YRS TRULY founder MJ Widomska on agency purpose

Running a small agency is not an easy job. We have a set of challenges: introducing ourselves to the world and proving a small studio can deliver the same quality as the big players. We work twice as hard to get through the door and get noticed, and this extends to how hard we work with our clients.

YRS TRULY was born because I believe brands can do better. Too many agencies still ignore the data and go brand-first instead of audience-first. I wanted to fix that, so I assembled a team of talented folks and off we went to make things better.

In the year and a half YRS TRULY has been a thing, we’ve had our ups and downs — ups being winning clients over, downs being the crippling doubt if we’d ever be able to squeeze ourselves into the very tightly-packed agency landscape, being a bunch of newcomers (spoiler alert: we kind of already did, a tiny bit). One of the best ups was winning the Chair’s Award at The Drum’s Agency Awards this year.

Like every other agency ever, we don’t really like doing things the established way. Not groundbreaking in this business, we know. But, being led by a Gen Z immigrant, we had to try a tiny bit harder to get into the industry events, to get in front of clients, to get mentioned. So this win felt like a big thing — our first win, and the first time our hard work was recognised.

So, what’s next?

We’re looking to grow in 2020, and the (oddly heavy) award on display at our HQ is giving us wings. And, someday, hopefully soon — we’ll use our network to help other immigrants get into the wide UK marketing industry.

Originally published in The Drum. Illustration by Darren Shaddick.

YRS TRULY is an award-winning creative studio based in London. We help brands in tech and gaming reach new audiences ︎ You can find out more about work here︎︎︎, check in with us on Twitter︎︎︎ or drop us an email at hello@yrstruly.uk.