Finance content agency The Dubs is redefining creativity in highly regulated industries. With offices in London, Singapore, and Sydney, the boutique agency specializes in finance marketing, compliance-driven campaigns, and audience-focused storytelling across 26+ markets.
In this exclusive Q&A, The Dubs reveals how their deep specialization drives growth, how they maintain client trust in high-stakes, regulated environments, and how AI tools, including multi-language video production, are transforming content creation. They also share insights on award-winning campaigns, fostering a tightly connected global culture, and balancing innovation with compliance to push the boundaries of finance content.
From multi-market strategy to cutting-edge AI-assisted production, The Dubs demonstrates that creativity and precision can coexist, offering a masterclass in producing bold, compliant, and impactful content in the finance sector.
What made you decide to enter into The Annual?
We've been part of the Creativepool community for many years, entering the annual both as an agency and for our work is something we're very proud to do.
What role do you think awards play in motivating creativity and innovation within the industry?
It's always great to win awards, especially those chosen by our peers and clients. Pushing creativity and innovation is always important and awards are a great way to showcase that.
The Dubs is firmly positioned as a finance content specialist. In a world where many agencies try to be “all things to all clients,” how has specialization shaped your growth, identity and client relationships?
In the finance industry if you don't intimately know your audience needs, compliance and regulation you will quickly be out of your depth. By focusing on finance it has allowed us to be highly specialised and therefore grow both geographically and across different audiences (B2B, B2C, B2B2C).
With just 20 staff globally and offices in London, Singapore and Sydney, how do you maintain tight collaboration, consistency, and culture across time zones and distances?
Being a small agency means we are always in communication with each other, no day passes without chats between our teams through phone, email, Slack or even in person! Culturally, The Dubs has always enabled all staff to have a voice and to contribute, both with clients and with internal agency decisions.
You’ve launched an AI consultancy practice in secure, compliant environments. What’s a real example where your AI tools made a material difference in content quality, speed or scale for a finance client and what limits (if any) have you hit?
AI video avatars is an area we are talking to so many clients about. Being able to produce multi-language videos from key stakeholders in minutes is something that couldn't have been done before AI. However, a focus on ethics, transparency and disclosure is key to ensuring any AI integration is approached correctly.
For demanding clients like Nuveen, AllianceBernstein, Aberdeen, etc., whose audiences are skeptical and heavily regulated, how do you push creative storytelling while staying within compliance guardrails?
By understanding the industry. Although highly regulated it can also be very creative. Audiences want to consume content in creative formats, so immersive storytelling experiences or social first videos are just delivering what the modern finance audience wants. Obviously, working with internal client Compliance teams is key to enabling these formats and driving innovation forward.
Long tenures (5+ years average) suggest deep trust and continuity. What is your secret to client retention at that level, especially in a sector with high churn and competitive pressures?
Delivering consistently at the highest level. Zero tolerance for error and driving innovation. Being a small agency team also means all client relationships are with the most senior team members, we don't employ juniors and build client trust through the delivery of faultless work day in day out.
You operate in deeply regulated markets and must localize content across 26+ countries. How do you balance global consistency vs local relevance, especially with AI-assisted localisation?
A constant challenge but one that is driven from a multi-tiered strategy understanding where there should be a global vs local focus. AI localisation has dramatically optimised language translation but having industry knowledge and local market expertise ensures what is produced and distributed is aligned to client need.
You’ve rolled out internal AI training and enablement for every team member (editors, designers, etc.). How do you ensure adoption, guard against tool misuse, and maintain creative integrity?
Again, as a small agency we have oversight, we maintain rules on how and when AI can be utilised but also our teams to innovate and drive creativity where appropriate. We also maintain strong guidance on how we use AI for clients to ensure any production is aligned to their policies.
When a client (or internal team) resists innovation (e.g. wants safe, proven content) what’s your strategy for persuading them to lean into bolder, experimental work?
Data. Show them examples of how innovation can drive ROI, efficiency or scale. There is also an opportunity to bring a little FOMO into the mix too!
In small agencies, the burden on each person is high. How do you manage fatigue, ensure room for rest and creativity, and prevent burnout as you scale?
We've been in operation as an independent agency for 30 years. The main partners of the business have all worked for the agency for over 20+ years each (some since inception). A work life balance is key of course but also allowing people to grow and evolve within the agency has allowed individuals to expand their roles and challenge themselves.
Looking ahead 3–5 years: as generative AI, immersive formats, and content automation evolve, how will The Dubs evolve? What’s your moonshot vision, and how are you allocating resources now to get there?
We've evolved our agency many times over the past 30 years, from a software development company, to a website agency, to digital marketing agency and now to content marketing agency. AI is just the next step on that journey. For The Dubs the opportunity lies in blending our agency with product development to provide both world-class strategy and creativity with AI scale.
Do you have any particularly exciting projects in the pipeline that might be contenders for the awards in?
We do, but nothing we can talk about publically, Watch this space!
