About us

For Relative, marketing is in our DNA. Founded by two brothers, Rob and Simon Barlow, we first opened our doors in July 2011. Growing up, Rob and Simon watched their father build and run his own agency, Gillett & Bevan. Gillett & Bevan was a Manchester-based advertising agency that was in operation from 1980 to 2011. They worked with a number of clients from around the Greater Manchester area, as well as national and international clients. They focused primarily on traditional advertising channels like in-store signage, direct mail, print, radio, and national press. As adults, both Rob and Simon worked alongside their father who taught them the basics of what it takes to run a successful agency. As fathers do, Rob and Simon’s father taught them many things, but the most crucial was the importance of building strong and lasting relationships, not only with their business partners, but with each other.

As Rob and Simon grew into seasoned marketeers, they saw how digital began to transform how customers were engaging with brands. They knew that they needed to build on their foundations and began to adapt to the changing needs of the modern, increasingly online consumer. At this point, Relative was born. In forming Relative, both Rob and Simon were able to bring with them the legacy of their father’s leadership into the digital transformation future. They’ve merged the good old-fashioned components of what makes a strong relationship; determination, collaboration, honesty and being loyal, creativity and delivering results, and the simplicity of just being ‘enjoyable’ people to work with, while embracing the changing needs of the consumer.

Now, a decade on, Relative is a leading Bolton-based marketing agency. While some of our current clients have been with us for decades, we are constantly growing our portfolio list and welcoming new and valued customers all the time. The kind of work we do for our client’s today runs the complete spectrum. As Relative set out to do 10 years ago, we have the expertise to reach our client’s customers across all channels, online and offline. We currently specialise in brand design, website design and builds, SEO and content marketing.