Charles Vallance on Challenging the Rules - and how Brands can Win by Breaking Them

With the Challenger Series, a forward-looking thought-leadership vodcast series that takes on the advertising industry’s most important questions, VCCP is lifting the lid on itself for the first time - offering an unfiltered look at the founding principles and challenger mindset that have driven the agency since it launched.

This isn’t a generic industry chat; it’s a deep dive into the DNA of the business, led by co-founder and chairman Charles Vallance.

Alongside a roster of guests, Vallance is setting out to explore the big questions shaping the industry today - from the campaigns that have defined the past two decades to the changes that will define the next.

The series blends diverse perspectives with entertaining behind-the-scenes anecdotes and, thanks to VCCP’s fully integrated set-up across creative, media, data and PR, tackles those questions from every possible angle.

It’s also designed as a practical tool. VCCP already runs entry-level programmes like The Table, giving aspiring talent real-time industry experience, but the Challenger Series adds a long-form way to demystify agency life and arm the next generation with the knowledge they need to thrive.

Here, Vallance talks to Creative Salon about the thinking behind the series

Creative Salon: Why have you launched the Challenger Series, and where did the idea come from?

Charles Vallance: As you know, we’ve always described ourselves as a challenger agency for challenger brands. We wanted to take a challenging point of view on the areas we cover - whether that’s new business, creativity, or brand identity - and approach them from a slightly more maverick, unconventional perspective.

The first episode, with guests Gary Holt and Laura Hussey, looks at the art of indelible branding, and O2, your founding client, features heavily. Everyone is familiar with the work, but what lessons from O2 have influenced the rest of the agency's output?

We’ve worked on a lot of things since O2, but it came up in that episode because of Gary Holt, and specifically Martin Lambie-Nairn, who’s sadly no longer with us. Martin might be seen as one of the inventors of 360-degree branding, starting with the Channel 4 idents. He was a broadcast designer, best known for his TV identity work, but he understood that identity isn’t a badge you tack on at the end - it can live and breathe as an idea within the communication.

I’d always felt that too, and never understood why branding was so static and orthodox. When we came together on the launch of O2, it was a real meeting of minds. We were in this building, working with Martin and Gary, and O2’s brand was born out of that collaboration.

Orange is another example. I worked there after the launch, but it was a brand where everything - the stores, the product, the vocabulary, the advertising, the sponsorship - was instantly recognisable. That’s what I call indelible branding. Everything a brand does should be unmistakably from that brand.

In the episode you reference Channel 4 and sound design - and I hadn’t thought about that before.

Yes, and that was before VCCP even existed.. We pitched against AMV, and Gary in particular completely ran with the identity, just as he had with Orange and Martin had with Channel 4.

We integrated the branding into everything.. That’s where the world has moved: to brands like IKEA, Uniqlo, Guinness, Cadbury, O2, easyJet - you can’t get away with fragmented branding anymore. There isn’t the budget for that inefficiency.

You and VCCP also talk about “brand worlds”. Is that the same thing?

Pretty much. Indelible branding is the symptom of a fully realised brand world. A brand world is built around a strong, clear mission - we call it a concentrated brand idea or purpose. It could be The Wonderful Everyday, The Power of Dreams, A Glass and a Half in Everyone, or Digital Oxygen. That compression of thinking is immensely powerful - it’s the Archimedes thing: give me a place to stand and I can move the world.

Often it’s thinking a little ahead of the customer. When we came up with Digital Oxygen in 2002, data penetration was low, smartphones didn’t exist, apps didn’t exist - but we could see the phone becoming essential, like oxygen. We knew some of the roadmap, and we realised this idea could be brought to life in the iconography, the imagery, the design.

It’s the same with Cadbury - generosity as a core idea. You don’t need a Cadbury logo to know it’s Cadbury. Those assets are so embedded that you transcend the conventions of slapping a logo on everything.

Cadbury had heritage though. With O2 you were starting from scratch.

True. Most successful brands have a recipe for success they then forget, only to rediscover it years later - or not at all. Half the job for an established brand is rededicating itself to its core assets. Virgin Media is a good example - since coming back to us, they’ve got their Virgin mojo back: unconventional, challenging, anti–status quo.

In the episode you say advertising should “populate culture”.

Exactly. Advertising is a tax you pay for being boring. Paid-for advertising has a role, but it should be a catalyst for social currency - something memorable in its own right. Compare the Market is our best example. Simples is in the Oxford English Dictionary now. Aleksandr the Meerkat moved the brand beyond insurance into cultural conversation.

But that’s not always easy to sustain.

Compare the Market is unusual in how long it’s lasted. Once you’ve got mental availability, converting that into action is a different job, but the advertising does the heavy lifting.

Do brands make mistakes by stopping too soon or not stopping soon enough?

Yes. There aren’t many well-drawn brands, despite what we know about mental availability. Maybe one in ten bother to build a consistent campaign and impression in the mind of their prospects. Neophilia - love of the new - is part of human nature, but we also like the familiar. The trick is walking the tightrope between them. Too often, new creative directors or CMOs want to change things for the sake of it, and continuity suffers.

That’s something you did with Cadbury — from Glass and a Half to Glass and a Half in Everyone.

Yes. That was a significant return to the line, but also to the founding Quaker spirit - a philanthropic venture to offer an alternative to alcohol. Reconnecting not just with the generosity of the product but with the generosity of the founding principles. It’s slightly ahead of where people think, because we can be pessimistic about human nature. It’s nice to remind people there’s more to celebrate than to disparage.

And Mondelez bought into that?

Eventually, yes. The category had become full of hyperbole and gimmickry. We persuaded them of the value of a long-term rededication to core principles.

In another episode you talk about fleeting moments.

Yes - people don’t consciously build brand loyalty by reviewing your last four years of ads. It’s built from quick glimpses: a beer mat, a poster, a TV ad, a festival. Those fragments build the impression of your brand. That’s why everything - from a letterbox leaflet to a sports activation - has to be world-class and indelibly branded.

Most of your examples are established brands. How do new brands get there?

The same principles apply. You can’t shortcut your way to mental availability. Performance marketing can build a foothold, but it won’t last if you don’t scale through classic brand building. Monzo is a good modern example. Prime tried to shortcut it and is already fading.

Domino’s is another of your clients — the “Domin-oh-hoo-hoo” work was unexpected.

Sonic branding, yes. We did a study on the 100 most remembered ads and found five things in common: characters, humour, emotion, strong brand devices (including jingles and vocabulary), and surprise. They’re all ways of unlocking memory, because they go straight into the brain’s fast-processing system.

That leads us into pitching, which you cover in the second episode with Steve Kershaw and Stephanie Brimacombe.

Clients buy teams more than anything else. If the people don’t get on, they won’t win. You can’t fake it. We’ve built a culture with no prima donnas, where every department’s voice is valued, and that shows up in pitches.

And you’ve been top of the new business rankings for years.

We keep things simple and demand-led. We research thoroughly, listen attentively, and focus on clarity. Our work is admired not just strategically and creatively, but because it gets talked about by real people, not just the ad industry.

Do you pick your pitches more carefully now?

Definitely. We avoid those driven purely by finance, or where the decision-making is unclear. We prefer to compete on value, not price.

In the episode, Steve Kershaw says you should challenge the brief.

Yes, but sometimes that means you lose the pitch because you’ve been too unconventional. We tend to aim for step-change thinking - if a client only wants incremental change, we’re probably not the right agency.

You’ve said sometimes you “lose to win”.

Exactly. Canon and Nationwide are examples. We challenged hard, lost, but impressed enough to win the business a couple of years later.

In the third episode you’re in the “creative kitchen” with your team Chris Birch, Jonny Parker and Ciara O'Meara.

Yes. We’re planner-heavy, and I think that’s vital. Without strong intellectual foundations, you’re wasting money.

You also talk about AI - more optimistically than many.

You can’t uninvent it. For integrated agencies, AI is in the Goldilocks zone - not too hot, not too cold. It can raise our creative standard, personalise assets, and improve efficiency. Our AI agency, Faith, already has 20 to 30 prompt engineers working for clients.

And what’s next for the Challenger Series?

Episodes on CMOs, media, and my favourite - account handling. I think it’s a job that nearly died but is now one of the best in the industry. The account handler is the conductor of the orchestra. I’m looking forward to exploring that.

You can watch the Challenger Series of interviews here.