Marlow & Frame Credentials

Credentials deck

Eleven slides from Marlow & Frame, an invented brand and packaging consultancy, sent before any brief exists. New business consultants keep saying the same thing about a creds deck: it gets three minutes, so it has to answer who you are, what you are good at, how you work, who says so and what you cost. This one spends a whole slide on the five things the firm is not, and another on the kind of client it is wrong for.

Create a presentation with OneCraft11 slides, read in order

Every slide, in order

The whole deck as it renders, one slide after another. Read it the way the audience would.

CREDENTIALS

A brand and packaging consultancy, twenty two people

M&F

MARLOW & FRAME

LONDON · EST. 2014

Slide 1 · cover · One word, so the reader knows in half a second which of the four documents an agency sends this is.

A wide monochrome photograph of a design studio worktable seen from above, printed colour proofs fanned out, folded paper packaging dummies, a loupe and a scalpel on grey board, hard window light, high contrast, landscape composition, no people, no text, no logos — Slide 2 · intro · States what the firm is and, more usefully, the five things it will not do, which is the fastest way to be screened in or out.

Six Things We Do

Six services, buy them separately

Category audit

Two weeks in the aisle and in the data. We photograph every competing pack, map the visual codes the category has agreed on without noticing, and name the ones you can break. It ends with a written point of view, not a mood board.

Positioning

One sentence that says who the brand is for, what it replaces and why that is credible. We test it against the audit rather than against the room. If it survives both, the rest of the work gets much cheaper.

Identity

Wordmark, colour, type and the structural rules that hold them together on a shelf. Delivered as a working system with the awkward cases solved, not as a fifty page book of principles nobody opens twice.

Packaging

Structure and artwork across the whole range, including the sizes nobody wants to design. We work to the printer specification from day one because a beautiful pack that cannot be flexo printed is not a design.

Voice

How the brand sounds on a back of pack, a shelf barker and a complaint email. Three principles, twenty worked examples, and a rewrite of the copy you already have so the team can see the difference.

Rollout

We stay through print. Repro briefing, press passes, and a line by line check of the first production run. Roughly a third of our fee income is this phase and it is where most rebrands quietly go wrong.

Slide 3 · pillars · The service list, written as six things a client can buy rather than six abstractions.

Six Words We Use Precisely

Most of the arguments in a rebrand are vocabulary rather than taste.

Positioning

The claim you are making about who the brand is for and what it replaces. It is a sentence, and it is decided before anything is drawn.

Identity

The parts that carry the brand visually and verbally: mark, colour, type, voice. It expresses the positioning, it does not decide it.

Architecture

How a master brand, its ranges and its product names relate. Get it wrong and every future launch costs you a naming argument.

System

The rules that let somebody who has never met us make a new pack that still looks like yours. Without one, an identity lasts about a year.

Rollout

Everything between artwork approval and the first pallet leaving the printer. It is a project of its own and it is where budgets go.

Equity

The parts of the current brand shoppers actually recognise. We measure it before we redesign, so we know what not to throw away.

Slide 4 · content · Fixes the vocabulary, because most disagreements in a rebrand are two people using one word for two things.

How A Job Runs

Fourteen weeks is our median. The two review points are fixed and everything else moves around them.

Audit

Two Weeks In The Aisle

We photograph the category, read your sales data and interview eight of your buyers. You get a written point of view before we draw anything.

Position

One Sentence, Signed Off

A single positioning statement and the two we rejected. This is review point one, and nothing proceeds until somebody with authority signs it.

Design

Three Routes, Then One

Three genuinely different territories, presented on a real pack at real size. You pick one. We do not present nine variations of a favourite.

Range

Every Size, Not The Hero

The chosen route applied across the full range, including the multipack and the awkward 200ml. Review point two sits at the end of this.

We Attend The Press Pass

Repro briefing, press attendance and a check of the first production run. Nobody signs off a colour from a PDF on a laptop.

Slide 5 · checklist · The engagement shape, so a client can picture their own calendar rather than a methodology.

“

Ruth

Akindele

Marketing Director, Hollowmere Preserves

They told us in week two that our problem was not the label, it was that we had four sub brands doing the same job. That cost us a fortnight of arguing internally.

They were right. We killed two of them before any design started, and the range went from thirty one products to nineteen.

The part I did not expect was the printing. They were at the press pass at six in the morning in Wigan, twice, and the first run matched the proof. Our previous rebrand took four attempts.

Eighteen months on, nobody has asked to redraw anything.

Slide 6 · testimonial · One long client account of what it is like to work with the firm, including the uncomfortable part.

The Firm In Three Numbers

Year to March 2026. We publish these because most creds decks publish awards instead.

Active clients

Eleven in the year. We cap it at twelve, because thirteen is where the founders stop being in the room.

Weeks median

From kickoff to artwork release. The longest job we ran last year was thirty one weeks, the shortest six.

68%

Repeat work

Share of fee income from clients we had worked with before. It has sat between 61 and 71 percent since 2019.

Slide 7 · metrics · The shape of the business in three numbers, which is the honest version of an agency credentials boast.

Fit

Read the right hand column first. If three of those five are true of you, we are probably the wrong firm.

GOOD FIT

BAD FIT

A food, drink or household product that sits on a physical shelf.

A range of eight products or more, where consistency is the hard part.

Somebody with authority to sign a positioning statement in one meeting.

A print budget already approved, or at least already argued about.

A willingness to kill a sub brand if the audit says it is doing nothing.

You need media planning, social content or a website built.

You want nine routes presented and a vote across the leadership team.

The deadline is inside eight weeks and the range is more than twelve lines.

The brief says refresh but the real problem is the product itself.

You want the agency to also be the printer, which we will never be.

Slide 8 · comparison · Screens the reader in or out on fit, which saves both sides a chemistry meeting.

How We Charge

Fixed fee against a defined scope, or a retainer if the range keeps moving. We do not bill by the hour.

Project

£68,000

fixed fee, staged

For one rebrand with a range you can count

Audit and positioning

Identity and full range

Print attendance

Request Scope

Retainer

£11,500

per month, twelve months

For ranges that add lines every quarter

Two designers, one strategist

Unlimited new lines

Quarterly category audit

Request Terms

Slide 9 · pricing · Puts the two ways of buying on the table, because the third meeting is always about money anyway.

Three Reasons

If you remember nothing else from these eleven slides.

We Audit Before We Draw

Two weeks in the category and in your sales data, ending in a written point of view. Half our jobs change scope at that point, and it is always cheaper than changing it later.

We Design The Whole Range

The hero pack is the easy one. We work the multipack, the 200ml and the export variant in the same phase, because that is where an identity either holds or falls apart.

We Stay Through Print

Repro brief, press pass, first run check. About a third of our fee sits in this phase, and it is the reason our clients are not on their second rebrand in four years.

Slide 10 · takeaway · Three claims the deck has already evidenced, so the last thing read is the argument rather than a thank you.

A quiet black and white photograph of an empty studio meeting room, long plywood table, stacked packaging mockups along one wall, tall sash window with soft grey daylight, film grain, no people, no text, no logos — Slide 11 · closing · Asks for the one specific next step a creds deck can reasonably ask for.

The structure

What each slide is doing, so you can reuse the order even with different content.

Slide 1cover: One word, so the reader knows in half a second which of the four documents an agency sends this is.
Slide 2intro: States what the firm is and, more usefully, the five things it will not do, which is the fastest way to be screened in or out.
Slide 3pillars: The service list, written as six things a client can buy rather than six abstractions.
Slide 4content: Fixes the vocabulary, because most disagreements in a rebrand are two people using one word for two things.
Slide 5checklist: The engagement shape, so a client can picture their own calendar rather than a methodology.
Slide 6testimonial: One long client account of what it is like to work with the firm, including the uncomfortable part.
Slide 7metrics: The shape of the business in three numbers, which is the honest version of an agency credentials boast.
Slide 8comparison: Screens the reader in or out on fit, which saves both sides a chemistry meeting.
Slide 9pricing: Puts the two ways of buying on the table, because the third meeting is always about money anyway.
Slide 10takeaway: Three claims the deck has already evidenced, so the last thing read is the argument rather than a thank you.
Slide 11closing: Asks for the one specific next step a creds deck can reasonably ask for.

What makes this deck work

It screens people out on purpose

A whole slide of good fit against bad fit, with the instruction to read the right hand column first. Agency selection at this stage is a filter rather than a showcase, so making it easy to say no saves both sides a chemistry meeting.

The client quote includes the argument

Four paragraphs from a marketing director that open with a fortnight lost to internal disagreement. A creds testimonial that only contains praise reads as selection; one that contains friction reads as a recollection.

The numbers are the business, not the awards

Eleven active clients, fourteen weeks median, sixty eight percent repeat work. Repeat rate is the hardest number for an agency to fake and the most useful one for a buyer, which is why it sits where an awards slide usually goes.

Questions people ask

What is a creds deck and how is it different from a pitch deck?

A creds deck introduces the firm before a brief exists and is usually sent rather than presented. A pitch deck answers a specific brief in a specific competition. The creds deck is a filter; the pitch is the argument.

How many slides should a credentials deck be?

Ten to fifteen. Fewer feels thin and more loses attention. This example runs eleven. Practitioners also advise moving the about us section to the end and making it optional, which is why this deck opens on what the firm will not do.

Should there be pricing in a credentials deck?

Ranges rather than quotes. This example shows two engagement shapes with a fixed fee and a monthly retainer, which lets a prospect self select on budget without either side writing a proposal.

What goes on an agency case study slide?

A measurable result, or leave it out. The common rule among new business consultants is no results, no case study. Buyers also ask for the choices that were considered and rejected, not only the finished image.

Build your own in about a minute

The button below opens the generator with this use case already described. Change the wording to match your own, generate, then edit anything you like.

Make my credentials deck

Credentials deck

Every slide, in order

The structure

What makes this deck work

It screens people out on purpose

The client quote includes the argument

The numbers are the business, not the awards

Questions people ask

Build your own in about a minute

Other presentation examples

Brand presentation

Project kickoff deck

Seed pitch deck