Good question… It’s one we get asked a lot and it’s never been a simple answer. So, allow us this opportunity to indulge ourselves a little and give you the answer that there’s never been the time – or appetite – for at any social occasion we’ve ever attended. The answer it deserves.

If you bravely ventured into an advertising production office back in the noughties, you would occasionally cross paths with mysterious, solitary beings, known as ‘researchers’. But these weren’t the kind of researchers you’d find  running frantically around TV studios. These were a different breed  entirely. For a start they would never run anywhere, that job was reserved for the runners. ‘Saunter’ would be a more accurate  description of their nonchalant manner as they entered the production  office; often after arriving on a motorcycle and smoking a cigarette. Understandably wanting to distance themselves from their tea making TV counterparts, these researchers preferred the term Director’s Assistant, Creative Researcher or perhaps the French term Art Director. Make no mistake, these were cool cats. As runners starting out in the world of production, we wanted whatever it was they had.