Originally established as Manifest by managing director Nev Ridley in 1999, the Leeds, London and Manchester-based agency – which was rebranded to ilk in 2016 – celebrated its 25th anniversary last month.

Since its inception, ilk has worked with well-known names such as Aldi, Flipit and Aardman Animations. I caught up with ilk's m Ridley and tempted him to a trip down memory lane in hopes he might reveal the secret to founding a successful integrated marketing agency.

What inspired you to start the agency, and how has that vision evolved?

"I [started my career as] a journalist. I enjoyed writing and the journalistic process but I always wanted to perform on the commercial side. And, 25 years ago that was often a move over into PR. I couldn’t do that straight from journalism so I worked for an agency, but I was only there for 18 months and then decided to leave and set up what was Manifest at the time."

So, with just under two years experience in PR you decided to branch off alone?

"The reality was I had nothing to lose. I was still young and if it all went horribly wrong I was confident that I'd be able to get a job either in journalism or with an agency. For me now, if I look back on it, arguably I could have done it a bit earlier as it wasn’t a huge risk. I was PR manager of a relatively small regional sized firm and I enjoyed the role but wanted to do it on my own. I didn’t see it as a particular risk."

Who was your first client?

"The first client was a huge logistics company called Norbert Dentressangle, they’ve since been sold out but they were the first client and we worked primarily trade magazines. I knew the MD, so I was lucky enough to have a start-up client. When I started the company there was this thing called the Entrepreneurs Relief grant which was about £250 per month. That obviously wasn’t going to be enough to live off, so I needed a client and once I knew I had one, I could get going. I bought a second-hand computer, printer and that’s all you needed back then."

It’s funny to think you only needed a few bits of kit to found an agency. Would you say that’s changed much?

"To be honest, the reality is you can do what I did – get a second-hand computer and work out of a spare room. Since Covid people can start businesses with a Mac or a PC and not much else, so if anything it’s probably even easier now to get started, especially if you’re young and you’ve got nothing holding you back."

What have been some of the biggest moments for you since starting ilk?

"The main clients we started working with were AirTours [in 2001]. We started working with them when there was only three or four of us working for the business so winning that was significant because we felt we had been chosen by a big brand and we had some recognition that we perhaps knew what we were doing so that was the first big name client we had that got us excited for the future. The next big name we had, although we didn’t know it at the time, was BrewDog [2010]. It was probably about 17 years ago and we’ve been working with them on and off on a few things since and oddly enough about six months ago we became their retained PR agency. The other main milestone would be bringing in different services like social media, that was huge for us. We were trying to adapt to the change in PR, having been very traditional and with print being of greater value, whereas compared to now obviously its quite the opposite, you want the online coverage and you want the link."

Do you have a guiding principle that you’ve stuck by?

"After we grew a little bit the reality very quickly for me was employing people that are better than you, and know more than you, are more talented and put them in the position to do the work and you should thrive. We are far more involved from the social side and the paid side, and my knowledge on that is limited but it's one of the biggest parts of our business now and that's down to having extremely talented people working there and doing that role. Once you’ve become established and start to get your first employees, you quickly see they are going to be the ones who help you take it forward, make it bigger and give you things to build on. It’s about empowering people, believing in their ability and talent and then benefitting from that as part of an organisation."

How have you adapted to appeal to talent over the years?

"We benefit massively from the people we employ, they also have far greater leverage than they had. I remember when I was working at an agency and feeling lucky to have a role, and I think the dynamic between the employer and employee was very different then. I think it's a positive shift but when I started in PR it was the employer that had all the power and influence, whereas I think the sector we work in has grown massively. There's lots of agencies out there, there's lots of opportunites for employees to switch and I think that's something that has changed significantly. We’ve got lots of people that have been with us for five to 10 years, and then we’ve had people who have only been with us for a year or two. That dynamic has changed but it's changed in the right way. For employers, it means everything you have to offer is much greater because it used to be that you just got a wage now there’s a million one things about helping and supporting and being an attractive destination for employees."

What’s next at ilk?

"In the last couple of years I've expanded the board. It was just me but now I have employees that have effectively invested in the company so it isn’t just down to me, it’s down to a younger generation to drive it forward. I’ve always wanted a business that is around the size we are at now, at a certain point we were too big but we have around 28 employees now and that’s a really good size for what we want to do. We need to be able to concentrate on our core [business functions] creative and comms, and everything within that. I think we stretched ourselves by going into areas that weren’t appropriate and got our fingers burnt so I’m still learning lessons, even after 25 years. We have evolved over 25 years with the changing landscape of the industry and will hopefully keep evolving over the next 25 years to come, even if I'm not in the mix by then."