Interview: Raewyn Topp, Founder, Pure Purple
“We have a unique, new world model that combines traditional agency and project management disciplines with a network of international creative freethinkers”
Meet the creative force at the helm of Pure Purple
New Zealand-born, Raewyn Topp is an Effie, Cannes Lion and Gold Clio winner. But her proudest achievement is the creation of Pure Purple, a unique, female-led collective powered by extraordinary talent and a new-world model that, combined, injects creativity, strategy and energy into brands, campaigns and projects. We caught up with her to find out more about removing the grey, the power of innovation and inclusivity and why you can never have too much sparkle.
What inspired you to create Pure Purple?
Pure Purple was born out of a desire to infuse creativity, energy and project management rigour into projects and brands that were stuck or lacking direction. At the same time, I saw a huge pool of talent being forced out of an industry in which they excelled, simply because they had become mothers. I believe this female talent to be our biggest untapped resource and wanted to create something that harnessed the incredible value that was being lost. I saw a gap in the market for a female-led, non-traditional, highly creative, and strategic agency that could bring a fresh perspective to clients’ challenges. Our mission is to remove the grey areas where projects get stalled and to bring them to life with innovative solutions.
But don’t get me wrong, we have great ‘gents’ in our agency too.
What do you mean by "removing the grey"?
At Pure Purple, we refer to project challenges like low priority, a lack of new ideas, poor adoption, or being too busy with day-to-day tasks as 'the grey.'
Nothing grows in a shadow; we find that by adding brightness and vibrancy to projects the outcome is far more successful.
Many projects unfortunately get stuck in these grey areas. Our goal is to eliminate those barriers and infuse projects with creativity, strategy, and a clear direction to help them move forward and achieve success.
What sets you apart from other agencies?
We have a unique, new world model that combines traditional agency and project management disciplines with a network of international creative freethinkers. This allows us to offer idea-leading work with a global perspective and deliver creative solutions around the clock by leveraging different time zones. We have consultants in six countries around the word. We work 24 hours a day so it’s always daylight, this gives us more sunshine to fight ‘the grey’.
We also maintain minimal overheads, which means cost-efficiencies for our clients. Our approach is flexible, responsive, and highly creative, making it easy for clients to work with us and see exceptional value for their investment. We like to say ‘can do’ a lot.
Can you tell us more about the services Pure Purple offers?
We offer a wide range of services including marketing strategy, brand development and implementation, project management, content creation and design. We have specialist skills in workshop facilitation, creative project management, and producing content for conferences and events.
Are your talents and experience category agnostic?
We work across a wide range of industries leaning on our strong creative and strategic talent which cuts across categories, from corporates, manufacturing, sport, education, events and sustainability.
Some of our more recent work includes:
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC), one of the world’s most exclusive art schools. Imagine your work being critiqued by artists! We love the challenge and develop their recruitment materials and visual design projects.
PMI, multiple internal communications campaigns and video production.
One of our most rewarding recent projects was with a start-up in the sustainability space, which was owned by four of the biggest players in agriculture, where we created everything from their logo and brand look and feel, to building their website and managing their content creation for their social media channels.
Being headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland, home of the IOC and multiple Sporting bodies we naturally do a lot of work in the sports space. More recent examples include:
World Athletics Championships, Oregon 22. We were responsible for creating the secondary event branding, ticketing campaign creative, volunteers campaign creative and helping to drive the marketing strategy.
FIFA. We were the cause-related marketing agency for the FIFA Men’s World Cup in Qatar, creating the brand platform ‘Football Unites the World’ and other messaging and creative for event activation.
US Open Tennis. We provide event activation and creative support our client Sport Group for the US Open Tennis, Olympic games and most recent FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Due to our flexible model, we also have the ability to bring category-specific experience into our team where it is required.
What values is Pure Purple built on?
Inclusivity and innovation are at the core of everything we do. As a female-led agency, with consultants all over the world, we bring diverse perspectives to the table and ensure that our work is not only creative but also inclusive and impactful. We believe in empowering our clients by combining creativity with strategic insight, helping them set bold paths and achieve their goals. Our non-traditional, flexible model allows us to adapt quickly to our clients’ needs and deliver exceptional results that drive real change.
What’s next for Pure Purple?
We’re always looking ahead and exploring new opportunities to innovate and expand our impact.
We’re currently working with TEDxLausanneWomen as their creative partner to deliver the 2024 edition of what is an extraordinary event. This year is set to inspire and challenge over 1,000 delegates with an incredible speaker line up. We have created the entire event look and feel as well as injecting our magic into the content through two of our consultants who are working as speaker and communication coaches.
Our focus for the future remains on delivering creative, strategic solutions that remove the grey and bring our clients’ visions to life. AI is going to add an interesting new dynamic to creativity which we are excited by. We’re committed to continuing our growth and making a positive difference for the clients we serve.