Nice and Serious
We are thrilled to announce our newest addition to the Ethical Agency Alliance: Nice and Serious
In 2007, the co-founders Tom and Ben cycled the entire length of the UK, towing a solar-panelled trailer full of low-energy light bulbs. Along the way, they handed them out to spark conversations about climate change. After three weeks and 1,000 miles, they realised something important: people didn’t seem to care, or more accurately, they had more urgent things to care about. That realisation gave them the idea to start Nice and Serious, an agency built to make complex issues relevant for everyone.
Find out more: https://niceandserious.com/
Below, read the interview with Tom Tapper, CEO & Co-founder at Nice and Serious 👇
What does creativity for good look like to you?
It's all about creative work that grows our collective understand of serious issues – if we understand them, and see how they relate to us – we have half a chance of shifting behaviours to be less destructive, and more progressive.
How do you drive change in your work?
We haven't had to retrofit a purpose at Nice and Serious. Since we started in 2008, we've been on a mission to make creative work the world needs. We work with NGOs and businesses who want to raise awareness of social and environmental issues and amplify action to fix them.
What are some examples of creativity being used to drive climate action that inspire you?
I've always loved how Make My Money Matter approaches it. They tell human stories, they tell humorous stories, and they connect climate change to our daily lives. It's an approach we love at Nice and Serious. See more here.
A recent example of that approach in our own work is the campaign we created for Byway. The challenge was selling flight-free holidays to Europe. The environmental benefit is clear, but it doesn’t sell flights. And choosing the more sustainable option shouldn’t feel like a compromise. So we flipped the narrative: “Skip the Shortcuts” reframes slow travel as the richer, more rewarding choice - better for not just the planet, but also your holiday.
We took a similar approach with Tony’s Chocolonely. The brief was to get people engaged in the cocoa crisis - but most weren’t thinking about supply chains, they were thinking about chocolate. So we met them there. The result was ‘The Chocopocalypse’, a social campaign that made the issue impossible to ignore by showing how it could threaten the future of their favourite treat. Making a far-off problem feel close to home.
When and how did you have the 'aha'-moment to transition your agency to focus on sustainability?
Sustainability has been at the heart of Nice and Serious since day one.
What is your biggest challenge as an Ethical Agency?
There are many challenges in running an ethical agency. But perhaps the greatest is making clients aware that ethical agencies like Nice and Serious exist. And even if they know we exist, it's convincing them that a sustainability communications brief isn't like a regular marketing brief – it's more complex, more nuanced and in many respects more risky – and therefore there's a serious need need for a specialist agency.
Why did you join our Ethical Agency Alliance?
First and foremost, it's about joining a community of like-minded agencies who are working through the same challenges that we are – there isn't a playbook for this stuff, so you need to be speaking with peers! Second, it's about accessing resources like the Greenwashing Guide. And finally, the brief matching service is a great opportunity to get onto the radar of clients who are looking to work with an agency who aligns with their values.
What do you believe needs to change for the creative industry to be a real force for good?
We need to get comfortable saying no. We need to drop the lie we tell ourselves that we can make clients more sustainable from within – that's not why they work with a creative agency. Instead we need to only offer our creative services to the brands who are creating the change we want to see, and that involved saying no to those who aren't.