Brand and design consultancy, the Brand Nursery, has taken a serviced office in New York and plans to recruit two staff to be based there full time within the next three months.
Co-founder James Acton said that they would like to develop the New York office in due course to the same size as their Leeds base.
Acton’s co-founder, Chris Blythe, has previously worked for Y&R in New York.
Acton began his career as a marketer with Procter & Gamble.
The pair met in 2000 while working at what was then Poulters.
They set up Brand Nursery in 2006 to focus on brand development and Acton said this remained the agency’s core business.
English Provender Company was one of the first clients and is still a client said Acton. Other clients include Napolina, Blue Diamond Growers, William Hill, BMW and PPG Industrial Coatings, SIG and M&S.
James Acton
Acton said that the agency had two particular areas of sector strength: transportation and food and drink. In the latter area, he cited work undertaken for M&S with the agency helping to develop two new ranges of food – Le Bistro and Gastro. Acton said they were part of the retailer’s seismic shift as it introduced what was essentially gastro pub food with dishes including pork belly, a new and popular offering on the high street.
There are now 16 staff employed in the Leeds office.
The US office came about said Acton after they won a global piece of business from GE Energy which is based in Atlanta. GE understood that the creative and strategic element of the project would be led by work undertaken in Leeds but they requested that Brand Nursery at least put in temporary resource on the ground in the States to help deliver that particular project.
As that project developed, Acton said they have effectively over the past few months had one or two people in New York at any one time and several new contacts had subsequently been established leading to four further US clients now being taken on: New York Nut Factory, Terrafina and two he couldn’t disclose.
The new office is in SoHo and Acton said that, subject to finding the suitable staff, he hopes to have a project manager and a designer in the new office by the end of the summer.
