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- [00:00]
Tom Martin
I think, like me, there are many people in the US that think that a flight to Australia is just a nightmare. Incredibly long flight, incredibly grueling and it must be just the worst experience, but the reality is very different. I had a wonderful flight there and a wonderful flight back. It really felt a lot shorter. It was 24 hours, let's not kid ourselves. But it was a really good experience overall. So if you're ever considering going down under, let me encourage you to give that a shot because it is a wonderful, wonderful part of the world. As many of you know, we recorded live in Sydney and then we flew over to New Zealand where we recorded in Auckland and it was a great trip. We were there for close to two weeks and had a chance to connect with an awful lot of people in the industry. It all culminated with our Live from Sydney show, which took place at Ogilvy's WPP campus. Wonderful building down by the water. We had about 300 people there. We sold out. Great crowd and an amazing panel. Now, when you think about a market like Australia, it's not much different in terms of the other challenges that smaller markets face. There's this desire to have your work go beyond the borders, but there's also some limitations to that which are understandable. If you're part of a holding company, you're probably limited in who you can pitch. But the flip side of that is that as a part of a holding company, you many times get the chance to work on briefs from clients from different parts of the world. And a classic example of that is what happened with Special Group and Uber. It has also happened with Ogilvy, which Share a Coke with Dove. And it has happened with, I think, most dramatically recently with Uber and Special Group Australia. All of that Uber work that you're seeing, the vast majority of it, some of it is done by Mother in the uk, including that De Niro spot, which was brilliant. But the majority of the work is done by Special Group and the majority of the work within Special is done out of Australia. And there's now an LA office and there's a New York office for Special groups, so they pick up some of the US based work. But it is a phenomenal example of a success story where ideas that are kept simple can travel internationally. And I think that's the goal of many of the agencies that we're going to be talking to today. Droga5 to BMF, to Special Group, to Ogilvy, to DDB Group, Sydney. These are groups of people who are passionate, who are ambitious who are imaginative and who want to do work that not only works extremely effectively at home, but has the ability to travel. And so for me, that's one of the most exciting parts of it. In our Dublin live show we talked about this same topic is that you can do great work for local clients or in market or in country clients, but ideally you want work that works both in market and can travel overseas. And I think the same ambition exists in Dublin and in Ireland as it does in Australia and as it does in New Zealand. Both of the markets that we're talking about in our live series this week. Both Sydney, Australia and then New Zealand have become extremely famous for great creative and effective work. So it's not that they are emerging, they have really emerged. And I think the challenge is that a lot of people don't recognize the that a lot of the work that you're seeing is actually coming from those markets. So needless to say, all of this came down to a very exciting live conversation and a live episode that took place in Sydney at the WPP campus on April 16, which is roughly about a month ago. We had Miller McPhee, chief strategy officer from Droga5. We had Rupert Price, chief strategy officer for DDB Group. We had Stephen DeWolf Wolfe, chief creative officer at BC, which is a wonderful agency and highly acclaimed for its creative and effective work effectiveness work. We had Fran Clayton, chief strategy officer for Ogilvy Network. And we had Tom Martin, chief creative officer for a special group in Australia. A great group of people, a great conversation. I want to thank Ogilvy for hosting us. I want to thank our live tour sponsors. That's Effie, Tracksuit and Wark. We could not have done it without these guys. This series of cities, Sydney and what'll be released in a couple of days from now will be the Auckland episode. They were wrapping up our 2024, 25 live tour season. We had an amazing tour and we really do appreciate our sponsors for supporting us through the tour. There's going to be a new list of cities released in the next two weeks where the 202526 tour will be stopping. We'll be back and we'll also be digging deeper into North America, going to additional cities that we didn't get to visit this past year. So more information coming out on that and we're really, really excited about it. So this is our conversation live from Sydney. It is a great band of people and one of the things that we said in sort of the invitations, which I loved, we used the line that said when 20% of your population are descendants of convicts, rules will be broke. Enjoy.
- [05:46]
Fergus O'Carroll
Welcome to OnStrategy Showcase. I'm Fergus O' Carroll in Sydney, Australia. Man, that was pretty good. I thought Toronto was the loudest. This might actually be the loudest group that we've had here. As we go through all of this, I want to thank the WPP and Ogilvy in particular for hosting us here. And it's fantastic to be here. Hilary Stevens and Fran Clayton help make this all happen. There was a lot of generosity with other agencies who offered their spaces, but this was the perfect size space. We just couldn't find the space to get everybody in. So this has been really fantastic for Ogilvy to let us be here. I'm really excited to have you guys to be a part of this. Many of the people on this panel I have known from their work around the world. Some are new to me, but I remember coming up the last couple of years in the US and seeing work that I don't think enough people in the US Recognize as coming from Australia. And particularly Uber Eats Work, Dumb Ways to Die, other examples that are coming out of here that you guys deserve to get more credit for. So I wanted to have all of these people around. Mila, I know by reputation for her work in the uk and many of these panelists have been in other parts of the world and come back here, and we're going to explore that, too, as we talk about the impact that has on your career and it has on the work that comes out of this country. So I'm going to start off with Fran to sort of give us a sense of where, when you look back at the greatest influences, who are they or what moments really elevated what's coming out of Australia.
- [07:44]
Fran Clayton
I think, you know, over the past couple of decades, there have been a handful of ideas that have come out of Australia that have kind of set the standard, not just for Australia, but. But for the world. And so these are ideas, you know, that some people on this panel have been involved with. Whether it's Share a Coke, I think was maybe 14 years ago. Dumb Ways to Die you mentioned. I think that's.
- [08:11]
Tom Martin
And Sherrah Coke originated here, right?
- [08:13]
Fran Clayton
From Ogilvy.
- [08:14]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah, yeah.
- [08:15]
Fran Clayton
Dumb Ways to Die is about. I mean, you guys can correct me, but it's about that old as well. Earth Hour is another one. Meet Graham Wolfie's sitting beside me and others that I think have kind of, you know, put Australia on the map creatively and strategically. And I think they all have something in common, which is that they are sort of people powered ideas, you know, we don't have.
- [08:43]
Fergus O'Carroll
What do you mean by that?
- [08:44]
Fran Clayton
Well, they're all ideas that actually rely on, you know, the audience to be really a part of those ideas. We don't have, you know, the budgets, the population, the kind of mass media, big media moments that you do in other countries. Right. We don't have a Super bowl. We don't have a Christmas in winter with everyone kind of sitting around watching tv. And we don't really have the cult of celebrity. So I think the ideas that have really shaped what great Australian advertising are, are the ones that are people powered.
- [09:16]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah. How about you, Mila? What do you think? What are examples of greatness from the past or influences from the past?
- [09:22]
Mila DeWolf
I mean, I think the interesting thing about those ideas and a lot of the work that originates here and then goes global is the fact that we get really excited by the fact that Australia is a smaller market. Right. So for global brands, it's small enough that you could test an idea or even a product here and it kind of be okay to fuck up because it's not that huge an impact on your bottom line. But equally, you know, the demographic makeup of our country, this representation of it, is something that then can go on to be replicated globally. So we're kind of a perfect test market for global ideas. And that I excites not only us working on global brands here from an agency perspective, but also our clients. The prospect of them making a piece of work here that then might be taken up by their global teams and run globally is a motivating thing.
- [10:17]
Fergus O'Carroll
So that's what happened with Coke. Right. That idea then was played out internationally. So just for context, for listeners, the population of Florida is pretty close to the population of Australia. It's kind of a wild thought, Tom, isn't it? But it doesn't feel like a small market to me. Even arriving yesterday, being here and then seeing the work that's coming out of here, it seems to be a bigger player than Florida.
- [10:49]
Stephen DeWolf
Yeah, there's a lot of great work out of this country. I think it's also.
- [10:53]
Fergus O'Carroll
Let me get you close to that mic there.
- [10:54]
Stephen DeWolf
Sorry, don't get too close.
- [10:56]
Fergus O'Carroll
I do get a little closer.
- [10:57]
Stephen DeWolf
Okay, I'll get closer. I think it's. I think like when I joined advertising, which is a long time ago, there's sort of a scrappiness and we just had to make the most of what we had. And I think also personally, I didn't Love advertising. I just like solving problems. So when you just sort of had this opportunity to solve problems in really interesting ways and most of the great work, if you look at Australia and the history and the last 20 years, most of the ideas that everyone knows and have traveled overseas and have won awards, if that's your thing, they don't have a traditional shape. So a lot of the great work out of this country is not traditionally shaped. And I think that style of work just took off in the last 20 years and I think we sort of started a lot of it in this country.
- [11:36]
Fergus O'Carroll
What's an example? What is traditionally shaped versus not traditionally shaped?
- [11:40]
Stephen DeWolf
I guess, like whether it's me, Graham, that Wolfie worked on. I remember 20 something years ago, I built a statue in London of Shane Warne and. And my boss didn't have a clue what I was doing. He didn't understand what I was doing, but he just went, I'll just give it a go and just see what it does. But then that type of work just took off. I think that type of work became what Australia was known for and it has sort of been known for ever since.
- [12:05]
Fergus O'Carroll
So it's an idea, not necessarily an advertising idea.
- [12:09]
Stephen DeWolf
Yeah, it is. It's an idea. Not to say I think we do products, we do installations, we do long format content, like dumb ways to die. I think we just, we solve problems in a different way and I think that way of solving problems has taken off.
- [12:23]
Fergus O'Carroll
So should I refer to you as Wolfie like he just did, or how.
- [12:26]
Rupert Price
Should I trouble, like I said earlier.
- [12:28]
Fergus O'Carroll
Okay, I'll try to remember to do that because I don't want to screw that up. So you guys, you're relatively new to bmf.
- [12:37]
Rupert Price
Yes.
- [12:38]
Fergus O'Carroll
But you've been in big brands, big shops. Who were some of the early influencers for you in this market that shaped what this market is about. You feel.
- [12:49]
Rupert Price
It was similar to what Tom was saying. It was not one place in particular, it was where the work was happening. So the irony being before I created some of the work that we were talking about, it was Tom's work. And it's not because we're striking each other's egos. It was more that it was places very interesting. And that's what attracted me to the industry. It was unlike Tom, making ads is obviously a byproduct of a sort of problem that we're solving. But what's always attracted me is it's felt like Australian creatives and strats have been open to. You're used to this ran. It's only been seven months. Have just been open to kind of almost getting to the purer kind of problem that we're solving versus being a comms challenge and seeing what the right answer is. So it's probably more the fundamental to how we approach the business that attracted me to it versus a person or a type of ad. There are definitely ads that I'm fans of, but it's more just our approach to it. And I think we've always had a lovely mongrel attitude towards creativity and what we do. I think that's part of who we are as Australians. Now.
- [13:50]
Fergus O'Carroll
What is that a mongrel attitude?
- [13:52]
Rupert Price
Want us to know you kind of just get. You get shit done like you're not scared to fail. I think we've become a little more scared to fail recently. There's a lot more, you know, we're doing more with less. So every dollar spent is more important. But I think when I started there was a bit more exploration, like I think, and no doubt we'll talk about this in a minute, we can get into the ad sciences as we will, but we've got to be mindful that when we do that, we also have to make sure that they're. And we're using them the right way, not beholden to them. And I think in the early days when I was attracted to the industry, it felt a bit more, you know, we were still. We were rogue, but in the right way. Because the other thing that's always been fantastic about our industry is it is strategic. To me, it's like the uk, so big ideas, or where I come from now, long ideas are something that we all hold fairly true. Like it's something I think we do well here. So even when we are doing an idea that's more based around human interactivity or slightly different shape, it's still laddering to something and building a brand. I think other markets are replicating the kind of ideas that we're doing now because I look to the States and, you know, they're doing the kind of stuff we were doing 10, 20 years ago, more with less, because everyone's doing more with less, but it feels a little more disposable. It's not always. Sometimes you can't tell who the brand is. So I've liked that. We've. While we've been mongrels, we've also been responsible at making sure that we've always built brands.
- [15:10]
Fergus O'Carroll
So is part of being a mongrel is that you're not a generalist? You're not a specialist, you just get in there. So, Roop, you're relatively new to Australia, right? You've been in New Zealand, you've been in the uk. What are some of your observations about this market based upon that experience?
- [15:30]
Wolfie
Well, this market, and I'd say New Zealand as well, is that I think there's a healthy disregard for authority, which I think is really helpful. So, coming from the uk, there's a long legacy of how things should be done. There's lots of. Of enshrined proof, case studies, best practice, all that kind of thing. That as a young planner, a young strategist, you come to the market and that's drummed into you. I grew up in the agency of jwt, where I was drummed in on Stephen King and Bull Moore and all those things, which are great and I would recommend anyone to go back to those references. But it comes like the University of Advertising, and there are very clear directives on what good looks like and how you get there. And I think coming down to this part of the world, there's just a fantastic disregard, a healthy disregard, I would say, for a lot of that, and start writing our own.
- [16:23]
Fergus O'Carroll
And so what, being able to disregard allows you to do what?
- [16:27]
Wolfie
Well, much as Wolfie was saying and Tom was saying as well, it opens up different ways of looking at things rather than following a process or following a systematic way of thinking. I think what you find here is that people come at problems from all different kinds of weird and wonderful angles, and that's what. What makes the ideas so fresh and innovative and exciting, I think, to be working with.
- [16:49]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Tom, for you, Uber comes on the radar, right? So this is a company that started in California and had an agency in Australia doing the majority of its international work.
- [17:05]
Tom Martin
How did that happen?
- [17:09]
Stephen DeWolf
It's sort of a mix of work timing and a different mindset, I reckon, because we started about eight years ago. We did turn out to be eating Tanarabi. Eating. Later, I'm sure we'll talk about ad.
- [17:24]
Fergus O'Carroll
Science, but tonight we're eating. Was it a pilot program in Australia? Because. Was it that Georgie Jeffries lived here at the time or. She was our client.
- [17:33]
Stephen DeWolf
She was our client at the time. So we just did the work with her about. About eight years ago. That work, because it followed, because it had a repeatable structure. It had DBAs, which is a bag job, a doorbell breaking the fourth wall. It has a certain type of humor. It ended up traveling to about 10 or 12 countries. Then, since then, we did get almost, almost Anything that's traveled to a similar amount of countries. So we had work that was traveling. We had work that was traveling through Uber. Extremely fortunate how that worked and was.
- [18:05]
Tom Martin
It designed to do that?
- [18:06]
Fergus O'Carroll
Was that part of brief or not?
- [18:08]
Stephen DeWolf
I actually think if you start a job with the mindset of I want this to go global, you're never going to do good work. You've got to actually turn that off and just go, what is the best job for Australia? What is the best job sitting in front of me? And if it does well, it could travel. I think if you go in and go, okay, it's got to travel to 12 countries. They've all got cultural differences. Don't do a tricky tagline because that tagline won't translate. If you put all those restrictions on you at the start or on a creative team, they're never going to come up with anything good. So we never even looked at it traveling. We actually just did it for here, and it just started traveling. We then. So that was sort of the work that we started traveling. We also, like all my partners in special, we've all worked overseas. And this comes back to working overseas. When you live in New York, your clients aren't in New York. When I lived in New York, our clients were in Germany, and our clients were in Boston, and our clients were in Atlanta. You don't have that mindset. I think in Australia, we have this sort of mindset that if we live in Sydney, our clients are in Sydney. If we live in Melbourne, our clients are in Melbourne. And we just didn't have that mindset. So we had work that was traveling. We had a mindset that was. We didn't really see the boundaries. And we'd all worked in countries where our clients were overseas and in other cities. So we didn't really see Sydney as a restriction. And then the timing thing was Covid, because Covid hit, and suddenly the world had no boundaries. As long as I was on zoom. When a client was on zoom, I could do work in that country.
- [19:31]
Fergus O'Carroll
Interesting.
- [19:32]
Stephen DeWolf
So it became this thing where we had work that was traveling. We had a mindset that we didn't have boundaries and we had timing where the world just lost all boundaries.
- [19:39]
Fergus O'Carroll
And you had a great core idea, simple core idea.
- [19:41]
Stephen DeWolf
And we had a really simple idea that if you took the construct and you put your culture into that construct, it could get picked up by countries. And in those countries, the work sort of felt weirdly international. It felt international. It felt like a construct from somewhere else, but it weirdly felt Local. So it traveled really well.
- [19:59]
Fergus O'Carroll
And so for the networks brand, because when you look at Australia, you think about the ambition of different agencies. So on one side it would say then, well, somebody like Ogilvy, part of a huge network, you're really here servicing international clients for in market work. Is that the role that a bigger network agency plays here predominantly or is there a mix of local in with all of that?
- [20:29]
Fran Clayton
Unfortunately, no. So yeah, you have to absolutely have a real local strength to survive. And there have been a couple of bigger network agencies, you know, that haven't had that and have just been kind of satellite outposts and it doesn't work. So you know, we love, I think at Ogilvy and the same would probably be true at other network, you know, really great network agencies in Australia. It's awesome that our people can work on Coke and Dove and you know, some of these awesome global brands. But you know, a huge part of what we do is local kfc building that brand in. In Australia, Ing in Australia, like it's. I always think it's interesting. You will notice this, Fergus, as you walk down the street, you don't see a lot of Starbucks here and there.
- [21:20]
Fergus O'Carroll
Are actually looking for one.
- [21:21]
Fran Clayton
You were looking for a Starbucks, right?
- [21:23]
Tom Martin
It was.
- [21:23]
Fran Clayton
Yeah, so yeah, it was. It's not every global brand that makes it here. And I think the ones that do find a uniquely Australian role to play and the Aussie version of themselves, and I think that's the role that network agencies can play is help their big global clients find that local relevance.
- [21:46]
Mila DeWolf
But also just in relation to talking about Uber Tom and how that idea was created here in. I mean when you try and global ideas are notoriously difficult to crack, right? Because you are trying to please everybody and in pleasing everybody, you inevitably end up pleasing nobody or just not having a very punchy idea. Global insights are often quite weak. So this is why ideas that originate particularly in a country like ours and then are taken to travel tend to be far more effective, I think.
- [22:22]
Fergus O'Carroll
But there isn't a lot of examples of them. That's probably the tough because tough part. I mean, when we did the show in Ireland, we brought up the same issue, which was, you guys are doing great work here, but it's not getting outside the borders of the country. I'm talking about back in Ireland. There's some brilliant work that's done, but it's not traveling. And so there's sort of this limitation to the ambitions of many of the agencies here. But I think when we look at some of the examples out of Australia, the Uber work and some of the others, and there's a limited amount of them, let's be honest, I think there are some smaller.
- [23:01]
Fran Clayton
I don't know. You know, Uber's amazing and really high profile, but in the last year we've had two Dove ideas out of Sydney, you know, in collaboration with London that have gone to nine markets.
- [23:15]
Fergus O'Carroll
Nice.
- [23:17]
Fran Clayton
So, yeah, they might not be the. Again, incredible big platforms that get that kind of great cut through. I mean, obviously, Dove is an amazing platform, but within that, there's so many ways to activate for different moments and audiences.
- [23:32]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Rube, go ahead.
- [23:33]
Wolfie
Yeah, I was just going to say, I think the thing that's changed is there used to be an arrogant belief, I think that creative excellence used to sit in New York or it used to sit in London, or it used to sit in Paris or wherever it is. And I think what's happening now, certainly in our network in ddb, is that that briefs are now global and they go out to all the agencies. And then there's a bit of an internal pitch process where we're all vying for the global idea, or certainly the idea that's going to resonate with the client that then becomes something else as it grows up. So I think clients are now opening their eyes to the fact that a great idea can come from Shanghai or from Sydney or from Auckland or from anywhere else. And because of that, I think we're seeing a much stronger global creative community. But I think we'll see more and more ideas coming from unpredictable places.
- [24:25]
Tom Martin
We'll be right back. For over 55 years, Effie has been the global authority on marketing effectiveness. They lead the way with the largest, most prestigious marketing effectiveness awards across 130 markets worldwide. And their coveted FE index ranks the most effective of brands, marketers and agencies globally. But FE is more than awards. They're dedicated to helping all marketers, from seasoned CMOs to those just getting started, understand what makes marketing effective by equipping them with the insights, tools and inspiration they need to succeed. Learn more@effie.org that's e f f I e.org want always on brand metrics that deliver value to stakeholders. This episode is brought to you by Tracksuit, a beautiful, affordable and always on brand tracking tool that helps consumer marketers and agencies answer the question. Is what we're doing working? A not so secret fact is that companies pay $100,000 or more for brand tracking, which is out of the question for many modern brands whose budgets are under pressure. Tracksuit Provides enterprise level brand tracking out the big price tag. Their in house research experts do the heavy lifting. Using best in class practices to craft and launch your survey and get you results fast. Tracksuit is fast becoming the common language for marketers and agencies to measure and communicate the value of brand building. Check it out@gotracksuit.com that's gotracksuit.com now back to the show.
- [26:08]
Fergus O'Carroll
So Wolfie, the partnership with strategy. Tell us about how that works for you guys because I'd love to get all of your perspectives on this. Is there a way that the work is done here with the relationship with creative and strategy that you feel a little different than elsewhere? How so?
- [26:29]
Rupert Price
For me it feels more like the uk, but I've only worked in two agencies in the uk but, but it's more, I'm not good at the sports analogies because it's not my thing, wear a lot of black. But in other markets it feels like it's more like a relay race. When a brief comes through an agency, it's put into account management, passed on to Stratton. At some point, creative gets it and that's what happens. But having had the fortunate benefit to work with a couple of the planners on this panel, it's very iterative, so it's more like a. Here's the sports analogy. It's like a scrum and that's super important. So my best creative partners have always been strategists. I see. I sit here because of many strats behind me, but I saw them as my creative partner. So it's the same at DDB with Fran and Rube and it's now at BMF as well with the lovely Tina. Nothing happens without each other being very involved. So there's a lot of rigor around when we've taken the brief off a client, sitting there together and making sure that we're getting to the right proposition, then we might be working on that while that's happening because the proposition is only as good as the work that comes from it. If that's not revealing anything, creative will go back and go again and again again. So it's probably more of an iterative process together, which I think is super, super special here.
- [27:36]
Mila DeWolf
And I think part of that is because not only are we a smaller market as Australia, who we're servicing, the agencies are smaller too. So I remember when I moved from Droga Sydney to Droga New York as a senior planner or whatever I was, I looked around and on a brief I was working with A comms planner, a junior planner, a data planner and a social planner, I think. And I thought, the hell do I do? What's my job here? You know? And in Australia, that is all of us, like, we do everything. We're all multidisciplinary strats and creatives. And so as a result of the departments and the teams being smaller, we necessarily have to work together more tightly to solve problems. And that's awesome because that's when the best ideas come, right? That's your Rick and Martins and Nils and Lucy's. Like, you can see that's where the best work comes from, that relationship. And I think we probably have the benefit of being forced to do that more here.
- [28:37]
Fran Clayton
So we don't have access to clients.
- [28:39]
Rupert Price
Well, that's true. Healthy debate, but it's true. But also access to. I'm looking at some because they're sitting in front of me in the room. But. But like, there's not. We have much flatter structures everywhere, so our proximity to clients is a lot closer. And we can be more iterative and have conversations real time, too. In the bigger markets, that's the big meetings, they take time. So we're a bit more agile, more nimble. We can play stuff out, see if it works or not pretty quickly and have a quick, fast conversation to keep everyone managed and move things on. But I think that's super important. You get much more deep relationships with clients here, which I think is the biggest difference. And I think that's our superpower. Like, it's really important down here for us. I also have defining.
- [29:23]
Stephen DeWolf
I also think that as somebody who just loves solving problems, I get just as excited if a strategist solves a problem than if a creative writes an ad. There's no difference to me. Whoever cracks open a problem is when I get excited. So we've got a planner who's over there who's probably better than most creatives in our building, but it doesn't matter. Whoever cracks open. Whoever cracks open the. Like a problem, I get extremely excited. And that. That often is a planner.
- [29:49]
Fergus O'Carroll
And is that when you say crack, the problem is. Is it coming up with an idea or.
- [29:53]
Stephen DeWolf
No, it could be just an insight or a truth or just something that makes it something that just opens the world of whatever you're looking at.
- [29:59]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah. And so is. Is Dave Hartman here, by the way?
- [30:03]
Stephen DeWolf
That's who I was referencing.
- [30:05]
Rupert Price
Where is he?
- [30:05]
Stephen DeWolf
There.
- [30:05]
Fergus O'Carroll
Shaw. Here he is. Okay, great. And is Ryan o' Connell here tonight? I think Ryan was there. He is. Ryan o' Connell. Yeah. Love that. Ryan was on the show with kfc, the Michelin campaign, which was great out of Ogilvy. So, Rupert, thinking about sort of the best way to work and then thinking about the client side of that. I've heard comments where people have said, we're able to do great work here because we have smaller, flatter client organizations, that it doesn't have to be approved by five layers of people you can get to. Yes, faster. Is that the experience and what does it say about clients?
- [30:50]
Wolfie
Well, it's definitely the experience. I think it was touched on earlier. There's an appetite, certainly in this part of the world as well, to put it out into the world and just see what happens. So let's get to market quickly rather than worry too much about how precisely right we are than approximately wrong we might be. So I think clients, certainly my experience with clients in this part of the world is they do have an appetite for risk. They don't have to test the work to within an inch of its life before they'll put it into market and see what happens. Because I think the point was made earlier. Even if you do fuck it up here, you'll get a chance to go again. So I think clients.
- [31:32]
Fergus O'Carroll
Is that true, though? I mean, I can't imagine any client that wants to fuck up. It's never maybe screw up, you know, a little bit.
- [31:40]
Wolfie
You've got to have ambition to do something, to create something, to make something. I worked in big agencies in big markets, and two years could go by before you put anything in market, you know, and even then it would be so watered down that actually everyone had lost interest in it and no one had any passion for it. Whereas I think here, you know, there's a real commitment to actually do good and put stuff into the world that's going to make a difference. Because we don't have the big budgets, we don't have the opportunities to tweak it, rethink. It has to work first time. And because of that, you have to have an element of bravery and risk attached to it, because if you don't, you'll converge to the middle, you'll create predictable, and nothing will happen.
- [32:27]
Fergus O'Carroll
So, Tom, I'm curious, from your point of view, what do we need to be doing less of in the industry that we're doing too much of right now?
- [32:37]
Stephen DeWolf
I think one of the things the industry should do is worry less about shiny things. I think we have a tendency in this market to put shiny things at the forefront of what our job is. And really worry about them. And then what we do as an industry is we go, oh, these clients are big and hard. I'll push them to the side and I'll have this track on the side of smaller jobs that can win awards and that's all I need. And then majority of the work in Australia can get very dull because we don't look at that, we just let that go through. We spend our time on this little run of work on the side as an industry. I sort of wish we saw awards and saw shiny things as a byproduct of great work. And we actually just did great work for real clients and big clients. And if they, if that ends up being great and ends up being clean and single minded and wins awards, that is a wonderful thing. But I do wish we'd stop worrying about. And I think that's because we're a small market and we have sort of like this desire to do well all the time, this desire to please. But I do think our desire to win awards is a bad part of the industry now.
- [33:33]
Rupert Price
A bit.
- [33:34]
Stephen DeWolf
I think they're great if they're a byproduct, I think they're a problem if they're a priority.
- [33:38]
Fergus O'Carroll
Is that both in terms of creative rewards and effectiveness awards or is it more creative awards? Yeah. So what do you do? What's the, is what's holding you back, the client's desire to do strong work?
- [33:53]
Stephen DeWolf
Not really. Because I think what you do is you start doing work and then that work attracts more people who want like minded work. So we're very lucky that over the last 10 years in Australia we've done work that's got noticed. Our sort of, we love to do work that sort of impacts culture. And I don't mean like ad culture, award culture or like LinkedIn culture, I mean like properly culture culture. So we do attract clients that are, they're similarly minded and we bring like clients join us because they like the work we do. So we don't. We don't. We have pretty damn good clients and pretty brave clients. I think any agency can be that way. You just have to find the people in clients on the client side that want to be that way. Because I think it's funny, people talk about clients like they're a brand, but they're actually just people. And if the people change at a client, they can change instantly. So like you look at a while ago, people probably wouldn't think about Telstra, where now Telstra is phenomenal. And you know what I mean? Because the People change. I do think it's about finding the right people. Whenever we work with a brand, it's not really about what the brand is, it's finding the people who want to do great stuff.
- [34:53]
Fergus O'Carroll
When we were in Toronto, we were talking about this point, I think it said the same point you're making, which is there's almost this shift that's happening, Rupert, in terms of obviously the communications landscape has changed. Multiple channels, new channels, new ways. But there's also the fact that on the client side there's new clients coming up who are more immersed, comfortable, confident in those channels that are now sort of in many ways pushing us to be better in certain channels. I wonder if that sort of elevation of the client side is going to help improve the output of many agencies that today might be doing things that might be classified as dull.
- [35:34]
Wolfie
No, I think you're absolutely right. And I think of. I go back to the point I made earlier about the sort of received wisdoms that get passed down. All these new channels that have come along have just blown that up. If you're not conversant in new channels and the way to connect with new audiences and how messages land and the context in which those messages land, then you're going to get left behind. I think we now do have a new generation of marketers that do understand that user generated content and self made things can be just as potent and as effective as things that are spent billions of dollars on and well, not billions, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars on.
- [36:16]
Fergus O'Carroll
That's quite a difference.
- [36:16]
Wolfie
Yeah, that's quite a difference there. And six months to craft and build and put out into market. So I think we are seeing a new generation of marketers that have grown up with digital channels where anything can be created in seconds and can be circulated in moments and can become incredibly potent and powerful in the way they impact culture.
- [36:37]
Mila DeWolf
I also think clients here are distinctly aware that they cannot buy their way to effectiveness here. So, you know, it comes back to our population size. You know, we're 10 times smaller than the U.S. so for every dollar that's spent on production in the US there's 10 times more of an addressable market for it. So we can't spend or craft our way to success here. The idea itself has to be better, it has to work harder.
- [37:06]
Fergus O'Carroll
So Fran, in Australia here, let's talk about the characteristics of Australians because ultimately I look at a lot of the work here and I feel it could work anywhere, right? Most of it. It just feels like it could work anywhere. And I'M just curious, are there certain characteristics, certain attributes of Australians that make the work needs to be pointed in a certain direction or appeal or a certain characteristic.
- [37:35]
Fran Clayton
You might be right, like Australia expert. Well, you know, our humour and our style, but I'm not sure the opposite is always true. But I think the thing is there is this self deprecating humour in Australia. There's a very high bullshit radar. You know, the beautiful ode, the manifesto doesn't work well here because you can't like be a blowhard, you know, people will tear you down. So if you want to do even that manifesto, the examples that work are the ones that are a bit of a piss take and the audience is in on the joke. So I think that humour really lands well. And you know, I'm not saying humour's the only thing that works here, but it works pretty well and I think that's probably why it travels, you know, to your point, it feels like it could travel well. And yes, I just think that Australians are quite weirdly discerning about what they're going to accept and, and lean into.
- [38:36]
Wolfie
I'd build on that and I'd say that I think it's the down to earthness in the Australian personality and characteristic that does make the travel, the work travel so well because it makes it real and it makes it human and it makes relatable. There's no sort of in jokes that you require some kind of intellectual prowess to understand. It's all human and real. And because of that it translates and it carries because it's talking to universal truths rather than cultural moments that might mean something to some and not to others. And I think that's the power of it.
- [39:09]
Fergus O'Carroll
We've got a room full of mostly strategists or people in that related role. Do you have to leave or what do you. What's the advantage of leaving in the process of getting better?
- [39:22]
Fran Clayton
There's a nice relief in coming back because I think we've all kind of touched on this. Things move faster, you get more stuff done, you get more swings at the ball and I think that was, that was really nice. But I, but I also think that, you know, going to the distance that we have from, you know, these other places that we're talking about is a really great thing because it comes all the way back to what we started with, which is, does it still, when you're far from the rules, you can kind of of have this naive or even, you know, purposeful disregard for them.
- [40:03]
Fergus O'Carroll
Does it still feel distanced, though?
- [40:04]
Fran Clayton
Not as Much. I think you're right, not as much to your point about COVID And I think we're actually even seeing more of it in the work in Australia. It feels. I mean, isn't that what's happening with culture in general? There's just, you know, more sameness, more of that global kind of monoculture. So I hope that Australia holds on to its difference.
- [40:30]
Wolfie
Just one thing I would add as well is when you go away, you have to let go of everything you know, because you're turning up in a new place, different culture, different signals, different ways of communicating, different messages, different history, different legacy. All those kind of things that shape the way culture thinks and that shape the way audiences respond to things. And you have to relearn that. And I think the more times you go through that process, the more you relearn, the more you grow, the more you open your mind, the more you realize, actually, the way we used to do it might not be the best way. And the way someone else does it might be something that's really useful. And I think the more you go through that process, if you stay in one market your entire career, you'll be so conditioned by that market that that'll probably be the only market you can ever work in. Whereas if you do travel and push yourself out of your comfort zone, that's your real opportunity to grow, develop, learn, take on new things, adapt and change. And I think Aussies are probably better at that than anyone else.
- [41:24]
Tom Martin
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- [42:19]
Rupert Price
When I went over, I actually thought we're better, to be honest. But in that, I mean, we were talking about how we've been doing more interestingly shaped work for a long time. So you go to those bigger markets and you realize how progressive we actually are. So the job we have actually is to continue to be that I think, and lead the industry in that way. But it's not to shame markets I've worked in or agencies. But you go to those and you go, we're actually probably there for a reason, and it's because of what we bring to those markets and our thinking and our way of working. So, yes, it lacks all modesty, but you do sit in these hallowed halls of big agencies with wonderful people, and they are wonderful and they know lots of great things, but you also go, we're pretty different in a great way as well, and we're fresher. And again, we solve problems more often than not just answering briefs. So I kind of think that you don't probably learn as much as you think. You probably validate what you already knew most of the time.
- [43:20]
Fergus O'Carroll
For people who are listening, David Droga was the biggest export in the last couple of decades in this country. In terms of an individual. Who's next?
- [43:38]
Mila DeWolf
He's still around.
- [43:41]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah, but who's next? Is there somebody that does somebody needs to break through, or are they already here in the industry? That is not known yet. In your opinion, is there just somebody where you're like, that's the next. Maybe it's him, maybe it's Tom. Maybe it's. I mean, you're expanding already, right? So not like you individually, but you guys are expanding. But is there. You're in LA now with an office. You're in New York with an office.
- [44:10]
Stephen DeWolf
Yeah, we're in.
- [44:11]
Wolfie
Are you.
- [44:11]
Fergus O'Carroll
I mean, it looks like you're the next. You're the next Droga.
- [44:14]
Stephen DeWolf
No, don't say that. You'll have a lovely, like a curse or a jinx. Yeah, it's. It is interesting coming back to the Australia thing because I've been fortunate enough to work on like five super bowl ads from Sydney now, which I don't think anyone's done before. I don't think anyone's had. And I do think. I think the thing that we've done that I think is good to learn from is that there are no borders in this industry. We work in all through Asia, so we work in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong. We've got an office in LA and New York, we've got an office in London. I was in New York doing a pitch two weeks ago. We don't have borders in our office. People in our office work on super ads every year. We have amazing leaders in LA now who run everything. But I still have the opportunity to work all around the world, and I think that's something that all agencies should embrace. I just don't think those borders exist. And you can. I know it might be harder in a network, but like you were saying with Dove, you do it. It is possible if you don't think of yourself as being in this bubble that's Sydney. And you've got to have your clients in Sydney. It's very easy to actually have clients all around the world.
- [45:20]
Fergus O'Carroll
So what about the ambition for bmf? Where do you see things going?
- [45:25]
Rupert Price
I mean, I think it's a little like Tom, like I think the heritage of BMF and I'm still getting used to it because I'm relatively new, has always been to be world class from Australia. So I think the ambition is the same with lots of Australian clients. And even when it is a global brand like Audi, it's still, it's. I mean that's basically Australia now here. So I think the ambition would be to kind of do the same thing especially which is it would be borderless versus having to expand into different markets and cities. But I think there's a humbleness to BMF as well, where they'll probably. It won't be. It'll be from here all the time if it ever happens. But I think they're more proud of just the work or the strategy behind their work traveling from where we are than having big global ambitions to bring a client back. I kind of like that humbleness. I used to run away. That was part of the reason I was traveling. As I grew up in Perth, my whole ambition was to never end up back there in advertising. So I was chasing. It's like it's because there's no jobs left there anyway, but you realize pretty quickly you can do it all from here. I think that was the biggest learning I had in my first overseas trip was you can actually achieve all of the things that all of the people that we have learned about and read about and hear about in the press because as I think we touched on a lot of the press reread is local press in America and the uk. But for us it's international. Like you can do it here.
- [46:50]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah. So why not?
- [46:51]
Fran Clayton
People should come here. We don't have to go.
- [46:53]
Fergus O'Carroll
Yeah, yeah. But why isn't that happening? I mean it's clear with Uber that it sort of was this great opportunity that Tom talked about and then they earned that the ability to go overseas. Are you waiting for an opportunity? Are you guys actively after that or is the humility keeping you within the borders?
- [47:12]
Rupert Price
I think for us, the humility keeps us in our borders, but on purpose, like it's just, it's kind of, it's the humble nature to BMF and what they want to do. So because. And I think they're in the world. I mean, we're kind of independent, we're owned by a holding company, but it's got an independent attitude. I think since Warren Brown started it, it's always been probably one of the more Australian based creative shops. His ambition was to bring BBH back to Australia and at the time BBH was obviously very British when it started and when he was there. So it's always kind of stayed kind of in this market. And I think there's a lot of pride in doing work that travels as far as guest talkability. But for Australian Australian brands or making a German brand like Aldi feel very Australian, I think that's a continued success that BMF aspires to. But attracting talent back to Australia in general, Covid's changed that a lot. And I think to your point, Tom, having to be here geographically is probably less of a thing. So we have remote, we have people working, they're in different Australian cities, but they're working for the office in Sydney. So they're not necessarily going to be sitting in our office, but I think we would happily. We have a planner right now who's living in London, but she works Australian hours here. So we're kind of borderless in where people sit, but it's still for the business here in Australia.
- [48:25]
Mila DeWolf
But Aussies are hugely ambitious inherently, I think because we have this sort of frontier mentality about us. We've got this pioneering spirit in starting businesses and expanding them globally. Right. Like New York taxi drivers say, you can always tell it Aussie because they sit in the front seat. And I think looking back 15 years ago or whatever it was, when I started at Droga Sydney, the ambition was to be the most influential creative agency in the world. And now I'm back at Droga Sydney and it's still that. And so you look at the Mark Echo, Jay Z and Bing work from back in the day and now the Tuvalu first digital Nation Sydney Opera House work we're doing today. And it's sort of, it's borderless, it's ambitious and it's got that confident, pioneering spirit to try and take Aussie creativity to the world.
- [49:23]
Fergus O'Carroll
One thing I've noticed recently, and it's probably Most prevalent with McDonald's, I've noticed that the widening Kennedy work around fan truths is spreading like a contagion around the world. It's now moving into the uk. And so the question is that is there a risk or is there an opportunity for something like an Aldi to begin to become the international campaign rather than the Australian campaign? I mean, those are big, huge opportunities. It's either be eaten or eat.
- [50:03]
Rupert Price
It's, it's. Their business model is so unique, though. If, like, I mean, I wouldn't mind that if that was the case. But Aldi is. I mean, the good, different platform only exists because it's such an authentic truth about Aldi in Australia. Like when they launched that it normalized how weird the shopping experience was at Aldi. Like literally going, it's different. Like, you do pack your own bags. The minute was brand and. And then the back end of the business works very differently too. So it was actually facing the brand to find that authentic truth. And branded good, different, actually. They're normalized and the trust scores go up. But the business is not the same in the UK and in Germany and in the us It's a very different supermarket experience entirely. So I think because they're actually so unique in each market, that ambition would be pretty hard for a brand like that from here. But I would, like, that's what Everybody.
- [50:51]
Fergus O'Carroll
Said about McDonald's and it's this idea of like, I don't know what the advantage of a global brand is for people in individual countries. That's kind of a weird thing to even think about. It's an advantage for the marketer, not necessarily for the consumer, but yet that's what's happening. This is beginning to roll out. And I'm just wondering, does that, I mean, from a network point of view, Fran, it's like, it's a tough one because it's hard to export what you create here. A lot of what you're doing, you're creating for, for international marketers.
- [51:24]
Fran Clayton
But like McDonald's ideas out of Australia have gone the other way before. And fan truths is a good name for a thing that has been happening for a long time. So I think there have been Australian fan truths in McDonald's work for, you know, 15 years.
- [51:41]
Tom Martin
Right, right.
- [51:42]
Fran Clayton
I think it's, it's great. I just think, you know, it's been a truce about the brand for a long time.
- [51:48]
Mila DeWolf
Time.
- [51:49]
Rupert Price
We still made Maccas our own, though by nature of the fact it's called Mac, it's called Macca's here, isn't it? Like, it's so like, while you might take some of those global kind of constructs because the way you engage with that brand is universally the same. All the products are basically democratized. We still have made it our own here.
- [52:05]
Fran Clayton
Yeah, yeah. And I think that those are fan truths that have been in the work, which is great.
- [52:13]
Wolfie
And I, as the McDonald's agency, I can speak to this as well. I think there is also, I think even in defense for McDonald's, what they're looking for is innovation, and they're looking for fresh ways of marketing and they are open to where that comes from. And they have a phrase now which is share and scale, which is sharing of ideas around the world from all parts of the world. And whatever feels fresh and innovative and different and might be relevant in another market, it then take it and replicate it, rather than it be a command and control model from the top down. It's very much a network of collaboration now where great ideas can come from Scandinavia or can come from China or can come from other places, and we'd be foolish to resist them just because they're from elsewhere. So I think it is changing. I think marketing's changing and I think that's the benefit of being a global client, is you can quickly pick up on best practice from one market and place it in another.
- [53:09]
Fergus O'Carroll
We talked about process. That process can sort of handicap us. Totally agree with that. Getting into too many shiny objects, then one of your greatest exports from this country is Ehrenberg Bass behavioral economics. You got Ritson on an island south of us. Here you've got a lot of geni romaniac brand assets. The whole new lingo of marketing effectiveness is from this part of the world, the majority of it. And there's a lot of friction, a lot of issues with it. What do we think of it? What do we like about it?
- [53:47]
Tom Martin
Is there things that as a creative.
- [53:49]
Fergus O'Carroll
You dislike about it?
- [53:50]
Rupert Price
We're pretty lucky because we're proximate to it. Like, I think most people have done Mark Ritson's mini mba. There's something. It's pretty. I have. I don't know. Did you do it at Clems? You would have.
- [54:02]
Fergus O'Carroll
How many people. Put your hand up, even the panel. How many people have done Mark Rutson's MBA guy?
- [54:07]
Rupert Price
Yeah.
- [54:08]
Fergus O'Carroll
All right, Mark. About 10% of the room.
- [54:10]
Rupert Price
And more and more clients are sending, you know, their. Their staff to Mark Ritson's courses because it's proximate. So there's something that's pretty powerful and. And great. He's super smart. But. But I think it's uses use it in the right way, like make sure. It's relevant to your brand. I think that as we said, the minute it's seen as gospel and you know, you're applying it to everything and you're not really looking, you know, looking at what's right for your brand is a minute it becomes a problem and can really affect how creative the work is or how impactful it is.
- [54:35]
Fran Clayton
And you can't theory your way to effectiveness.
- [54:38]
Rupert Price
Right.
- [54:39]
Fran Clayton
You know, which the theory says, you know, it says that creativity drives effectiveness so you have to do something creative. And I think that's the bit that when you're at the coal face and in the arena, not commentating from the sidelines, the theory's helpful in the boardroom to justify the choices, but it doesn't really help you get there.
- [55:00]
Fergus O'Carroll
Is it still a theory applied?
- [55:03]
Fran Clayton
I mean, I think it's. Sorry, I think it's, you know, well evidenced ideas about how things work.
- [55:10]
Rupert Price
Yeah, right.
- [55:10]
Fergus O'Carroll
Do you believe in it?
- [55:12]
Fran Clayton
Yes. I think there's some great evidence based truths in how brands grow in the long and the short of it, in, you know, Ritson's work and a lot of the other people who are actually commentating or communicating those ideas. But again, it won't get you to the result. I think it's helpful to know and actually to keep it all in balance. But it's not the recipe that you need to get to success.
- [55:44]
Wolfie
Broadly it's right, but precisely it's wrong. So I think you've got to look at it in that context.
- [55:49]
Fergus O'Carroll
What does that mean?
- [55:49]
Wolfie
Well, I think creativity hates the formula. I think Fran was making that point. If creativity becomes formulaic, it's not creative anymore, it's not innovative, it's not original, it's not fresh and therefore it becomes mundane, predictable and our brains switch off from that and go and look for something else. So I think creativity will always, will always be incredibly important. I think as soon as you try and lock it down to it has to be a character and the brand has to appear at this point in the storyline and the narrative has to follow this arc and those kind of things, then I think you are putting creativity in a box and then it becomes less effective by definition. So I think some of the principles are right because it suggests that actually a lot of success in marketing doesn't come from luck, it does come from good judgment. But I think when you apply it to creativity and try and formulize creativity, then that's when it falls down.
- [56:41]
Fergus O'Carroll
What do you think, Miller?
- [56:42]
Mila DeWolf
There's lots of different answers that could work and all of these things point us toward the direction of the push that might work. And I think one of the strengths, or probably the strength of our industry compared to, say, like the pure management consulting businesses, they thrive on precedent. If it's been done in another market before and had success, they will literally lift the strategy and slides to this market, drop it in. That's why they have such great, consistent slides and reuse that strategy, and they can prove to the boardroom that it's going to work here because it worked there.
- [57:17]
Fergus O'Carroll
And they.
- [57:17]
Mila DeWolf
There's the precedent. We absolutely despise precedent. We won't use the same character, flavor, look, nothing. And possibly to our detriment. Like, there's a lot of strategies that really could be dragged and dropped here and everywhere, but we just can't stand it. It's in our nature. And so all of those, all of the marketing theory is wonderful to help, particularly executionally, to make things a little righter, closer to that pool of rightness that ultimately it's an art. And we have to use and trust our craft skills.
- [57:51]
Fergus O'Carroll
So are a lot of. I mean, by a show of hands, how many people in the room have got clients who are bringing the principles of Ehrenberg, Bass and others to the table for conversations? Raise your hands up high. That's a lot. Like half the room. So, Tom, what do you think about it? Are you made conscious of it by other people? Does that make any difference in what you end up or what you want to produce or feel you need to produce?
- [58:19]
Stephen DeWolf
We talk about it, we do talk about it, but I think from a creative point of view, you've sort of got to go organic first, scientific second. As in come up with the ideas, do the creativity, and then look at it through the lens of the science and work out, oh, okay. What would the distinct brand assets be? How would this continue? Is this a brand platform? A lot of them are common sense, but a lot of them, you look at post, so you sort of start with the creative, you start the creativity, and then you put it through the lens later is how we do it. And we've had enormous success with distinct brand assets like doorbells and bag drops with Uber. But we never intended it. We didn't go from the start going, we need 10 distinct brand assets. It just is one of those things that we noticed in the work in the first campaign, and then we started building on them over years.
- [58:58]
Fergus O'Carroll
Let's get these questions from the audience.
- [59:01]
Audience Member
We've talked a lot this evening about great Australian work that has been successful that has traveled. But last year I believe was our worst performing year at Cannes. So what is getting in the way of our Australian work? Performing better, traveling further and being more successful and punching above our weight.
- [59:22]
Rupert Price
I'm known to be very hard on the work. So I'll start by saying I think we are also a very self congratulatory industry. Like I think we. I've said this to a few people before. We often walk away going, that's good for Australia, which goes against everything we've just said on this panel. But it does seem to be something that I notice when I come back versus us having a bit more of a. Like we do have a global mindset and I think that we could look a little bit more at who we're competing against because we are borderless now and because we're talking about shiny things, we are competing against those. So I think we can at the same time as we have global mindsets and we're borderless, we're sometimes really insular in how we approach things and I think that stopped that in more recent times. But the bigger thing is I urge ourselves to push ourselves on what we think truly great work is.
- [60:11]
Fergus O'Carroll
Is it that what you're producing isn't winning the award or you're not submitting as much as you used to?
- [60:16]
Rupert Price
I think there'd be a bit of both. Like I still think we're entering. I think it's. The work isn't as good, it's not as consistently good for whatever reason at the minute. And I think, and I think the world's caught up as we said. Like when you go and have a look at what's happening on the global stage, the shape of ideas that used to define us as an industry is now happening everywhere. Like the US are doing the types of ideas that we did which were multifaceted, experiential pieces that drove earned. That's kind of what was defining us for the last 10 years. When you think of the dumb ways to dies and the nab breakups and all those great spots, the whole world are doing those now because I think they've caught onto the do more with less, make more of what you've got. But I think we do have to lift our standards a bit too. You know, it's also, it's pretty easy to stand out right now. I think with some great work. I think we just all need to enjoy that there is an opportunity to do that and stand out a bit more from here.
- [61:13]
Fran Clayton
Do you think some other parts of the world are better at marketing the work.
- [61:17]
Rupert Price
Well, there is that. Tom joked about LinkedIn. It's amazing where you see who's pring their ideas and where they come from and all that kind of stuff. And there's, there are different games that are played to win those shiny things like to, you know. But I think there is that and we touched on that in our pre chats. For our ideas to get global recognition in the global press, they have to be amazing because, you know, there's always news coming out of America fad week and, and so our idea has to transcend for us to get that global attention and that's super rare already. But, but in America that's your local press, so something else will get there first.
- [61:54]
Fergus O'Carroll
What do you think, Tom?
- [61:55]
Stephen DeWolf
No, I agree with Orfi. I think it's also, I think the type of work we've always done and we've been famous for as a country, a lot of that work. During COVID most stuff went to traditional media and went to film and I think we're only starting to get back to the type of thinking we used to do. I think it all sort of disappeared for a few years. So I think we're only sort of getting back to the type of work that Australia's known for. Sort of Australia got recognized for.
- [62:17]
Fergus O'Carroll
And why did it disappear for a few years?
- [62:19]
Fran Clayton
We lost our sense of humor for a little bit.
- [62:21]
Stephen DeWolf
We got locked inside. We sort of got locked inside for two years and everything moved to TV and it just sort of changed the way we consume media. And I think we're still getting, we're still getting off just doing TV ads all the time again, I think.
- [62:32]
Fergus O'Carroll
Anybody else got a question?
- [62:33]
Audience Member
I think it was Miller who said before that it's not about clients as brands but clients as people. Part of the answer might be you all have great relationships with the pool of clients in this country. But let's pretend you're going into a pitch meeting and you've never met the client before. How long does it take any of you to work out if they have the ambition, the confidence to sell an idea up, if they're the right people versus the right brand.
- [63:08]
Stephen DeWolf
This is not chemistry, but more a pitch. I think you've just got to pitch the work you want to make, don't pitch the work you think they'll buy or don't pitch the work you think your competition is going to present. Pitch the work you want to make. And if you pitch the work you want to make and they buy it, you're probably starting from a good place.
- [63:22]
Tom Martin
Yeah.
- [63:22]
Fergus O'Carroll
In the US there's a number of hot shops and you guys are familiar with them, but it's almost like the way Wieden used to be and it's the way mischief is today.
- [63:32]
Tom Martin
You know what you're going to get.
- [63:34]
Fergus O'Carroll
When you go to that agency. So it's not about chemistry. You either want what they're selling or you don't. Chemistry, I just think, is a way of sort of working through the commoditization of the business. It's like, oh, I'm going to be there because I like that person. But if that shop isn't producing great stuff, then that person, that relationship isn't worth anything. So, you know, when you go to Mischief, you know when you go to many of these shops, you know what you're going to get. So buy that, buy the reputation, not the people, because they come along with it. You have a question? I think he has his finger against his beard, so it must mean, God, no pressure.
- [64:15]
Audience Member
Like everyone on the panel. Thank you, guys. By the way, it was really, it was great. I've spent some time overseas and lucky enough to work in, in those markets. And one of the observations I had was, you know, if you were at an Abbot Mead or RJA London or whatever it was, you were in the boardroom a lot. Not just with cmo, but chief customer officer, maybe even chief Operating officer, and depending on who it was, chief executive officer. Do you guys think we are enough in that zone as an industry? Are we in that room, the metaphorical room, but also the literal room enough? Are we upstream enough and have we. Or have we lost a bit of that, or are we moving back the other way? Just interested to get your take on that versus overseas?
- [65:08]
Fran Clayton
I think we are. Well, it so massively depends on actually the culture and the structure of the client. But, you know, to all of the points we've been talking about in terms of the scale of this market and how, how close we are to our clients, I feel like we have every opportunity to be in those rooms and, you know, it's not on every client. It's not always kind of needed or appropriate, but I feel like we can access. There's nothing stopping us accessing all the people we need to, to make interesting things happen.
- [65:43]
Wolfie
I think we're going through a cycle, actually, and I think, I think over the last 10, 15 years, technology has dominated the conversation and I think clients have found ways of getting an advantage in the market through technology and investment and innovation in that space. I think now that that playing field is now leveling and I think everyone's playing with the same tech. I think that's when creativity will come back and I think we have an opportunity to lead that conversation.
- [66:09]
Mila DeWolf
I think it comes back to that. We're just pretty bad at marketing ourselves and the power of commercial creativity. And I wish we were better at it like they are in the UK Also. We have such. And maybe it's changed and gotten worse, but we have such an advantage to leverage, which is that this unfair advantage that CEOs always want to see the advertising for whatever reason, like they want to see that. So we have this power to get our foot in the door there and, and have the invitation at that level. I think we just need to do a better job.
- [66:43]
Fergus O'Carroll
But do you have the relationships that get the CEO involved early at the very beginning versus killing it at the end?
- [66:49]
Mila DeWolf
It's client dependent. So certainly on some clients, but unfortunately to a lesser extent, I think we.
- [66:56]
Fran Clayton
Have some really awesome empowered CMOs. So, yes, it's great to get in the room with the CEO or the whoever o but there are some amazing CMOs that are doing great work. So I haven't personally felt like we're shut out of opportunities because of that.
- [67:15]
Fergus O'Carroll
All right, thank you all so much for being here. Thanks to our panel, to Rupert, to Miller, to Fran, to Wolfie and to Tom. A round of applause for them. Really fantastic. Thank you so much and to all of you for being here tonight. We really appreciate it. It was a packed house and we will see everyone on the next episode.