Our beliefs help shape the culture at Bottle, and the ways we each want to behave towards each other - and to the ways we can make a contribution to the world we’re part of.

Bottle beliefs, values and culture

Because we believe in…

We like analysis, but not analysis-paralysis.
Whether it’s new clients, or media opps, we can’t always just rely on the tried-and-tested comfort-zones.
We’re quick learners, we’re pretty nippy, and we’ll seize the moment, because the element of surprise brings the element of delight.
When we’re bonded, like a family, like a team – we look out for each other, support and defend each other, we pick-up on the times when one of us is struggling and we help them out.
That trust and care strengthens us, so that we can be honest with each other and know that it’s coming from a good place.
We don’t whisper and mutter, because that is the sound of distrust.
We’re pretty lucky, and we like to take our good fortune and pass it onwards, to others who maybe could do with a boost.
Being generous, with our words, with our actions, with our knowledge, with our support, without expecting a payback, other than enjoying being generous.
Sure, what goes around comes around, but we’re not keeping score.
If we were more tech-y, we’d say ‘we’re always in beta’, because there’s always more improvement to make.
We’re restless with the status quo, and even though new things need a little soak-time to get embedded, there’s something else we can turn our attention to, to make better.

We want a culture that’s…

Keep the feel electric. Bring all our energy, especially when we see some of us flagging.
When you want something done, give it to a busy person…we want to create a vibe that tingles.
There’s always something new to try, to learn, and when it feels buzzy it’s infectious.
Each and every one of us brings talents, skills, enthusiasms and oodles of potential.
We want to be the broadest of broad churches, where we can each grow and release our specialisms, and we join these together to make a super-strong Bottle.
Super-strong because we recognize and admire each others’ strengths, and add them onto our own.
This Bottle brims-over with the big ups, we’re famous for splashin’ of a dash of the passion when others do well.
Emojis let fly, bells ding, sometimes when the upping is so big we take a trip to the Bottle Bank ‘cos someone has unlocked a new level.
Always improving means we have to be comfortable with uncomfortable, and with someone else seeing a new way of doing something.
This challenge is the grit in the oyster that makes a pearl.

So we each want to be…

Quick reactions, unafraid to capture the moment – catching lightning in (a) Bottle is…well, Eminem said it best:
Shit, I feel like I can do anything now
Who can catch lightning in a bottle, set fire to water
Comin' out the nozzle on a fire hose, flyer than swatters?
Smash an hourglass, grab the sand, take his hands and cup 'em
Spit a rhyme to freeze a clock, take the hands of time and cuff 'em
We chase the link, look for the chances to connect with each other.
We have a laugh, together, because those are the times when we forge the bonds, that see us through the tougher times.
We tip our hat to the talents of others – some of their skills we try to learn, others we just brief them well, let them soar, and enjoy the ride on their coat-tails.
Look for every chance to rally the shout-outs and share the successes, because it’s infectious and there’s nothing easier than passing-on a cheer, and nothing better than feeling the lift it gives.
We lead the cheer for our clients’ brands too, we feel a one-team pride in the wonderful work we do.
We don’t wait to be asked - we look for the things that could be simplified, we have a go, and then we tell the rest. That way we have even more time and energy to be…
- moreish; add more, betterness, over-reach and go further, because the value-bar gets raised.
And the result….we’re all – collectively and individually - #simplymoreish

Better Together - our commitments to a culture where everyone feels they belong and can achieve their potential.

In the past year our Better Together team have reviewed and reinforced the ways we support Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (D,E & I). And, now that we’ve moved our Bottle home into the heart of the city of Oxford, we’ve begun to make new connections - looking for ways to extend our support and increase our sense of belonging with the community that we’re part of.

Some of the headline changes include:

We continued our commitment to Pay Gap Reporting for Gender and Ethnicity, and to seeking continual improvement to our processes for recruitment and retention. We’re proud to be one of, sadly, a small number of agencies in our industry to make our data public in the PRWeek annual survey - because transparency is an important part of getting better. Our ethnicity pay gap points to two challenges we want to address

To diversify our sources for potential recruitment, we’ve broadened our outreach to young people from a variety of backgrounds, who may not see the range of opportunities available from a career in PR. One team hosted our first Open Day for more than 30 students from Oxford Brookes, sharing ‘day in the life’ reels of the different roles at Bottle. In April ‘24 another team offered an introduction to the PR industry at the Oxford Schools Careers Fair, for around 500 pupils.

We introduced a goal for - and a commitment to measure - Supplier Diversity, reflecting our commitment to encouraging shared values with our partners.

Recognising that the arrival of a child can be an equally important time for new parents - whatever their gender - led us to scrap the separate Maternity and Paternity policies, and instead create a unified Parental Leave policy,

While we value the time we spend working together, learning and sharing, we also added greater flexibility to our hybrid working pattern, introducing an allocation of Work From Anywhere (WFA) days.

For the second year, a team from Bottle supported the Oxfordshire Homeless Movement with a pro bono comms campaign to drive fundraising for the CEO Sleepout initiative - which increased the funds raised to £95,000. And, after hosting a introduction to our services for the Oxford Social Enterprise Partnership (OSEP) another Bottle team is creating a social media campaign to increase awareness for Waste2Taste, a local CIC focused on reducing food waste.

Restless Progress - our commitments to reducing our impact on the planet and environment.

Our first steps have been to understand the size of our footprint, and what we can can do to reduce it.

For the last three years we have worked with Climate Partner to measure - and offset - our carbon emissions.

From our initial full year measurement in 2022 of 64.58 tCO2, we have reduced by 63% - to 23.75 tCO2 in the year ending Dec 2023.

One of the biggest contributions to this reduction was the move of our agency home to a city centre location. This move was driven by a number of factors, not least the fact that we’d have greater autonomy on things like energy use, and other environmental controls, compared to the managed-services office we left. And, although initially disruptive for the team, we have switched from car-dominated travel (to our previous outside-the-city location) to an agency that mostly walks, bikes, scoots, buses, and trains-it to work.

Still, three-quarters of our now-much-reduced emissions are in Scope 3 - and primarily employee travel-related. They might be stubbornly difficult to reduce further.

We have offset our GHG emissions (plus 10%) with tree-planting projects, externally validated with the Verified Carbon Standard (VCS).

For 2025, we have now registered for the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) to further commit our goals to reductions in GHG emissions and our pathway to net zero.

Our Restless Progress Climate Partner reports and certification are here.

Our commitments to a sustainable and inclusive culture