It’s that time of year again, when as well as looking forward to the office party and some festive time off, we find ourselves looking back at the year that was. For Different Narrative, it’s been quite a year!

Since our founding agencies merged in 2021, our feet have barely touched the ground. We’ve relished new wins and the opportunity to offer new and long-standing clients an even broader range of expertise in advertising, marketing, brand identity, media planning and buying, PR, social media, content, and website and app development.

Now the region’s largest end-to-end marketing services provider, we’re one of just five agencies in the North East accredited by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, setting the benchmark for excellence in service delivery. In September we were awarded the Advanced Good Work Pledge by the North of Tyne Combined Authority too.

Here’s a snapshot of our first year, from successful client campaigns to championing community support.

Eldon Square: reclaiming the hearts of Newcastle

Appointed by Newcastle’s premier shopping destination during the pandemic to design and implement a complete rebranding and communications strategy that celebrates its unique personality and re-establishes it in the hearts and minds of North-East shoppers, we’ve aided Eldon Square in getting shoppers back into the centre post-lockdown.

This year, we’ve supported on purpose-driven initiatives including a sustainability festival and #EldonShare activity, which has seen email signups rise 146% and web visits go up 80%.

From travel money to a smart city

In addition to this we’ve continued as a key marketing partner for Carpetright, delivering advertising, branding, social media, tone of voice work, research testing and tracking. We’ve also employed emotional storytelling to position Hays Travel as the go-to choice for travel money, resulting in national recognition at the Travolution.com Awards and British Travel Awards.

Our PR team has supported Sunderland Smart City in its ambition to become the UK’s most advanced smart city.

We created a fully integrated campaign to promote SD-WAN services for Forfusion, and another for the North of Tyne Combined Authority’s New Adventures tourism platform for Newcastle, North Tyneside and Northumberland.

And our marketing for this year’s NE1 Newcastle Restaurant Weeks helped generate a record-breaking spend of £1.5m for the city’s economy.

Thinking forward, giving back

Alongside the day jobs, we’ve been driving change for good in the North East community, reaching out to Mental Health North East, the West End Foodbank and The People’s Kitchen to offer support. We launched our Different Narrative Academy (DNA) to nurture employability skills in local university students and graduates and broadened careers awareness among the region’s schoolchildren by presenting at the NE1 Can event and welcoming 15 students from St Benet Biscop Catholic Academy for the IPA’s Advertising Unlocked initiative.

The team is ending the year on a high after winning a contract with the NHS North East & Cumbria to create a signposting brand and assets to promote health and wellbeing as well as essential services.

We’re already excited about what next year could bring, so if you want to discuss your 2023 business objectives, say hello@differentnarrative.com