Neverland’s New CD Duo on Ambidextrous Creativity

In January independent creative agency Neverland announced it would be expanding its creative leadership team by bringing on board Poppy Donaldson and Lauren Ellis as creative directors. Poppy and Lauren are now working alongside fellow creative director Lloyd Daniel, reporting to the agency’s chief creative officer Jon Forsyth. The pair will take the lead on creative partnerships with Center Parcs, Rightmove and Sharps, amongst other clients, and will also partner with Pink Neon, Neverland’s first new franchise.

Poppy and Lauren’s new appointments form part of Neverland’s commitment to ‘ambidextrous talent’ with a focus just as much on strategy as creativity. CCO and co-founder Jon said, “Poppy and Lauren have that golden touch of effortlessly talented quality. Working alongside our equally ambidextrous superstar Lloyd [Daniel], anything is possible.”

LBB’s Cathy Meyer-Funnell spoke to Poppy and Lauren about joining the Neverland team and what it means to them.

LBB> Congratulations! How are you feeling?

Poppy and Lauren> Feeling good! We've been here since March last year actually, we came in freelance so the new role was made official in January. By then we probably got quite a good taste of how the agency works and the people here and we were quite embedded in it. It's got a great vibe to it.

LBB> How is your team?

Poppy and Lauren> The team are great! Poppy and I, together with Lloyd Daniel are creative directors here. We each look after different accounts within the agency, working into Jon, as CCO. They're a really great set of clients, and joining Lloyd has been great too. He’s very well respected within the creative department, and agency as a whole, and has great camaraderie with clients and teams alike. It’s been great to officially become part of that, because we’ve always admired the agency, and their work, from afar.

LBB> Neverland has spoken about its ambition to embrace ‘ambidextrous talent’. Can you explain in a bit more detail what this means?

Poppy and Lauren> It's an understanding of the strategy, the core strategic idea behind the creativity, understanding the client's wants and needs and making sure that you have the best creative solution behind it. The size of Neverland allows them to form a real partnership with the client, like a real business partner to try and get in there and help solve whatever the client issue or need is. It feels like we’ve come in at a point where the agency is really integrated in trying to get to the heart of the task.

The strategy team here are great, we’ve been doing a lot of close work with them from the very beginning, which is fundamental. We've always said throughout our career that strategy should be an extra creative team member. We've always tried to garner great relationships with the strategy team - wherever we've worked - because you're all working towards the greater cause, from the deeper understanding of the problem. It takes the work to a more interesting, honest place.

LBB> Is this way of working something new for you?

Poppy and Lauren> The difference here is that whilst before we were just doing it with one client and one team, here it's kind of embedded within the whole agency so whatever you're working on you have that experience. It's good for us because we're now working on a range of clients, which is great.

LBB> What in particular are you really looking forward to about this role at Neverland?

Poppy and Lauren> Everything that we love about this place is in the environment and the energy that this place has. It's the enthusiasm that drives people, and you can really see it day after day, no matter what the thing is, be it something internal, an email, a message, a brief. The enthusiasm is such a big driver and the fact that we are in the office the majority of the time, the atmosphere is brilliant and I think that's what we're really excited to permanently be part of.

Also it's working with this breadth of clients, you feel like you’ve got a real seat at the table and you're really getting to the crux of what the issue is and so you have a real part in solving that - which is exciting no matter what sort of brief it is. Our background has been predominantly a big global agency, so to come to an independent agency has been a shift and I think we've really enjoyed being part of that different atmosphere. We’ve also loved working with the creative people here – whether it’s the younger teams that have come through the Flying Academy, or the creative teams as they develop themselves. Everyone contributes, and gets listened to.

LBB> What challenges, if any, do you foresee?

Poppy and Lauren> In the same respect that it's great being so involved in everything - you really are so involved in everything. You’re always at the forefront, so you have to make sure that everything you're doing you believe in. That can be challenging at times,
when you're up against a deadline, but I think that's the same in any agency. I guess the challenge within ourselves coming to an agency that we've admired from afar is to keep the great work going and build on everything they are already doing well.