RV
Rupert Vaughan-Bellows
Founder, Chief Vision Officer
Founded the agency with a modest loan of two million pounds from his father's agency. Refers to this as bootstrapping.
Established whenever we say it was
Bring your ego to the door.
Then step aside. Ours needs the room, the floor, and most of the second floor.
Our vision
To help brands build meaningful connections with the people who matter most.
To know better than everyone at how to do their job.
Yes, the grammar is wrong. Three people flagged it. Two of them no longer work here.
What we do
You came to us with a problem. We have replaced it with a better one.
Every engagement opens with a full audit of what you have been getting wrong, delivered in a room you have paid for.
01
Strategy
We read the first page of your brief, then improve the rest without telling you.
£48,000 / day
02
Creative
One idea, presented four times, louder each time, until agreement is reached.
£62,000 / idea
03
Insight
We ask six men we went to school with what they reckon, then set it in a serif.
£31,500 / reckon
04
Post-rationalisation
Making the idea we already had fit the brief you actually sent. Our fastest growing division.
Bundled
Our men
Senior. Extremely senior. Available Tuesdays.
You will meet all five at the pitch. You will then work with a twenty-four year old called Ellie, who does the actual work and is not on this page.
GT
Giles Thornbury-Hyde
Executive Creative Director
Has not opened a laptop since 2011. Owns nine pairs of the same trainers. Says "kill your darlings" about other people's darlings.
MK
Marcus "Big Swing" Kane
Global Head of Being Right
Has never lost an argument, according to Marcus. Speaks at a volume best described as regional.
TP
Tarquin Prowse
Chief Growth Evangelist
Job title has changed four times this year. Job has not. Owns the only key to the good meeting room.
B
Barry
IT
Runs the agency. Paid the least. Not invited to the away day. Holds the only working password.
Our team represents a broad and vibrant spectrum of men aged forty-eight to fifty-six. We take representation seriously and have a slide about it, near the back, which we skip for time.
Our clients
What they said. What they meant.
Client feedback is a first draft. We have taken the liberty of finishing it.
"This is not what we asked for."
"This is not what we asked for, and that is precisely the point."
Global CMO, a brand you would recognise
"We ended up redoing the whole campaign in-house."
"They inspired us to carry the work forward ourselves."
Marketing Director, household FMCG
"Nobody here can explain what we paid for."
"Value of this kind rarely reveals itself in year one."
Procurement, name withheld by us
Our process
Five stages. Non-negotiable. Invoiced at each.
Stage 01
The brief arrives
We skim it on a phone, in a car, on the way to something better.
Stage 02
The chemistry meeting
We talk about ourselves for eighty-six minutes, then ask what keeps you up at night.
Stage 03
The reveal
Lights down. Music up. One idea, on a black slide, in ninety-point type. No second option, because we are not cowards.
Stage 04
The pushback
Yours, not ours. We hear you, we understand you, and we present the same idea again with a new name.
Stage 05
The awards entry
Written before the work runs, judged by people we had dinner with, collected in Cannes on your media budget.
Our awards
The Bigheads
An awards scheme we founded, host, sponsor, judge, enter and win. Entry is four thousand pounds per category. There are forty categories. We encourage you to enter your own work through us.
Best agency, self-nominatedMost confident, unopposedGrand Prix for effortBoldest reveal, fourteenth yearOutstanding contribution to us
About us
Forty years of being proved right, eventually, by us.
An independent agency, in the sense that nobody has offered to buy us since 2018.
Who we are
A diverse collective of makers, thinkers and doers, united by curiosity.
Four men who have known each other since school, and Barry.
Independent, founder-led, and entirely unaccountable to anyone except the founder, who agrees with himself.
Our history
Nine moments that made us. Four of them were lunches.
1987
Founded
Rupert leaves his father's agency and opens his own, two streets away, with a modest loan from his father's agency.
1991
First big client
Won at lunch. Lost at a different lunch. Still in the credentials deck.
1994
First award
We founded the awards in March and won them in November. A tradition was born, and a revenue line.
2003
The rebrand
We spent four hundred thousand pounds making our logo lowercase. The case study ran for eleven years.
2009
The campaign
The one Rupert still talks about. You have not seen it. He will describe it.
2011
Giles closes his laptop
It has not been opened since. Productivity across the creative department is unchanged.
2016
Barry arrives
The last structural change to the business. Everything that works, works because of this.
2019
Global expansion
We opened an office in Dubai. It is a slide. It has been a slide for seven years and performs extremely well.
2024
The AI pivot
We announced we had been doing AI all along. Nobody asked for evidence, which was fortunate.
Why us
Four reasons, three of which are the same reason.
Other agencies will tell you they listen. We have found that listening is where most briefs go wrong.
01
We do not listen
Listening invites input. Input invites rounds. Rounds invite doubt. We have removed all three.
A feature
02
Senior attendance
Every one of our senior people will attend your pitch, and none of them will attend anything after it.
Guaranteed once
03
Conviction
One idea, held firmly, defended loudly, long past the point of usefulness.
Included
04
Legacy
Forty years of experience, concentrated in four men, none of whom have written it down.
Non-transferable
We were shortlisted for Agency of the Year. By us. We did not win, as a gesture of humility, and we have mentioned that gesture in every deck since.
Our policies
We take all of this extremely seriously, in writing.
Each policy is reviewed annually by the person who wrote it, who is satisfied with it.
01Sustainability
+
What we published
Committed to net zero across our operations and supply chain, with science-based targets and transparent annual reporting.
What happens
There are reusable cups in the kitchen. Nobody uses them. Rupert flew to Cannes, Lisbon, Dubai and back to Cannes last year, and we offset the lot by printing fewer copies of the deck, which we also did for cost reasons.
Our annual report is one slide and the number on it is green.
Target
Net zero by 2050, by which time this will be someone else's problem, which is the strategy.
02Diversity, equity and inclusion
+
What we published
We are committed to building a workforce that reflects the audiences we serve, at every level of the business.
What happens
Our leadership team represents a broad spectrum of men aged forty-eight to fifty-six, educated at a narrow spectrum of schools. We have a DEI slide. It is slide forty-one. We have never reached slide forty-one.
Our pay gap report was completed, reviewed, and described internally as "not the right moment to publish". That was four years ago. It remains not the right moment.
Ellie raised this at the all-hands. Ellie was thanked for her passion and asked to take it offline, where it has remained.
Progress
We have hired a consultant to tell us what we already know, and then not to tell anyone else.
03Working from home
+
What we published
A flexible hybrid framework built on trust, autonomy and outcomes rather than hours.
What happens
You may work from home on any day Rupert is also not in. Rupert does not announce which days those are, and the policy is therefore best described as a game.
Trust is absolute, subject to the green dot, which is checked. Outcomes are what matter, as measured by who was visibly present when Giles walked past.
Exceptions
Partners work from home permanently and call it client-facing. Barry has not been allowed home since 2016 because the server is in the kitchen.
04Modern slavery statement
+
What we published
We have a zero tolerance approach to forced labour and expect the same standards throughout our supply chain.
What happens
Our statement is a genuine commitment, which is why we took it from a rival agency's website in 2019. We changed the name in four places out of five. The fifth is still live on our site and we have decided it adds credibility.
We have never audited a supplier. We have, however, run six unpaid internships, which we describe as exposure, and one of which built the website you are reading.
Review
Reviewed annually by Tarquin, who has confirmed each year that it remains the same document.
Full policy documents are available on request. The request goes to Barry, who has not been given access to the folder.
Accreditations
Certified, affiliated, and listed.
Every badge below was obtained by paying for it, which is how badges work, and we would encourage you not to look into it further.
Member, a body we foundedSignatory, pledge with no measurementCarbon conscious, self-declaredBest places to work, entered onceAccredited by the accreditor we sponsor
Services and fees
Everything you need, plus the things we have decided you need.
Our rate card is a conversation starter. The conversation ends higher.
How we price
Transparent, outcome-led pricing designed around your objectives.
We charge what we think you can bear, then add the car.
Fees are quoted excluding VAT, travel, thinking time, waiting time, and the time Marcus spends being right.
The disciplines
Six services. One idea. Several invoices.
Open any discipline for the version we put in the deck, and the version that happens.
01Strategy
+
In the deck
A rigorous interrogation of category, culture and consumer, distilled into a single galvanising territory.
In the room
Rupert reads the first page of your brief in the car, decides it is the wrong brief, and writes a better one on the way in. You are then charged for the rewrite and, separately, for being told about it.
Fee
£48,000 per day. Half days are £48,000.
02Creative
+
In the deck
A bold, culturally fluent platform with the elasticity to live across every channel for a decade.
In the room
One idea. No second option, because second options are for agencies that doubt themselves. If you reject it, we present it again in a different typeface and call it a new route.
Fee
£62,000 per idea. The second showing of the same idea is £62,000.
03Insight and planning
+
In the deck
Proprietary research methodology combining quantitative rigour with deep ethnographic immersion.
In the room
We ask six men we went to school with what they reckon, run it past Giles's wife, then set the result in a serif on a black slide. Sample size is a matter for the appendix, and there is no appendix.
Fee
£31,500 per reckon. Immersion trips to Lisbon are recharged at cost.
04Production
+
In the deck
End to end delivery managed by an integrated team of specialist producers.
In the room
We know a bloke. He is very good. He is also very busy, so we will use the other bloke, who is cheaper, and keep the difference as an integration fee.
Fee
Cost, plus thirty-five per cent, plus a handling charge for applying the thirty-five per cent.
05Post-rationalisation
+
In the deck
Strategic coherence mapping, ensuring every execution ladders back to the core idea.
In the room
Making the idea we already had fit the brief you actually sent. Our fastest growing division and the only one that is profitable. Available retrospectively up to four years after the campaign has run.
Fee
Bundled, which is to say already in the number you agreed.
06Keynote speaking
+
In the deck
Thought leadership from one of the industry's most recognised voices.
In the room
Rupert will speak at your conference about the future of the industry for forty minutes, thirty-four of which concern a campaign he worked on in 2009. He requires a car, a green room, and a chair that turns.
Fee
£18,000, the car, and the chair.
Retainers
Three ways to stop asking what it costs.
All tiers include access to our thinking, which is to say access to Rupert's opinions, which he has regardless.
Tier one
Access
£22,000
per month
- Two calls a month
- One of them is rescheduled
- Named account lead, unnamed account team
- Invitation to The Bigheads, at cost
Our favourite
Partner
£55,000
per month
- Everything in Access, said louder
- Marcus attends in person, twice
- Quarterly immersion day, Lisbon
- Right to say you work with us
- We say it first, and more often
Tier three
Legacy
On request
per year, indefinitely
- You stop asking what it costs
- We stop explaining
- Rupert attends your board, uninvited
- Your logo appears in our deck forever
Recharges
The small items that make the big invoice.
Itemised quarterly, in a font small enough to discourage questions.
A
Biscuits
The good ones, for pitches. The others for status calls.
Cost plus 20%
B
Rupert's car
Door to door, including the part where he is already going that way.
£640 / journey
C
Thinking time
Time spent thinking about your brand while doing other things.
£410 / hour
D
Awards entries
Your work, our name, your money, our shelf.
£4,000 / category
E
Out of hours
Anything before ten or after four.
Double
F
Being told no
Applied when feedback exceeds two rounds.
£2,750 / instance
Recharges are not negotiable, but they are discussable, at £410 an hour.
Sector experience
We have worked in your sector. We cannot say which. But we have.
Confidentiality prevents us naming the brands, the work, the results, or the years. It does not prevent us charging for the experience.
Careers at Bighead
Join Bighead. Become insufferable.
We hire for confidence and train for everything else. We do not train for everything else.
Life here
A culture of collaboration, learning and genuine work-life balance.
A culture of being in the office, visibly, until Rupert leaves.
Perks include a beer fridge, a table tennis table nobody is senior enough to use, and an away day Barry is not invited to.
Open roles
Five vacancies. Four of them are the same job.
Junior Creative
You will be called Ellie regardless of your name. You will do the work and attend none of the meetings about it.
£24,000 plus exposure
Senior Creative
Same job as above. Must own a gilet and be able to say "what if we blew it up" with conviction.
£95,000
Deputy Head of Being Right
Reports to Marcus. Will not be right. Will be told so, loudly, in an open plan setting.
£71,000
Chief of Staff to the Founder
Carry the bag. Laugh at the thing. Know where the good meeting room key is without ever holding it.
Competitive, apparently
IT Support
Barry needs help. Barry has needed help since 2016. Barry will train you and you will then be promoted above Barry.
£26,500
Application
The form.
There is no CV upload that we will open. Answer honestly, then answer again with more confidence.
Application received.
Rupert decided before reading it. Your details will be kept on file forever, and your ideas slightly longer. If you hear from anyone, it will be Barry, and it will be about a password.
Apply to Bighead
All fields are required. Several are unanswerable. That is the first test.
We will assign one anyway.
If the answer is nobody, you are applying to the wrong agency.
Unemployably humble62Rupert
How do you feel about the office
By submitting, you agree the idea is now ours. See above for practice.
Portfolio upload: disabled. We will not open it. If the work were any good we would already have taken credit for it.
Confidence below eighty-five will not be considered.