Interesting stuff we like to share with people : live 24 seven interview

In this month's live 24 – seven spotlight John Clarke OBE meets Aled Griffiths – One of the Midlands brightest and most successful Creative Directors

Aled Griffiths is one of the Midlands brightest and most successful Creative Directors.

Aged 40, he jointly heads one of the regions most dynamic creative agencies, Leamington Spa- based Rok Creative, which even in an economic downturn is continuing to expand as smarter companies have taken the decision to market themselves out of the current recession.

In this interview Aled explains how he has climbed the ladder to build a successful agency and how he balances his work and family life.

Q, Aled you have an obvious Welsh name. Were you born in Wales?

I was born in Leamington Spa to Welsh parents, both teachers by profession.

Q So from whom did you inherit your creative streak?

My mother actually, she was an art teacher while my father was more of a general teacher covering all main subjects. She is a very talented artist and from an early age I was always drawing or painting. I suppose it was in my genes.

Q How did you gradually move into the creative design agency world?

I started to do freelance work and gradually the money I earned from my freelance work became greater than my lecturing job. I met John Fitzgerald who was also a freelancer and we hit it off and started working together as a team.

Q Tell me about the agencies progress over the last six years?

To start with we couldn’t necessarily be picky about which clients we had although we tried to target certain market sectors. But we are so versatile we can work with any market. In terms of specialist areas we do a lot of work in IT, Social housing and the utilities market too. We try to build the relationships so they are long term not short term wins. When we start working with clients we grow and nurture that relationship so we have a better understanding, which in turn helps us to produce better work.

Q How is your company different to other agencies?

Once we get the clients on board they stay with us. It is more of a personal relationship with those clients and we grow with them. We have some fantastic clients on board. We have Millward Brown, CommVault, Valor Fires, so we have some good brands. We handle design, advertising and web and work closely with our clients marketing teams. We had a huge learning curve on the advertising side of the business in the early days and our ethos now is built around what we learned through advertising. Clean, simple, functional design always works best.

Q You have taken the company to a point at the age of 40. And what game plan do you have over the next five years.

I would like the company to expand a little but not the point where we lose that personal edge. I think that is probably going to go to a maximum of 15 people. At the moment we have 8. If you have between 15 and 30 people you don’t necessarily have much more profit but there is a lot more stress.

Q Where do you think you are positioned within the market place?

It's difficult to gauge. We have just taken on a new business Development Director and through that we are starting to use PR a little bit more, but we have never really promoted ourselves on the PR side. We win a lot of our business on reputation. One of the key forms of marketing for us is online. We use e-flyers and we monitor them but we send them out more for awareness than a hard sell.

Q Which is the most growing aspect of your business?

The website and online marketing. And I think this has come out of this recession. Suddenly peoples budgets have been cut. It isn't like the last recession where marketing was a very young industry and it was cut to nothing. This time businesses are understanding that they have to be smarter. They can't cut the marketing budget altogether, they just have to be smarter in how thy use it.

Q At this point in your professional career are you on course with where you want to be?

I would say we are. Our new plans have kicked in so we are just staring another five- year plan now, which is always an exciting time.

Q How do you deal with difficult clients?

That's a good question. I try not to get difficult clients and I try not to put myself in the position where they are going to be difficult. But, like anything, it does happen occasionally and things don’t always go to plan. I'm always open and honest with clients. We will do our utmost to make sure that things don’t go wring but inevitably sometimes things do. If they do then we will make sure that we put them right.

Q If anyone was starting out in creative design what would be your advice in going to the agency world? What are the pluses and what are the pitfalls?

You have to be very dedicated because it can be long hours and it is not always easy. Sometimes your inspiration isn't always there and that is when it get's a bit hard. When you’ve got deadlines and you try to get that inspiration, but it isn't happening. Experience in life and getting out there, seeing things and soaking things up makes a huge difference because you can draw on that when you need a that bit of inspiration.

Q How long have you been married?

I have been married to Vanessa for ten years. She is a wonderful wife and mother and is quite often my inspiration. We have two children Libbi, aged seven and Eva Rose who is three.

Q What hobbies do you have away from work?

I try to keep fit. I play five a side football every week with the Warwickshire Law Society. I am also into Golf and try to play when I can.

Q Do you have any particular business heroes?

Yes, probably David Ogilvy. He was an advertising genius.

Q What age do you plan to retire? Will you ever retire?

I'd like to take more of a back seat, but I think I would get bored if I retired. I would like to do something where I could maybe reduce my working week to two or three days and do other things instead, around maybe 50.

Q What would typically be your perfect day, if you could have a day ding anything you want, with anybody you want?

It would probably be spending the day with the family and getting out and about without any pressures, out in the countryside somewhere, just chilling.

Q Any ambitions you want to realise?

I'd love to go to South America and the Far East, as well as New Zealand and Australia. I have been to the East coast of America and L.A and we are going back for our anniversary at the end of August. The trip to L.A was the first two week holiday I'd had in years. I don’t in general take more that a week to tend days off. We now have the agency to a point where I can justify this one a year but at the moment not any more than that.

Q If you could invite any six people, dead or alive, to a dinner party, would that be and why?

Jack Nicholas, and John Lithgow who I met at the RSC, performing Twelfth night. I had a VIP ticket through one of our clients and met all the stars after the show. He was so incredible, an amazing guy. Leonardo da Vinci, who I think was an absolute genius, Lenny Kravitz, my music hero. I suppose I would invite people who represent all of my interests. Plus Helena Christensen and, most importantly, my wife Vanessa.