Dream Teams: Going Into Business With Mates

Today’s dream team is actually a dream trio! And it's none other than the founders of experiential marketing agency The Park - Lloyd Major, global production director, Jack Lamacraft, managing director and Will Worsdell, global strategy director. Five years ago, the group of friends came together, combining their differing skill sets to create a culture-driven brand experience agency, which has now expanded to a team of 20 in the UK and Australia.

It was just recently this year that The Park celebrated its fifth birthday but in this span of time, the company has seen a row of great successes, including developing the Spotify Beach at Cannes this year and launching The Park Sport back in June. With a client line up including names such as Asics, NBC Universal and Pinterest, things are only getting more exciting for The Park.

However, the story of these three musketeers coming together stretches far beyond the past five years. In fact, Lloyd and Jack met back in 2001, when they both worked at the agency Cake in west London. Starting their careers sharing a desk 20 years ago, the two still sit next to each other every day in 2023, except now in east London.

At Cake, Jack and Lloyd worked together on the Reebok and Nintendo accounts, during a particularly special time for the agency with “lots of brilliantly talented characters” - the lessons from which the two soaked up. “My first impression of Lloyd was that he was very different to most other people at Cake,” reminisces Jack. “He was keen to make sure he looked his best compared to most of us who were pretty scruffy back then.” On the other side, Lloyd remembers thinking how Jack was really tall and obsessed with tea - “not much has changed,” he adds.

A decade or so later, when Jack was living in Sydney at the time, Will came into the picture. Jack and him met through a friend and ended up playing football together. “I met Lloyd and Jack 15 years ago now, while living the dream playing football, having BBQs and generally making the most of the expat lifestyle in Sydney,” remembers Will. But it wasn’t until 10 years later that the group started working together as an official trio.

“We actually proactively decided that we wanted to work together,” says Lloyd. “We were at the stage in life where we thought ‘fuck it’, if we don’t give ‘it’ a shot we could miss an opportunity.” With a newfound and more laid back attitude to life, the only thing left to do was figure out what ‘it’ is and how the three would make ‘it’ work. 

One thing was for certain - all three of them wanted to start a business and they knew they wanted to work somewhere where they could shape a culture and get to meet more interesting characters. Jack and Lloyd shared a similar background in terms of the type of agencies they had worked at and Will came in with his experiential past and a healthy dose of cynicism, so there was one thing left to do.

“Really, it started off as a pub conversation, then progressed to a sober conversation, which led us to a whiteboard in a meeting room in east London in 2017 where it became concrete. We opened the agency some six months later,” says Jack. The Park ended up launching in London in 2018, followed by Sydney in 2021.

Prior to The Park, Will had been working with Lloyd at ITV, creating ‘Paving The Way’ for the MOBO awards, which was essentially their first project together and happens to be up there with Will’s proudest achievements. “We had an idea for the campaign that I loved but had no clue how to execute it,” he says. “A quick call to Lloyd and the seemingly impossible became possible, and he came on board as a freelancer to execute it.”

For Lloyd and Jack, who had worked with each other for much longer, their first project together was a bit more peculiar. “Do you remember the ITV Digitas adverts with the Monkey and Johnny Vegas? Well, Jack and I were Monkey’s PRs and it was our job to make him famous,” says Lloyd. After that, they also worked plenty on Reebok and Nintendo through Cake back in the early noughties. “It was all so new and the process was pretty chaotic,” he admits. “Basically, loads of long days and nights, brilliant creative ideas seamlessly executed and shit loads of fun with some big characters.”

When the three finally came together at The Park, their very first project was promo for ‘Love Island’. “We all naturally looked after the relevant bits of the project and it was clear that our skills complemented each other so well,” says Jack. “We had something special when we came together. The process was pretty easy, we’re all pretty laid back.”

This shared laid back attitude is also the culprit for their smooth sailing. “There’s been really no major falling outs in the five years which is pretty impressive,” admits Lloyd. He adds that being in a trio certainly helps, as the number lends itself to a democratic decision via voting if a disagreement should arise.

Besides the beauty of voting, Will also praises healthy debate. “With creativity it should be welcomed,” he says. “There is emotion in as much as we’re passionate about our views. It never boils over into anything combative though. If anything, with mates, there’s a danger of groupthink and consensus, so we have to work hard against that by involving the rest of the team as much as possible in the decisions.”

While pairing off as duos also works well, nothing compares to utilising their full spectrum of skills and personalities in a trio. For Lloyd, the reason for their unmatched compatibility resides in their polarising personalities. “We’re just very different and know each other very, very well. We know what buttons to press and what buttons not to press. We have the same goal of making The Park as successful as possible,” he explains.

Jack also finds a likeness in their differences. “We share the same values, views and outlook on the world, but we all have quite different approaches.” And for Will, having shared values, trust and clarity around their roles all play an equal part in their compatibility and success as co-founders. 

“The great thing about going into business with mates is that you have the values and trust already, so it’s just a case of sorting the roles out,” adds Will. “We don’t have competing styles. At one end of the scale, I’m quite future-focused and more on our thinking and innovation, at the other end Lloyd is more focused on our delivery, partners and current output. Jack is in the middle, leading the business and moving between the two.”

With clearly defined roles and responsibilities, it’s no surprise that The Park skyrocketed in the first five years of its existence, and remains what all three of the founders are most proud of in their careers. Although Lloyd is quick to admit they’re bad at patting themselves on the back, he adds: “Getting the company off the ground is an achievement in and of itself.” Will agrees: “Through all the challenges and highlights along the journey of The Park, I think the collaboration amongst the founders that I’m proudest of was when our backs were really against the wall at the start of the pandemic, where you’re having scary scenario-planning conversations. But we stuck together and had each other’s backs.”

“I couldn’t do this on my own and I’m sure Jack and Will would say the same,” says Lloyd. “I definitely wouldn’t want to run a business on my own,” agrees Will. “Having partners just makes it all more interesting, successful and fun. Being a thinker, I need to get stuff out of my head, so I love having partners I can chat stuff through with. It stops the popcorn-head feeling.”

It’s not only chats that help these three let the steam off though - it’s also all the things that inspire them, and for Lloyd that’s simply being in London. “Especially with what we do, the cultural side of the city contributes massively to our work and agency whether that’s with people that we collaborate with or the area in which we work. London feels like it’s having a good moment again. That’s important and inspirational.”

Jack’s inspiration looks quite different: “Glastonbury Festival! It’s an environment where creativity runs free, uninhibited by the constraints of reality. I wish it was open for longer than just one weekend, as there’s so much to see and do. It’s a creative mecca!” And for Will, he simply gets inspired by others that successfully run businesses. “It’s really tough and I have absolute admiration for anyone that’s had a crack, let alone those that have achieved success through it. Beyond that, what inspires me is the people that redefine categories.”

One way the three are redefining the entire industry is by really dedicating themselves to The Park’s radical diversity. “We were always very conscious that we are three white men, who started the business,” admits Jack. “While we can’t do anything about that, what we can do is make sure that we make a positive impact with the people we bring into the business as we grow. One of our founding values is ‘Diversity makes the world better’ and we truly believe that.”

So, when The Park opened its doors, building a diverse team was already a major focus. “We never want to make an agency with twenty people like the three of us,” says Will. “It all comes from a genuine belief that the most creative, interesting, and enjoyable cultures are those that have people from the most varied backgrounds and lived experiences. This has driven our recruitment and cultural initiatives.”

With their recruitment, The Park focuses on attitude and outlook more so than specific ‘on-the-job’ experience, in order to weave the diverse team they’re after. “We also heavily consider the places we recruit from and how we assess candidates and applications,” adds Will. 

While their dedication to diversity has stayed stable ever since the start, there are some things all three of them admit they could’ve done differently in the first year of the company’s life. “We were kids chasing a football a bit,” jokes Will. “Well, old-ish men chasing a football. We would work hard to win a project and then all of us would be all over it. Then when it was completed, we realised we hadn’t been paying any attention to what was next. Delineating our roles more and trying to balance our focus between delivery and new business probably could’ve happened a bit quicker. I also should have savoured the fish finger sandwiches at The King’s Head, the local at our first office, more. They’re incredible. I miss them.”

Jack agrees on delegating tasks and believes that their excitement could have been more tempered upon their first big project win. “It took us three months to get our pipeline up and running again,” he says. Dividing and conquering became the key to their success quickly after they realised what had happened.

Today, at The Park reigns a totally new and refreshed outlook. Combining Will’s simple skill of stripping things back to their core, Lloyd’s unweathering positivity and Jack’s completely ego-less approach to creativity, and their five year experience, things are looking up - and speeding up.

“2024 feels like the relaunch of the business,” says Jack. “It’s the year we approach things differently. We’ve weathered the covid storm and are now making our way through another tricky period and in 2024 we really want to kick on and realise the potential of the business. Continue to grow, continue to bring different and interesting people into it and also do work we’re proud of. Experiential as a discipline is still finding its feet, but there’s so much potential - we want to make sure we’re leaving no stone unturned.” 

And while new approaches, highlights and challenges will keep pushing The Park forward, it will always remain a company with “friendship at the heart of it.” “Without that,” says Lloyd,  “The Park wouldn’t and couldn’t be the same agency.”