A decade of Vivid

Reflections on 10 years of building an agency that somehow didn’t implode.

Ten years ago this month, Vivid opened its doors in a tiny room in an old, very cold, repurposed shoe factory in an unfashionable part of Bristol. The rent was £230 a month, the walls were damp, and our Wi-Fi was patchy at best. We had two clients (a Bristol-based brand and a tech start-up), three second-hand Mac laptops and the slightly deranged belief that we could do things differently.

A decade later, we’re still here. Same name on the door (well, it’s now a slightly bigger door), same obsession with making brands feel human, but everything else has changed, multiple times, often mid-campaign, occasionally mid-sentence. This is how we survived it, what it cost and why we’re stupidly excited about the next ten.

The journey (so far)

We’ve launched brands that didn’t exist and rescued ones that barely wanted to.

We’ve ridden every wave the industry threw at us: the pandemic pivot to “everything is Zoom now”, and the current AI gold rush where every client wants “ChatGPT but make it sound like our brand”. We’ve watched (and helped shape) how brands talk to people too. Ten years ago it was all polished perfection and “aspirational” lifestyles that felt a mile away from real life. Then the pendulum swung hard the other way: raw, unfiltered, deliberately imperfect, monitoring comments relentlessly and memes at 2 a.m.

Now the smartest brands are landing somewhere braver, being human without trying too hard and consistent without being robotic. They’re letting their audience co-write the story instead of shouting at them. We’ve moved from broadcast mode to conversation, from selling a dream to earning a seat at the table. And honestly? Each time we thought we’d finally figured marketing out, the rules rewrote themselves overnight. Turns out perpetual motion sickness is just part of the job.

The team grew from three brave fools to a ridiculously talented group of people who still laugh at my jokes (or are very good at pretending). Two clients have been with us since week one – yes, the Bristol-based company is still here, now a multi-million-pound organisation and they still trust us to help steer their ship. That trust is actually the only single metric I care about. And for those wondering what happened to the tech start-up, they sold to John Lewis who we continued to work with.

Lessons we paid for in blood, sweat and occasional tears

Trust your gut (it’s usually right, even when the data screams otherwise). In a world obsessed with data, intuition still matters. Whether it’s pitching a client, hiring a team member, or greenlighting a creative idea, your gut often knows what’s right before the numbers catch up. I’ve learned to listen to that inner voice (sometimes the hard way), and it’s subsequently saved us from bad outcomes and led us to some of our best decisions. Lesson: data tells you what worked yesterday. Gut sometimes sees tomorrow.

Find people who can tell you you’re wrong without fearing the response. Running an agency is lonely in the way only founders understand. You’re the final “yes” or “no” on everything from payroll to creative that could make or break a client. I spent the first few years pretending I had all the answers. Then I built a small circle of external mentors, other agency owners, ex-clients turned friends, one terrifyingly brilliant non-exec who’ll take my call at 10 p.m. and calmly explain why I’m being an idiot. Those relationships have saved us more times than any software subscription ever has.

Fire fast and hire slow. Letting someone go is brutal. Letting a toxic client go can feel even worse when cashflow is tight. But dragging it out is slow poison. We’ve learned (mostly the hard way) that one misaligned person, or one client who treats your team like an outsourced complaint department, can rot culture faster than you can say “scope creep”. Deal with either situation with fairness and kindness, then move forward. The relief on the other side is palpable.

Hire people better than you, then get out of their way. Early on I thought I had to be the smartest person in the room. Turns out that’s the fastest way to cap your agency at “pretty decent”. The real unlock was bringing in strategists who can run circles round me, creatives whose taste makes me look like I use crayons, and digital leads who were building campaigns while I was still trying to work out what a Reel was. Ego has no place here, and certainly not mine. If they’re not regularly making you feel a bit thick, you’ve hired wrong. The day I stopped needing to be the cleverest person on the call was the day Vivid started getting properly good.

You will question everything. Keep going anyway. There have been months when invoices were late, team members left and I sat in the car outside the office wondering what the hell I was doing. Those moments pass. They always do. And when the next win comes: when a project you bled for lands, when a client rings you to share the good news about weekend results, you remember why you signed up for this madness.

Looking ahead

The next decade feels both scarier and more exhilarating than the first. AI is rewriting creativity in real time. Attention is fragmenting faster than ever. Consumers can smell inauthenticity from three platforms away.

Good. Let it come.

We were never the biggest, flashiest, or cheapest agency in the room. We were always the one that gave a damn, about the work, about the people doing it, about the dent we’re trying to make for our clients.

That bit hasn’t changed. Everything else is negotiable.

To every client who took a punt on those fools in the old shoe factory, every team member who believed the crazy ideas, every mentor who talked me down from the ledge: thank you. You turned a daft dream into something that matters.

I shall be raising a glass this Christmas to the next ten. I’m not sure where we will end up but rest assured it will mean bold choices and madness along the way. 

Vivid

Still here. Still independent. Still stupidly optimistic.

2015–2025 (and counting)

Author: Jayne Caple

Managing Director