Bond University unveils fresh brand platform via Rick Barry
Bond University has launched a new brand platform, in one of the first major projects taken on by Alex Derwin and Hugh Munro’s indie creative agency Rick Barry, Mumbrella can reveal.
Shaped by “very exploratory, very open” conversations with staff, students, and alumni, “Ambition Loves Company” marks a new era for the private university, said to capture its “distinctive spirit”.
Speaking exclusively to Mumbrella, Munro, chief strategist at Rick Barry, said these conversations gave him and Derwin a “few clues” as to what made Bond different: “From early interviews we knew there was something different in the water at Bond, but it hadn’t made its way beyond the campus walls.”
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In particular, he said this became evident during focus groups. Usually a moderator would have to foster comradery between a group of strangers, but when alumni showed up, there was a sense of shared achievement.
“Even though they were from different parts of the world, graduated 30 years apart, had different interests, they all knew each other,” he said. “This community that Bond creates with its alumni became so clear to us.”
During the conceptualisation stage, he said there was “this thing” that kept coming up, but he couldn’t quite put it into words. That was until they landed on the thought of “ambition”.
“It can be a bit of a dirty word, ambition can seem like it’s a lonely pursuit, it’s obsessive, it’s about pushing others down to get yourself ahead, but what we discovered at Bond was the complete opposite of all of that.”
The collective ambition, he said, was just as resonant for a Queensland-based dean as it was for a Canadian postgrad law candidate. This therefore formed the basis of the new brand platform.
“Ambition Loves Company” has purposefully been designed as an enduring platform, balancing a “loftier” perspective on the world with a really sharp call-to-action. It positions Bond as a place where driven people can come together to amplify their potential.
Professor Tim Brailsford, Bond’s vice chancellor and president, said it perfectly captures the very essence of the university.
“The institution and the founders of the institution had this great ambition for Bond University to be something really special,” he said. “‘Ambition Loves Company’, to me, is this special ingredient we have here at Bond University, which is how we join together and push each other to achieve things which we would not otherwise be able to achieve on our own.”
Nailing the balance between the long and the short-term was paramount, according to Munro, especially since Bond’s window to generate future demand is very narrow.
“You’re talking to people that are, for undergrads, towards the latter stages of high school and about to graduate and the decision comes pretty quick. And once that’s made, yes, some people do post-graduate, they do micro credentials later in their career, but really for the bulk of it, you’ve got a pretty small window,” he told Mumbrella.
“What we loved when we first encountered “Ambition Loves Company” was that it is a big perspective, but it’s also an invitation.”
This marks one of the creative shop’s first major projects since launching last year. Munro, who was CSO at The Monkeys (now Droga5), and Derwin, former CCO at BMF, started the agency to have more freedom in decision-making, particularly by “simply having less layers of hierarchy”.
“We’re constantly quite actively reminding ourselves that we have full freedom within our business to do it the way that we want,” he told Mumbrella. “So the past year has been really fun experimenting with different processes, with clients, collaborators, directors, and production companies.”
Rick Barry’s model is built around direct contact with clients, then curating a specialist team of talent. It allows Munro and Derwin to bring in people whose skills match what a client is after.
“At any one moment, the team is anywhere between five and 12 people, depending on what’s happening at the time. We like keeping the flexibility,” Munro said.
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Lauren McNamara is a freelance journalist contributing to Mumbrella. She previously spent three years at the publication, most recently as the associate editor. She first joined in 2022 after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS. She left her staff role at Mumbrella in August 2025.
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topics
Alex Derwin
Ambition Loves Company
Bond University
brand platform
Campaign
hugh munro
Rick Barry
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