The Origins of Tusko

Not every digital marketing agency began life as a duo who loved documentaries.

Activist, social impact storytelling is right at the heart of Tusko, and has been since day one. Creating impactful, engaging films that move the needle on an important cause will always be one of Tusko’s core strengths as an agency.

The results and ripple effects of film content speaks to the huge power of emotional, visual storytelling — and makes the impact we want to have on the world possible (more on this below).

Essentially we’re content creators who ended up becoming an agency — after realising we could better serve our clients (and the high impact, positive messages they represent) by expanding our services. 

Pooling together the diverse range of talent we had around us into the full service marketing agency we’ve become, now we can tell stories on different mediums with a wider range of services in the most impactful way we can.

But it all started with film. A blend of documentary and commercial film making that showed us the significant social impact of engaging, well produced storytelling. This article pays homage to our origins and will give you an insight into our DNA.

The journey from film school to B Corp-certified, purpose-driven agency has been an interesting one for our founders. 

Jake spent his years after film school working with NGOs and charities. Making films in Africa and Europe; on the migrant crisis, child slavery in Ghana, substance misuse in Kenya’s Kibera and also telling an inspiring story about food waste and community with a film called The People’s Kitchen in Hackney (his place of birth). Meanwhile, Dan was working in commercial filming for a production company whilst living in Australia, learning the art of making film look stunning. 

Although these adventures in film production took on slightly different directions, when Jake and Dan came back together they still shared the same drive to tell social impact stories that actually… make an impact. 

In the words of co-founder Jake Smith:

“Dan (Grixti, co-founder) and I both feel that combining information with entertainment is the best way to get an important message across. You can’t substitute a good story with pretty pictures, but it’s also vital to combine the important, eye-opening information we all need to hear with entertainment. Otherwise… people tend to switch off.”

From documentaries to digital marketing

So how does this documentary film background influence what we do now, as a marketing agency?

It’s been seen in the third sector time and time again how much easier it is to get an audience to engage if they have a singular, character-based focal point to connect to.

Psychologically, we need to connect with a human (or character) who represents the group. Sometimes we struggle to develop that emotional attachment to a wider cause. 

And as audiences, we definitely get overwhelmed by having the pressing urgency of a social cause shoved into our brains, without an emotional anchor in the story to justify our attention.

Jake continues:

“I’d chat to people about the issues of our time coming up for discussion on Question Time and NewsNight, and no one seemed to pay attention. But they knew all the lyrics to Rage Against the Machine songs.

That’s when Dan and I became really interested in delivering films with a strong message and a great aesthetic that could potentially make a really big difference in the world”

Stories that change things

Some of the biggest global waves of social action have been sparked by documentary film making. It’s evident that documentaries can have a big impact and can even save lives. Here are just a few examples:

• David Attenborough’s Blue Planet II (2017) sparked a wave of outrage about plastic in the ocean resulting in widespread abandonment of plastic straws and single use plastics in businesses of all sizes. 

• The Thin Blue Line (1988) - Errol Morris tore into the evidence and testimony against Randall Dale Adams, a death row inmate accused of murdering a police officer, in this 1988 true crime documentary. His counter-argument was so convincing that it helped overturn Adams’s conviction, just days before he was set to be killed by lethal injection.

  
  

• Blackfish (2013) resulted in SeaWorld succumbing to unprecedented public pressure and mass boycotting, ending their orca breeding program.
  

• The End of the Line (2009) has a vast impact on awareness of overfishing. Click here to read a piece of research into the measurable shift created by this film.
  

• While They Watched (2015), a film produced by Tusko, was distributed in over 100 countries and translated into 13 languages. Take a look at the project page here, and campaign page here to find out more.
  

The pandemic

The pandemic brought about a realisation that Tusko’s core aim — to create a positive impact — could be amplified by combining the passion and skill of documentary film with the mixed media, cross-platform penetration of digital marketing. 

That’s when we evolved from being content creators, to a fully fledged digital marketing agency.

There was a convergence in the digital space. Suddenly every brand who wasn’t already online, was forced to create a website. It also forced companies to take a closer look at their digital presence, and up their game.

Dan (co-founder) :

“We were often frustrated when we saw the content, which had won awards for its impact-fulness and storytelling, was being let down by the website it was housed on.

Sometimes the brand didn’t seem right, sometimes the overall comms - it lacked a story we connected with. The way we create content is by thinking a lot about our audience. We also combine this with data analytics so we can learn from our content - what is working and what isn’t. In our opinion it seemed that some of the websites hadn't considered the audience or the data collection as much as they could have. This got us thinking - we should be offering this service”

The pandemic also alerted people to the many elephants in the room when it comes to global problems to solve — such as climate change, our relationship with nature, and human rights. The demand for our help increased, and shifted online. So we shifted the way we do things to be able to offer the complete range of service that impact businesses need to get their message out to the world, and make a positive difference. 

After all — a fully fledged marketing campaign is one of the most powerful ways to spread a message far and wide. Combining the heart and soul of a social impact documentary company, with the strategic reach of a digital marketing agency.

Our passion for uplifting voices, spreading ideas, and changing the world through engaging marketing comes directly from our skill for telling real, important, human stories on camera.  

It’s about telling important stories from a place of connection. And speaking up for change in a way that makes a measurable impact.

Dan continues:

“Branding, and conveying that brand through your website, is all about telling a story and connecting to the audience. The character could be the CEO, the end user or something abstract that resonates with us on a deep level. 

Our job is to figure that out — whether it’s for a national organization or charity in the third sector, the next ‘hot’ tech startup, or purpose led campaign, who the character of our story is.”

But it’s not just branding we can use to tell a story. With the way people experience the online world these days — every aspect of your digital presence tells a story. The ads they click on, the websites they visit, how they find you through SEO, and what they’re reading from you on social media. Take a look at our services page to see the individual and combination of services we offer.

In an oversaturated digital market, where attention is a commodity (‘attention economy'), shouting about what’s important to you is more important than ever.

So we’re still telling stories that make an impact — but now we use a combination of services to amplify that impact. We like to see all our services through the lens of storytelling. People will remember you they resonate with your story. This should be prevent on your website, in your brand and in your overall comms.

That’s all folks.

If you’re a social impact start-up or a third sector organisation in need of powerful, character-driven storytelling to engage your audience — that’s what Tusko is built on. DM us to start a conversation.