10 Years of Friday

In 2014, the world was a very different place. Donald Trump was best known for his reality TV show, The Apprentice. Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion while Apple infected 500 million iPhones with a new U2 album. Internet usage on mobile devices exceeded PCs for the first time, marking a “pivotal moment” in the shift towards mobile dominance and GDPR was just a twinkle in the eye of the Data Protection Commissioner.

In Ireland, people got upset about water charges as we were emerging from an extremely harsh recession. The kids were singing along to “Happy” by Pharrell Williams and “Shake it off” by Taylor Swift, signalling brighter times ahead.

I’m looking back at where we came from – how we’ve developed our skills, services and processes. The great clients we’ve worked with and the amazing team who made it all happen. We’ve had a lot of success, we haven’t always got it right but we’ve evolved into an agency that is unrecognisable in almost every way from what it was in 2014.

It’s only when you look back that you can see the effect time has had on a business, its clients, process, services and the people working there.

Here are 10 key influences that have helped shape our evolution as an agency over the past 10 years.

1. Agency Positioning

When myself and Graham first started Friday in 2014, we may have been described as a web design agency that did some marketing activity. Clients had very little appetite for UX but we had a great foundation for building what we’d now describe as a performance and growth agency.

How we position ourselves today is based on our evolving process, users’ expectations, clients’ requirements, advances in technology and more importantly the skills and ambition of the team who have shaped the agency over the years. Our unique blend of Digital Marketing and User Experience allows us to remove the friction for users and uncover every opportunity for growth for our clients in a way that was simply not possible in 2014.

2. Digital Marketing

Ten years ago the digital marketing landscape was much like traditional marketing, relying on basic channels like search, banner ads and email marketing. KPIs were not used effectively due to limitations in measurement and tracking capabilities. Agencies relied on broad metrics such as basic traffic analytics and sales spikes.

Watching how Gavin and his team have strategically developed our digital marketing capabilities and integrated them with our UX services over the years has been fascinating. The tools and methods in the marketing team’s arsenal have never stopped evolving. Advanced analytics, marketing automation, artificial intelligence and programmatic advertising – digital marketing is unrecognisable from what it was 10 years ago.

3. User Experience

UX has been around since before Don Norman coined the term at Apple in the early 1990s, but it has only become truly mainstream over the last 10 years.

In 2014, when it came to user research, at best, we would have carried out surveys and maybe done some guerrilla user testing, but it was light touch compared to the variety of methods and processes we use across all of our work today.

Research has become an integral part of digital design and performance marketing and you can see its influence in the results our clients are getting.

Outside the agency, there has been a cultural shift, the value of UX is being realised and design maturity is developing rapidly in many sectors. Positive experiences are now expected and clients are really listening to their customers. It’s been a long road to get to this point but there is so much more potential to unlock.

4. Process

If I were asked to use one word to describe how our work has changed over the last 10 years, I would say ‘process’.

Process drives everything we do. It’s never fixed and always evolving. Sure, processes have always been there, but it’s amazing how 10 years of experience, success, failures, technological advances, further education and basic trial and error have refined and evolved the way we work.

Process mixed with a robust strategy anchored in research has created clear growth for all of our clients across many disciplines and services. It’s won the agency a lot of awards and helped us win many new clients like The National Lottery and Peter Mark while retaining the ongoing trust of others like DublinTown and The Law Society for many years.

5. Our Home

In our first couple of years, we bounced around the city centre, both north and south until we finally found our permanent home in Merrion Square.

We don’t take it for granted that we get to spend time together in such an inspiring and historic building that is just 20 meters from one of Dublin’s most beloved open spaces. Not to mention the fun we have had in the restaurants and bars we are surrounded by. It is a pleasure working in a building like this.

6. Technology

As a designer in 2014, I remember spending a lot of time with my head in Photoshop, Illustrator, Balsamiq and even Flash (remember that?). Video calls were few and far between. Figma was still a couple of years away and we were starting to look at Sketch for UI design. Productivity software was limited, there was nothing like the variety of SaaS-based tools we rely on today with the deep integrations we have come to expect.

Artificial Intelligence has become a vital tool that we use across most of our work, from a productivity point of view this has been a game changer but there’s enough talk about AI these days, so let’s move on.

7. Clients

Since we started, we’ve had the privilege of working with some great clients, there’s a long list of success stories measured by the growth of their businesses, their happy customers and the pride our team takes in doing some of the best work of their lives. We continue to have a lot of fun collaborating with clients who we learn so much from, many of whom have been with us since the very start.

Over the years clients have become more savvy. A high standard of user experience is now expected and clients are willing to invest and involve their customers in their processes, be it for design or marketing. Clients also understand the connection between UX and marketing and the benefits of having control of the entire user journey from lead to conversion.

8. Covid 19

That was weird, right? There is a 24-month black hole in our lives! As time goes by, you tend to forget the darker sides of the pandemic and silver linings begin to emerge.

Covid changed many areas of how we live and work. Today, we work from home a couple of days a week and it works very well – we waste less time travelling to meetings, we’re more focused, and productive and our work-life balance has improved.

9. Team

I had a look through the list of who has been members of the Friday team over the years. We’ve been lucky to have worked with some of the most talented in the country and our current team is the best we’ve ever had.

Our people have made the agency what it is today. I’m not going to start naming names but myself and Graham are so grateful for the valuable time every member of our team, past and present has given and continues to give the agency. We are so proud of what we’ve achieved together.

At Friday, there is a positive culture of curiosity, knowledge sharing, collaboration and support that we will carefully carry with us into the future.

10. Looking ahead

It’s difficult to look ahead 10 years, I think predicting the future is a bit of a mugs game that few get right.

Our vision and mission are much the same, we have some exciting and ambitious new goals and plans for the future that will continue our growth and evolution.

It is a cliche but I am genuinely looking forward to the next 10 years!