FH STORIES | OAK CREATIVE

Oak Creative operates as a creative partner. By working in partnership with its clients, Oak Creative brings the expertise and resources that many businesses do not have in house.  This includes everything from brand development, digital design, illustration and animation, marketing and advertising, print and packaging, to website design and construction.

Studio director Laura Bevan heads the team of eight.  Like many companies post-pandemic, they’ve developed hybrid working practices – something which suits the creative industries and allows that all important work-life balance.

We talked to Laura Bevan and marketing manager Jess Banks about what makes them tick.

STRAIGHT TO THE HEART

“We become a part of our clients’ teams.  The only way to help a business grow at the right pace and in the right direction is by having a deep understanding of what they do, what they want to do and even what they haven’t thought of doing” says Laura.

“That way we can give our clients a much better service, helping them develop their strategies and providing them with the tools to make it happen.  Putting these elements into the heart of the business means they’re not just ‘add-ons’ but rather an essential part of the planning and development process.”

CREATIVITY LEADS THE WAY

“As a team of creative experts, we get a real buzz from seeing clients’ satisfaction when we provide them with creative solutions that work and deliver to their bottom line” Jess says.

“COVID caused some issues, as it did for everybody, but we also took the opportunity to create a new plan for our business.

“We reconsidered our offering and our messaging so that we’ve come out of the pandemic with a really strong positioning.  We are industry partners to Produced in Kent and corporate partners to Locate in Kent, both key to driving the Kent economy.

“In addition we’ve built and launched an e-commerce platform for food and drink companies, called FoodE.  It’s designed to offer an affordable way for smaller companies to get an intelligent online shop to help them grow sales.”

TIME TO GET FoodE, ONLINE INTELLIGENCE

Oak Creative has always worked with food and drinks brands, so it was a natural path for them to develop an industry specific ecommerce platform.

There are around 2,500 food and drink microbusinesses in Kent.  For smaller companies the cost of going online to sell products can be prohibitive and the practicalities daunting, so the Oak team came up with FoodE – an intelligent online shop that can go live in a matter of days, with personalised design, and created specifically for food and drink businesses.

As Jess says “FoodE is designed to simplify things!  Sell more products, attract new customers, reduce cart abandonment, give and enjoy great customer service, and capture reviews from happy customers.”

Laura is proud of the way FoodE works – “It honestly is so easy to use, and there’s always technical support available here.  Because we wrote and designed it ourselves we are completely confident about what FoodE offers.  We also offer a payment plan so that clients can forecast monthly payments for the service.”