There are probably easier places to build a creative agency.
Places with bigger creative communities. Bigger talent pools. Bigger networks. Postcodes that carry a little more weight when they appear at the bottom of a pitch deck.
We built ours in Grimsby.
And countless times over the years, we’ve been underestimated because of it. Good.
Because somewhere along the way, that became an advantage.
Grimsby made us
CMA wasn’t built in Shoreditch, Manchester or some fashionable creative quarter. It was built here.
In a town known more for graft than glamour.
A place where people roll their sleeves up, figure things out and get on with it.
That mentality has shaped us far more than I probably realised when we started.
We didn’t have an agency scene around us to disappear into. We couldn’t rely on our postcode, our network or being in the right room.
We had to make the work good enough. Then better. Then better again. We had to compete.
Being underestimated is useful
There’s something strangely motivating about somebody assuming you’re not going to be as good as the agency from the bigger city.
We’ve experienced it countless times. In typical Grimbarian fashion, we used it as fuel. That, and an unreasonable amount of coffee.
Over the years we’ve found ourselves competing toe-to-toe and working side-by-side with some of the world’s leading agencies. We’ve worked with businesses around the corner and brands on the other side of the world.
And the postcode never did the work. The people did. It was the postcode that inspired the people.
Ambition knows no boundaries
People inside Grimsby’s business community already know how ambitious and forward-thinking this place can be.
It’s usually people looking in from the outside who are surprised.
Global clients have brought us together with their agency partners from around the world to work around the same table. Then come the introductions.
London. New York. LA.
Grimsby.
It usually makes for an interesting conversation.
But that’s the point.
One minute we can be working on a Super Bowl campaign. The next, sitting face-to-face with a business a few miles from our office.
And we’ll bring exactly the same ambition to both. Because ambition isn’t dictated by the size of a business. And great thinking isn’t constrained by geography.
We’ve always believed the best businesses recognise that in each other. Shared ambition breaks boundaries.
Graft is only useful if it’s going somewhere
There’s another side to the Grimsby mentality that matters to me. Hard work on its own isn’t enough. You can graft all day solving the wrong problem.
So while the determination has stayed, CMA has evolved enormously. Today we connect strategy, design, development and marketing around the actual business challenge. We step back before we step forward. We ask difficult questions. We challenge assumptions. And sometimes we’ll tell a client that the thing they came asking us for isn’t actually the thing they need.
That’s part of the job. The graft gets things done. The thinking makes sure we’re doing the right things.
Grimsby: our great superpower
I’m proud that CMA is from Grimsby. Not despite what we’ve achieved. Because it’s part of why we’ve achieved it.
This town taught us resilience. Practicality. Adaptability. Problem solving. And that if somebody thinks you can’t do something, there is enormous satisfaction in quietly getting on with it and proving otherwise.
We’re still here. Still building. Still competing. And still occasionally being underestimated. That’s fine by us.
Proof beats promises. So check out our work and judge us.
