6 minute read
emerging talent
from Forum Winter 22
Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient and our 2022 Emerging Talent winner Chloë Clover, who goes by her surname Clover, is an entrepreneur that plays entirely by her own rules. The Wander Films co-founder is anything but corporate; letting creativity take the lead has allowed her business to stand-out in an extremely crowded market. We caught up with Clover to find out what makes Wander Films one of a kind…
Everyone is guilty of falling into the odd ‘scroll-hole’ now and again. You know, when you’re sat endlessly swiping through LinkedIn, Facebook or Instagram (other social media platforms are available!) and suddenly it’s 15 minutes later and your coffee is stone cold. The truth is, you’ve seen it all before and within seconds it’s all forgotten. However, there are exceptions. Those rare moments when something pops out from your timeline and really grabs your attention. The content you didn’t even know you were looking for suddenly becomes one of the most captivating and entertaining things you’ve seen all day. That’s the sort of content that Teesside’s Chloë Clover and her company Wander Films specialises in creating for businesses. A Forbes 30 Under 30 recipient, Clover and partner Lou Tonner launched Wander Films whilst travelling around Australia in 2017. They have since grown the company into a full-service video marketing agency that specialises in content that will #BeatTheScroll!! “The inception of Wander happened when me and my partner Lou decided to jet off to Australia in an attempt to sort of figure our lives out,” explains Clover. “We literally had no idea what we were going to do when we got there. We just worked our socks off to afford the tickets then took the plunge. “I guess we knew we wanted to break into the creative industry because that’s how me and Lou initially connected. “Lou has a degree in television and film and she’s really passionate about that. I’m really passionate about photography, art and filmmaking - I’m like a proper film nerd! “So, when we got out to Australia we managed to get some work on a TV pilot and that’s when it kind of clicked for both of us. This is the sort of work we wanted to be doing!” Taking their experience in the creative industry, Clover and Lou decided it was time to give it a crack on their own. The pair piled together what dollars they had and invested in a ‘tiny’ camera and a modest laptop; unknowingly buying the first ever pieces of equipment for the enterprise that would soon be known as Wander Films. But, before all of that, they still had to figure out what they could do to turn their passion into profit… “At that time, in 2017, I think we were right at the start of businesses starting to value social media more,” comments Clover. “With that in mind, we just started travelling and approaching businesses, offering to create content for their social pages. No one was really taking their content seriously at that level at the time, so we could make stuff that really made these businesses look mint! “Obviously, we were starting from scratch. At first we’d do jobs for experience or somewhere to stay and even just for some food! Then we eventually started getting paid for it and it felt unreal. “From there we started travelling and working all through South East Asia, we were up in the mountains and it was all a bit nuts. We did some incredible things. I remember we were sat on a beach one day and we decided to actually make a real plan. We wrote down some goals and decided it was time to move back to the North East and bring Wander to life!” Clover and Lou moved back to the UK and started working out of her mum’s spare bedroom. They were building from square one back in the UK, but, having seen how reactive businesses were to their scroll beating content in Oz, Clover knew that she could carve out a niche for Wander in the British market. And she was right. However, it wasn’t plain sailing from the off. “Initially it was tough because we never did any agency work or had any connections with businesses in the region at all,” Clover notes. “So, these two weird girls come back and they're like, ta-da let us shoot your business! People were like who the heck are these people? But we were just super persistent, we really wanted to be friends with people, we really wanted to learn and we just started connecting with as many people as possible. “That really helped us grow fast. People started getting to grips with the content we made and why it could potentially be so valuable to their businesses.” Soon enough Wander was building a name for itself in the region and beyond, growing exponentially over
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five years, despite the challenge of the pandemic in between. “I know no one wants to talk about the pandemic but I think it was our reaction to it that helped us grow so fast afterwards,” Clover explains. “There were five of us on the team at that point and we were all on our phones having to rearrange jobs and put on hold things we’d worked so hard for. We’d lost a bunch of clients. But we decided rather than pulling out of everything we’d actually continue to support all of our clients throughout that time. “We continued creating content, continued managing platforms and creating strategies, often without taking payment. We wanted to support our clients when they needed it most. “I think doing this helped spread the word coming out of the pandemic and our business just exploded. Now we're a team of 18, we've got our own studio and it's just nuts. That was about two years ago and we’ve quadrupled in size since then! It’s been crazy.” Having worked with giant companies like McDonalds, Riot Games and KPMG, as well as a whole host of exciting SMEs, Clover and Wander Films have truly made a name for themselves in the creative industry, so much so that in 2021 Clover was named on the renowned Forbes 30 Under 30 list. “Finding out I was featured by Forbes was frickin’ nuts,” Clover adds. “It was a legit pinching myself moment, like how did that even happen? Like, that's a global validation of, we see you, we see the work your business is doing. “It’s funny, sitting on that beach, me and Lou wrote ‘Make Forbes 30 Under 30’ list as a goal. So, it was mint and a bit surreal being able to give that a big tick!” With the Forbes recognition came reels of press about Clover being a ‘high school drop-out’. Clover left school at 14 as the constraints of the education system just didn’t work for her, but not once did she ever regret her decision. “It was strange that they focused on that narrative, but I think it’s an important message,” Clover said. “You do not have to be on the structured path that people tell you that you should be on. You can follow your passion. You can do something you love and you can do it your own way. It’s whatever route that works for you. “Lou followed the path, got the degree, and we're in the same place. That proves there’s not one ‘correct’ path to success in life. Stay true to yourself.”
