Sometimes the answer to a question is staring you right in the face. That’s certainly the case with Girl&Bear, the in-house content creation studio at VCCP in London, when I ask Claire Young where its charming name came from.
“You’re familiar with the VCCP logo?” asks Claire, and shows me a letter-headed sheet of paper. And there it is – a girl staring down a bear. “It's the way that we visualise the idea that we’re a challenger agency, standing up for challenger brands.”
When the studio needed its own identity within VCCP, the logo inspired the name. “We actually landed on it really early, almost when we were writing the business plan, and it stuck. So we had the name – and then we needed to build the business.”
So far so good: Girl&Bear has grown year on year since it launched in 2021, and its skilled team of “makers” has recently expanded to new outposts in Prague and Madrid. Claire herself was promoted from managing director to CEO earlier this year. It’s easy to see why: she’s fiercely proud of the studio and exudes positive energy.
The creative journey
A Londoner born and bred, Claire has been surrounded by creative folk since the beginning of her career. Originally drawn to fashion journalism and photography, she got her first production job at a large format photographic agency called Hamilton’s. “It covered work for retailers, galleries, fashion…and I found that it really suited me. I was interacting with the photographers and I realised that, as a producer, I could play a big part in what they were creating. There was a lot of interaction with agencies too.”
She stepped into the agency world at Exposure, which had started out as a PR company before moving into content. Claire joined as the agency’s first producer – alongside its first creative director – and stayed there for ten years. “It was a brilliant introduction to agency life, and indirectly led to the way we work with VCCP at Girl&Bear, because we always had a very integrated approach.”
While Claire admits she’ll “always be drawn to a beautiful visual”, she’s genuinely fascinated by all forms of creativity. “We talk a lot here about the passion that goes into bringing ideas to life – and that’s what I really love, the whole journey we go on with the client and the creatives. First of all, understanding what a client's challenge is, and then how that translates from a strategic direction into the seeds of a creative idea.”
And production is not just tagged on at the end, she underlines. “As producers, we're upstream with the planners and the media agencies.”
In the advertising ecosystem, production has often seemed to exist behind the scenes, as if it’s a service rather than integral to the creative process. Claire agrees. “I've always been a champion of production being valued more in the industry, because I don't think it's recognised enough, particularly in-house production. We need to talk more about what we do. At Girl&Bear, when we talk to clients, we always talk about ‘the making of’, telling the actual stories of how things got made. Any opportunity to elevate the makers, and I'm there. It’s my lifelong mission.”
A modular approach
It's something she’ll be pushing for even more now she’s CEO – along with overseeing the studio’s continued growth. “What we wanted to do when we started Girl&Bear was to create a truly global content creation studio,” she explains, noting that she’s just returned from launching the Madrid office.
The office will be a new home for VCCP’s Spanish makers, who are already working for clients such as O2 Telefónica and Más+ by Messi. It will also give them access to other Spanish-speaking and Latam markets. And like the Prague office, Claire adds, it raises the profile of the makers, giving them a louder voice in the industry.
“Both cities have brilliant reputations for making, not just in the comms world but in broadcast too – so the capabilities, facilities and talent are all outstanding there.”
Girl&Bear’s growing strength and reputation has also enabled it to win external, non-VCCP clients like Naturo, Puma and Accor Hotels, a portfolio Claire will continue building. “We are and always will be the makers of VCCP – but we’re a complementary business, so we can work with independent clients. And we're loving that experience. It enables us to offer different production approaches.”
Being part of VCCP, she observes, the studio can “tap into the agency if we need to borrow skill sets”. It’s a modular approach that can be adapted to a client’s requirements. You can almost hear Claire rubbing her hands over how much fun she’s going to have matching talents to ideas.
A mission to Be Nice
For all its ambition, Girl&Bear aims to be a great place to work. It has a sort of decency charter called the Be Nice policy. “We launched with a very strong stance on DE&I and sustainability. It's about being a good human to other humans, and also being good to the planet. We haven't got it cracked, but we’re not taking our eye off the ball and I'm proud of the progress we're making.”
The figures are meaningful. The studio has a 93% staff retention rate (compared to an industry average of 31%). In the past year it has increased diverse representation by 25% and hit a female leadership target of 40% (“with plans for future growth on that, of course,” says Claire), while 41% of entry level hires are from ethnically diverse backgrounds. On the planet front, the average carbon emissions of a Girl&Bear shoot are 3.56 tonnes, versus an industry average of 6.2 tonnes.
In terms of gender equity, Claire is painfully aware that there’s a lack of balance in the production field. “I read somewhere that the majority of the big Christmas ads this year were directed by men. The industry needs to ask itself: why aren’t more women or people of colour being awarded these jobs? It's something that we're continuously measuring ourselves on with quite strict targets, but we need work harder to make the industry as a whole more accessible.”
Claire says Girl&Bear has a couple of its own initiatives in the pipeline on that front – but will be able to share more in the new year. Yet another challenge the studio can relish.
Meanwhile, she can continue setting high standards within the agency. The work definitely speaks for itself; the makers seem to excel in all fields. “I love that we’re a very productive agency. We do a monthly gathering for our team, where we celebrate the work. And I’m always blown away.”