Elissa O’Brien is the strategy director and co-founder of OUTLAW, a Bristol-based strategic brand design agency that creates commercially effective work through challenging convention. OUTLAW’s clients include, ASAHI, Associated British Foods and Essity, as well as a host of smaller brands.
As part of our Day in the Life series, I chatted to Elissa about why every brief requires a different approach, what makes OUTLAW different from other agencies and how she made the move into strategy.
Tell me about a typical day in your role
My day usually starts with briefings, either briefing the team on strategic projects or sharing briefs with the designers. Then I’ll spend time checking in on projects and reviewing work, catching up with my team as well as the Design and Client Services team. I also work on projects myself, which could be anything from running an innovation or naming workshop to helping clients understand how design can best accelerate their brand. With any downtime I get, I try and do as much reading or podcast-listening as possible. Inspiration and insight can come from anywhere, so keeping up with news and culture is a great way to bring new perspectives to our thinking and work at OUTLAW
How did you get into working in strategy?
I started out in Client Services and had no idea what Strategy was or how anyone became a strategist. In my first week at the first agency I worked at, I was given a brief to help out the strategy director, defining some creative territories for redesigning Carr’s crackers. I absolutely loved it and became pretty enthralled with what these clever and creative Strategy folk did, though I didn’t think I was clever, creative or qualified enough to do it myself. Whenever I could, I’d look for ways to help them out with projects around my CS duties, but it took me until I became an account director to pluck up the confidence to transition into strategy. I haven’t looked back since.
Which project are you the most proud of and why?
Creating and launching Peroni Nastro Azzurro’s Stile Capri. Asahi are OUTLAW’s founding client and their Global Innovation team asked us to help define a 10 year innovation pipeline for Peroni Nastro Azzurro. We ran a fully remote global creative workshop to define some hugely exciting ideas, right at the beginning of the pandemic when Teams and Miro felt like a really alien way of working together! We worked with the Asahi team to develop insights, liquid ideas and propositions, as well as developing the brand name, identity and packaging. It was such an enjoyable and collaborative process, seeing Capri on shelf and being launched around the world is a great feeling.
Tell me about a tricky work-related challenge and how you approached it
It’s a classic agency problem but working to short deadlines is often a challenge. When we have limited time to crack a brief, we jump into it as a team and have a workshop to define our point of view and create ideas together. We find it gets us to stronger ideas quicker that everyone in the team is passionate about.
How do you approach a brief when you get it?
Every brief is different so we don’t believe in forcing every brief through the same strategic process every time. That tends to make for a long-winded and formulaic response to a brief. Instead, we interrogate the category, consumer and brand to uncover the opportunity for design.
Why did you found OUTLAW? How is it different to other agencies?
I spent the first decade of my career working in bigger London agencies, which gave me exposure to some of the biggest brands in the world and the experience to understand what great design is, as well as what it can do for brands. I had some brilliant experiences, great opportunities and learnt so much, but had a yearning to do something different.
In setting up OUTLAW, our ambition was to take the benefit of big-agency experience but deliver it in a more personal way. People are hugely important to us, so when we meet with new clients, the people they meet will be the people they work with. The same goes for our team. As a relatively small agency of 22, everyone plays a hugely important part in making OUTLAW what it is. Understanding that the team are people, not employees, is central to the way we work. We trust and respect each other, and try to create an environment where everyone has the space and support to produce work that they’re proud of, whatever that space and support looks like.
What impact do you think having female leaders/a 60% female creative team has on both the company and the work you create?
I’ve had the opportunity to work with amazing women throughout my career so far, but my experience of the industry has been predominantly under all-male leadership. I think it’s very important to not make generalisations about this, but my personal experience has not always been completely positive. If by being in a leadership position as a woman I can contribute to creating an environment where all people feel valued, supported and welcome, then I’ll be happy.
Who’s your dream client?
Running and sport are big passions of mine, so I’d love to work with a brand in the sports nutrition space. Being active and good nutrition are so beneficial to our physical and mental health, but sports nutrition has a legacy of being complex and expensive, which makes it inaccessible to people dipping their toe into the category for the first time. I’d love to see brands being more disruptive by demystifying the category in a way that’s credible.
What career advice would you give your younger self?
Be more confident! I wish I’d have backed myself and moved into strategy much earlier than I did.
Find out more about OUTLAW.