There is no universal style of clothing to show you work at an ad agency, but a T-shirt that blares “No Brief, No Talk” could get the point across pretty quickly.
The Incumbent Agency, a firm based in Singapore, has designed several other shirts with similar inside-baseball references to the business of branding and marketing. These include a plain white T with the words “Body Copy,” another urging coworkers to “Do Your Bloody Timesheets,” and another that says “99 Problems But a Pitch Ain’t One.”
According to Melvin Lim, one of The Incumbent Agency’s principals, the “No Brief, No Talk” shirt was by an account manager who kept popping by for a “quick copy change” over the course of the project. Though some of the jargon on the clothing may be fairly specific to creative, Lim said the appeal could be wider.
“Our ideal customers are primarily those working in creative, marketing and media agencies, though some designs are more ‘mass’ and relatable than others, like the Broken Image Tote Bag, HTeeML and Flash,” he said.
Lim said The Incumbant Agency is a side project to “de-stress, keep inspired, and help with that little bit of pocket money,” and that he and his partner have day jobs in art and copywriting. That doesn’t mean it couldn’t evolve well beyond an online store in the future, however.
“We do hope to work on client campaigns in the near future, turning The Incumbent Agency in to an actual incumbent agency — the sheer confusion we’ll make in the press is looking to be quite fun,” Lim said.
In the meantime, the products available for sale also include a tote bag with a broken image tag. Mugs, hats and prints are all in the works as well.
There is no “brand promise” in The Incumbent Agency gear – just an attempt to offer something that will resonate with the firm’s peers, Lim said.
“Just like the usual creative brief process, our prototypes go through a cringe test,” he said. “Reactions similar to that of ‘flash mob,’ ‘social experiment’ and ‘immersive VR experience’ get binned.”
