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‘A no brainer’: Agency head reflects on booming business two years after Aussie launch
As Annabelle Gigliotti was getting more into entertainment publicity, she got an offer to launch Organic in Australia - an offer "too good to refuse". Two years on, Gigliotti chats to Mumbrella on the agency's strength in market and her biggest learnings since its launch.
Organic originally launched 17 years ago in the UK by founder Nick Leese, and Gigliotti describes the current UK leadership, Tristan Woods-Scawen and Caragh Cook, as “amazing, innovative people”.
“They wanted to have a more forward thinking entertainment agency,” she says.
“A lot of people, when they think about entertainment, they’re like ‘it must be so cool and cutting edge’, when in reality it is extraordinarily traditional in a lot of ways. And the way entertainment comms is done, has been staged for many years.”
She continues: “So, Tristan and Caragh wanted to come up with a more social-first thinking agency, and a more rounded take on doing entertainment comms.”
After working with almost every major streaming platform and production company internationally, Organic was bought out by Havas in 2016, giving it “the momentum it needed for its next stage of growth”, according to Gigliotti.
“It was doing really well under the Havas group umbrella. But after that, quite often, their clients were asking ‘why isn’t there anything like Organic in Australia?’,” she says.
“There are some great entertainment PR companies in Australia, but they’re small, specialist agencies, and then there are great large agency groups too, but no one offering quite what Organic offers – which is the expertise of entertainment publicity, but with the scope of a large group so we can execute at scale.”
One thing led to another, and Gigliotti got the call to launch the agency down under.
Gigliotti
“It was a bit of a no-brainer,” she says. “I knew them, and I knew they were fantastic and I loved the brand.”
Two years on, Gigliotti says the agency is lucky to be backed by Havas.
“There’s such a place for independent agencies in market, but for us, being able to work with the [Havas] network has been incredible,” she says.
“We’re so lucky to have things we can tap into in the building that I wouldn’t be able to tap into otherwise. It’s just amazing to have that network of people around.”
Since its launch in Australia, Organic has racked up an impressive client roster, including Netflix ANZ, the recent South by South West Sydney, Sony, Universal Pictures and more.
“The momentum has really continued, and it felt gratifying,” Gigliotti explains. “I really believed there was a need for what we do in market, and the past two years have really shown there was a gap and we’ve filled it nicely.”
Gigliotti says she has learnt so much about the business and herself in the past two years.
“I’ve really learned what I’m comfortable with and what I’m not,” she says. “For me, I like being behind the camera. When you work in publicity for so long, you’re so used to putting other people in the forefront.
“You know, we wear black on red carpets so we can scare people or blend in with the background,” she jokes.
“On the promotion side of it, I’ve really learned how much I value my team. Compared to past leadership roles I’ve had, this feels another level of being altogether and I really feel that my team is such an important part of what has made Organic so successful.
“This is such a small industry, so everyone knows everyone, so it was really important that my team all get along well, but this is just next level,” she concludes.
Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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