CALLING Agency to Call Peckham Home
In less than one year since launching in January 2023, CALLING has released a landmark global brand repositioning for Dr. Martens alongside campaigns for NSPCC, Self Space and Trans Pride UK Collective. With a key piece of new business landing in Q4, the start-up agency has expanded their team by 30% and moved operations to The Bussey Building - at the heart of Peckham’s emerging creative community, southeast London.
Historically, Peckham has been embraced by many cultures and communities. With the agency choosing to be based out of Copeland Park’s Bussey Building it joins a neighbourhood of independent creative businesses, who work together to sustain the area’s cultural diversity and vitality.
With a new positioning and integrated campaign for iconic UK brand Interflora slated for Q1 2024, the agency feels now is the time to put down roots as they prepare to build on their year one momentum.
Rani Patel, founder and MD, CALLING adds, “Where we live is a huge part of our identity. The life we see and hear that becomes our inspiration. When we look at the favoured areas in the city by the ad industry, so much of what was once so real and exciting about those places has been gentrified and sanitised. Coming south, to call a chunk of Rye Lane our home, it has huge symbolism for us. It’s an area that still creates its own culture. Similar to CALLING we are shaped by people. Everyone is different intentionally which means we have to be inclusive by design. We believe that difference leads to discourse and that is where innovation lies. Places like Peckham have been marginalised, but as a result it has found innovative ways to create. It inspires us to be within a community navigating life in new and different ways.”
Josh Tenser, founder and ECD, CALLING says, “We started CALLING to create progress - to help brands be seen by a modern audience. And we’re never going to get new ideas by doing the same old things we’ve always done. Not by setting out with the same old goals. Nor by creating the same old type of team. So it made sense to us to base ourselves somewhere new as well. Bringing on board such amazing clients this year has affirmed our hope that others want to share in this new energy. The ad industry is long overdue for some changes for the better. Some fresh blood and new ideas to bring us all more in-line with the world we find ourselves in today.”
Now with a team of 15, the collective is made up of members who sit across three generations (ages 19 to 50 y/o), with over 80% identifying as female and 60% BPOC. Of those team members 26% are neuro divergent, and 20% part of the LGBTQIA+ community.
The business was launched with the intention to be a new type of creative company for a world of change, the growth within the team and clients has been a result of that. Creating advertising that is derived from culture, community and contribution makes Peckham the perfect home ground for the agency.
