of the gang at Team Spirit for being such fantastic hosts. We’ll definitely be back for more!