Packed with purpose

Dave Linton spent over 20 years in youth work before founding Madlug, the ‘Make a difference’ luggage brand, which has become a movement with the buy one, wear one, help one mechanic, putting around 145,000 bags into the hands of children in care.

I'd been pursuing Dave from a distance for a while (politely, I promise), so I was delighted when he finally found time for a chat. We talked about building a challenger brand from scratch, a logo he liked far too little, and why the best brand story is the one you tell by being the guide, not the hero.

No child should carry their life in a bin bag. Photo credits: Madlug

We also talked a lot about our family dynamics, including bitey dogs, but that’s for another time.

“The advantage is not knowing. There's a dogged determination that lets you just get on and do it. If you had it all worked out, you would probably never start. The naivety of an uneducated approach to business is a real strength.

What I had to unlearn was being a sole leader. In youth work, you generally do everything yourself, and the number one thing in business is learning how to give things away. I had to move from doer to delegator. If I'm honest, I'm still unlearning it.”

And how did you learn to let go?

“It goes right back to the logo. I had my Mac and a bit of creative flair, so I made the videos, the posters, the logo. You think at the start you'll save money by doing it yourself, and family and friends all said, ‘That looks great!’ Then I bumped into a young person who had just graduated and was heading to his first job at Jack Wills. He looked at me and said, ‘Dave, I wouldn't wear that on a bag.’ Yikes.

That was the moment I knew that if I couldn't give a logo away, I'd never give any other task away. So I outsourced the brand to a design company. I had £500 at the time, and most of it went on the deposit up front. That was the boldness of giving it away.

We got two options back, and I've always said that in the creative space, if you like something too easily, don't do it. The thing you don't like on first listen is the thing that sticks. The logo we have now was the one I liked least. The one I loved would have looked great on a hoodie, but it would have dated fast, and it wouldn't have been a brand. It's the album you love the first time round and tire of quickly, versus the one that takes a few listens and then lasts forever.”

Having spent years in music TV, I can vouch for this. Anything I liked was guaranteed to be “really old” according to the young people we brought in as interns. (No one says cool anymore, which is probably the clearest signal of all.) Longevity beats your own taste every time, because nobody wants to keep rebranding.

“Exactly. And from the start it was about building a brand that looked as big as the big brands while being really small behind the scenes. That's probably still the story of Madlug.”

“I believe in the underdog, and that comes from my own story. My dad died when I was five and my mum was a single parent. It was significant adults who kept us out of the care system: the older lads in my youth group who took me windsurfing, a neighbour who took me to a football match. You can become the victim in that, or you can become the person it shaped, and be so thankful for the people who showed up.

It's also why I'd say I'm not a very good business leader. I'm a wee bit soft, especially in hiring, and I've been caught out a few times by going for the benefit of the person. But that's just who I am. Even in my youth work days, it was always the kid everyone else wanted to chuck out that I wanted. And I've found that care-experienced young people make stronger employees. The gratitude, appreciation and resilience are a powerful mix of qualities.

The hard part is that once you've been around 10 or 11 years, you're no longer the underdog in people's minds. Even though you still are.”

“I get out of bed every morning with the same heaviness: this needs to end. We still hear of bin bags being used to move children's belongings, far too regularly. The demand for bags coming from the care system has even grown beyond our capacity to sell, which is the strength of the brand and the trust within it.

It wasn't always that way. When I entered the market, senior directors had written lots of policy, frontline staff were saying, ‘We see this every day,’ and middle managers didn't know where to position themselves. If they admitted bin bags were being used, it could get them into trouble. So I made a commitment at the start, and it still stands: we wouldn't go to Westminster or Stormont and shout about the problem. We would be an empowering brand that gave a solution. That was the strategy.

We aligned it on one idea: everyone wants to give kids dignity when they move, so let us help you do that. It removes the pressure of finding the budget, and it lets foster carers spend their allowance on other things.

Keeping that going for more than ten years takes real grit. The shiny launch gets all the applause, but turning up every day for over a decade is the bit that's not championed enough.

“It's heavy in many ways, with the downturns and the economic climate. But the mission is as vital today as it was at the start, and we're very clear on one thing: no child carries their life in a bin bag. It keeps us true.”

“Space was the big problem. Social workers didn't have space in their boots, and young people didn't always have space in their rooms. Something that packs away easily into a sock drawer was the answer.

And it was never about filling a bag with new things. It doesn't matter if your stuff is too small, dirty, or old. It's your stuff, and that's where the true dignity is. We didn't want their belongings going into a bin bag while they were handed a shiny new bag of pajamas and toothbrushes.

We also made a promise at the very start that we would never use children or young people to sell bags. You won't find them on our socials or in our stories. The only lived-experience voices we feature are people speaking from their professional experience, like social workers or founders of organisations doing something significant in the care space. We give them a platform, but they're not being used for their story.”

“Quite often, mostly through foster carers speaking on behalf of the child. And sometimes in person. Last November, for National Care Leavers Month, Lloyds, one of our corporate partners, helped us put on a pop-up in Leeds. Their care-leaver staff were there, along with the CEO of the consumer bank and his team.

A young woman on their jobs scheme came over and said, ‘Thanks, Dave. I moved from foster care to university with my stuff in two of your pack away travel bags.’ I asked what she'd studied. Law. I then got talking to the Head of the Lloyd's consumer banking app and mentioned that this young woman was answering phones in the customer service team with her first-class honours degree in law. To which she replied, ‘Tell her to note down my name, reach out to me, and I'll get her a meeting with the head of law in the bank.’ That's only one of many stories.”

I think I need tissues already. That must keep you fuelled when things get tough.

“It does. Being an entrepreneur and a leader is extremely lonely. About two years in, around 2016 or 2017, I was wondering whether it would really work. I felt like I could give it all up. I went into our shared office, and there was a handwritten envelope with a Manchester postmark. Inside, a two-page letter to the ‘Madlug team’ (they didn't realise it was only me) thanking us for the bag, signed off by a care-experienced young person. I never knew who it was.

Then there was a youth event in 2018, with 300 people carrying Madlug bags. A youth worker bought one and mentioned a young person in care in his group. I said, ‘Bring them down, and I'll give them a backpack. There's no risk of stigma here.’ The young person came back that evening to thank me and hug me. Two days later he messaged me to say he was going to put his 18th birthday money towards Madlug, so other young people could have the same experience.

And that's not the end of the tale. In March this year he got in touch again: ‘I was thinking recently about something you did for me nearly 10 years ago. You gave me a Madlug bag at a summer festival, and I don't think I ever properly thanked you. That bag has been with me through so much of life. It's travelled with me to many different countries and played a role in me getting my bachelor's, and now even to the end of my master's. A few days ago, I stopped and really thought about it, and I realised how much meaning something so simple can carry. 

What felt like a small act of kindness at the time has stayed with me for years. I've just ordered a new one, and it felt like the right moment to finally say thank you. Not just for the bag, but for the heart behind it. I really appreciate you, Dave. What you're doing matters more than you'll probably hear.”

You need to frame that, Dave.

“Honestly, I'm a bit different. For 11 years it's all been organic. Aisling Bea buys her own bags and shouts about us. She's worn one on TV and cycled across London Bridge with one on her back. Domhnall Gleeson is carrying a Madlug in the first series of The Paper. In 2020, IKEA gave Madlug bags to every one of their staff in the UK and Ireland as an end-of-year gift: 13,000 bags. Those are massive collaborations, and none of them were chased. When we've tried to be too intentional, it never really works.

We've turned down Dragon's Den, too. I have good people around me who say, ‘Dave, you don't want to be begging. Keep doing what you're doing, and people will want to work with you.

We did a proper collaboration with Horrid Henry, and what we learned is that people wanted Madlug, not a Horrid Henry bag. It got great PR, with radio and a bit of TV, but it didn't really sell. People wanted a Madlug bag for their kid. We even tried coffee, and it was good coffee, but we're not a coffee company. We're bags.

I've built the whole thing on StoryBrand, the model by Donald Miller. It's about positioning your brand as the guide, not the hero. It has kept us working on our story and our messages. Whenever I'm presented as the hero, when we win awards, I get off the stage quickly. We continue to be the guide and help people be the hero. And the product is the wearing: it's love without words. You're making a difference, you're buying one for yourself and wearing it with pride, and no child has ever given one back.”

As a brand storytelling agency, this is music to our lugholes. Stay true to your story, keep telling it consistently, and your tribe finds you. Dave didn't build Madlug on a clever campaign. He built it on a story so clear that IKEA, Lloyds and a care-experienced master's student all found their own way into it. Check it out here. 

PS. If you'd like a hand telling your brand story, getting it seen, heard and bought, we can help with that. Drop melissa.fretwell@whitecamino.com .