BMF co-founder Warren Brown re-emerges with new consultancy Gutthink & Partners
Just six months after departing BMF as the creative founder, Warren Brown, has launched a new business consultancy, Gutthink & Partners, Mumbrella can reveal.
Brown is partnering with co-founders Martin Rippon, the former CMO at R.M. Williams ands former MD at BMF, and intellectual property lawyer Justin Senescall.
Gutthink & Partners co-founder: Justin Senescall, Martin Rippon and Warren Brown
Brown left BMF, which rose to become one of Australia’s most celebrated agencies, in January after 20 years.
The new venture, he tells Mumbrella is “nothing like an agency”. Instead, he described Gutthink as a business consultancy which is of “more benefit and value to business if [it] is more upstream”.
The business consultancy will aim to develop ideas for business platforms and present them to the wider market, Brown said.
“Being an advertising agency is not something we are seeking to be involved in, we are trying to maintain a platform of big-picture thinking and that’s where the legal side of it is really important because there’s no point in having a big picture if you can’t legally protect it.
“We are not in a traditional management consultancy space, it is a business consultancy, if I am a business and am looking for an opportunity and have half an idea of where I need to take the business, we can actually go in and try and give them a new vision or ad or spot something they might already have which is potentially brilliant,” he continued.
The consultancy will include three offerings, Gutthink Opinion, IPfactory and Gutthink Training.
Gutthink Opinion is based on “what we instinctively feel to be the right thing based on what we know, what we feel and our experience,” Brown said.
“We believe we know what works and what will stick based purely on our gut instinct and our feel and you can judge us by our past success on that.”
Examples of Brown’s own experience using gut feel to drive successful work include the controversial Toohey’s Extra Dry Tongue ad and the Sam Kekovic Australia Day ads for lamb.
The IPfactory is the legal arm of the business consultancy, which will ensure all ideas and outcomes are protected in the marketplace locally and globally.
“The legal side of the equation has to be right upfront, rather than as an afterthought. In my experience over the years I have had trying to find out whether you are on safe territory from an IP or trademark perspective, is usually the last thing people think of, and that usually ends up being a bit of a disaster.”
The IPfactory will “make sure whatever they do is giving them safe territory, because there is nothing worse than going down a path and finding that after all the effort you’ve put in, someone else has already occupied that space,” said Brown.
Rippon said: “The issue is you get tied into these big cross-functional projects that soak up time and energy. Then in many cases – if and when they are delivered – the intended advantage has already been superseded by another player.”
Senescall said his role will include a focus on identifying intellectual property rights in ideas developed by the consultancy and ensure they are not too similar to existing rights, which is not given the attention it requires by the industry.
“It’s lucrative for the lawyers, but frustrating and expensive for clients. By working up-front in the process, there’s an opportunity to identify and develop rights in the ideas from the outset to everyone’s benefit,” he said.
“Put simply, Gutthink is about combining instinct and intelligence to create inspiring ideas”
Gutthink Training will act as a leadership development module for executives to assist them in harnessing the role of intuition in decision making.
“We believe that there is a real need for people to establish that connection and not be afraid of using their instincts. If you are not given a few pointers or signals as to how you might next achieve this, then it just ends up a bunch of words,” Brown said.
“Everyone has their own gut feeling – it is not something people aren’t aware of, everyone has them. But having the confidence to be able to use them is a whole different ball game, helping people have the confidence to use what they instinctively feel and the ability then to work with people who don’t believe in it is probably a bit of a skill that needs to be taught.”
The name Gutthink and Partners, has “logic to it” and comes from Brown’s love for the attraction of opposites.
“I have used that throughout my whole career and the attraction of opposites with this is your gut, which is something that is intangible and almost impossible to describe the feeling sometimes, but in your DNA you know what is the right thing to do even if you can’t explain why it is the right thing to do.
“Then there is your ‘think’ which is basically supported by statistics, data, learning, knowledge and everything else and it is very clear for everyone to see what your thinking is, because it is more easily explained.
“It’s almost the marriage of the unexplained with the easily explained and from what I could see there wasn’t anyone out there trying to provide that unusual marriage of instinct and intelligence,” Brown explained.
Abigail Dawson was Mumbrella's senior content journalist covering event content. She left Mumbrella to move into an agency role in 2020.
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Love the name – best of luck chaps.
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Congratulations gents. Wish you the absolute best of luck.
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@Adam Ferrier.
You would…it is as bad as Thinkerbell
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“Gutthink Opinion is based on “what we instinctively feel to be the right thing based on what we know, what we feel and our experience,” Brown said.”
Classic old ad guys who don’t understand data and research. Business doesn’t work from your gut anymore.
I can’t think of one client that whats my opinion. Clients are looking for evidence based advice.
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Hi Name Shame You seem pretty unhappy.
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I am only unhappy when I read names that make me cringe. We are an industry who should excel at this sort of thing.
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It’s refreshing to find people who laugh at danger! To resist the actuarial thinking that sucks the surprise from communication is a bold attitude and deserves success. Let’s hope there are some the ‘gut’ to get on board.
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