Independent brand communications agency, Manifest has appointed Lauren Preece as Brand Services Director and is doubling the size of its design team in response to record growth in its brand services work over the past year. Lauren will join longstanding Chief Design Officer, Martin Farrar-Smith in leading the global branding team, which covers brand tracking, brand strategy and brand design. Based in Manifest’s London studio, Lauren’s role will involve working directly with the agency’s regional directors in the UK, USA, Sweden and Australia to coordinate a team of global designers, strategists and researchers.
Alex Myers, Founder & CEO at Manifest commented:
“Brand strategy and development has always been at the heart of our proposition, and over the past two years, we have seen this aspect of our work experience explosive growth. It’s exciting to see Lauren join Martin in heading up the department globally as we continue to invest in growing our team and capacity, as well as our creative horizons in 2025 and beyond.”
Manifest’s unified brand communications offering encompasses brand consultancy, creative services, and campaign delivery, and according to Preece, this holistic mindset sets the agency apart when delivering brand work.
“There is an increasing appetite for brand work that is conscious of how the brand will be used in practice across the marketing mix,” says Preece. “As an agency not just responsible for building the brand but, in most cases, also taking it to market, our proprietary approach goes further than the usual brand creation process to consider communications and marketing efficacy at quite a detailed level.”
Preece’s holistic brand and marketing experience is one of the reasons she was appointed to the position, having taken up in-house brand roles at Virgin and BrewDog alongside agency experience at Urban Nerds and before that, an original stint at Manifest between 2012 and 2015.
Martin Farrar-Smith, Manifest’s Chief Design Officer and the other half of the brand services senior leadership team commented: “Lauren’s appointment isn’t just a reaction to the growing scale of our brand consultancy work at Manifest, it will provide a driving force for our continued evolution and innovation. Our branding work has always had an integrated mindset, but Lauren brings with her a critical eye around the application of our branding work that ensures efficacy and impact across our clients’ entire marketing ecosystems.”
Manifest’s global client roster includes Diageo, Reckitt, Universal Music Group and Logitech, with their agency’s ‘unified’ approach allowing brands to consolidate agency support under one roof.
According to Myers, this is a reason why brand services are so integral to its broad spectrum of services: “The old integrated process is a linear one, consisting of consistent but in many ways separate channels,” he suggests. “In a unified agency, where there isn’t a lead channel, only a leading idea, things are less linear and more symbiotic. It becomes about the cohesion of content, not just consistency. The brand work is at the heart of everything, and it provides the DNA for creativity across paid, earned, social and owned channels. Our ambition with our brand consultancy work is to go beyond building successful brands and lay the foundations for significant ones. The work we do in our brand services team provides the genesis for that level of cultural relevance.”
Manifest’s brand services work has tripled in the past year, and the B-Corp-certified agency was recently named Campaign’s Global Consultancy of the Year, with studios in London, Manchester, Stockholm, New York, Los Angeles and Melbourne all focused on ‘building brands that change the world’. The agency recently appointed Rowena Vithlani as its new Managing Director in the UK, and longstanding team member Helen Kenny stepped up to Chief Operating Officer for the group in January.
“Manifest is an agile, ethical and innovative alternative to the old global network model,” says Preece. “Part of my mandate is to question the status quo and break new ground. That means this role is not just focused on producing the best possible branding work; but on producing it in the right way, with the right people and with a clear view of the impact it can have on the world. We’re creating new things every day, but we’re also blowing shit up. And I’m here for it.”
