Droga: Sydney office was paralysed by early success, but trying again is still on the radar
Australia’s most celebrated advertising export David Droga has gone on the record for the first time on the failure of the Sydney office of his agency Droga5, and suggested he may try again.
Droga: They couldn’t keep up with demand and expectations
The agency was led by David Nobay, who has since launched the Sydney office of Publicis Group’s creative agency Marcel and by Sudeep Gohil who last week took on a new role for Publicis in India.
Droga told Mumbrella: “The halo of the brand name got them a lot of open doors, but they couldn’t keep up with demand and expectations.
“They won five of the top 10 biggest accounts in Australia within the first two years. I mean they had Qantas, they had Woolworths, they had Toyota. Agencies spend 20 years courting those clients normally.
“The partners we had were talented and smart, with a good reputation. I just think they got overwhelmed by it. In the first few years they did some work that was really good, but they didn’t wean their way into accounts that were that big and it paralysed them to the point where they couldn’t get their head above water.”
Droga revealed that in the end his decision to pull the plug was not financial, but because he did not believe the work being produced was good enough. He said: “The work started to suffer and I took that very personally because the only reason for me to have an agency was to do work that I loved. For a small brand like ours, our work is our brand. It wasn’t in the end living up to what it could be.”
Signalling that he is likely to open Droga5 in Shanghai soon, Droga also suggested he has not given up on the idea of having an agency in Sydney once more.
He said: It’s on my radar every day emotionally and personally, and I go back every year to visit Australia. The lesson I learnt is that you have to open not just with the right people, but also at the right time – and you have to let it find its feet and its own personality.
- Read the full interview here: David Droga: Australia is on my radar every day, emotionally and personally
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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Am curious why Droga5 keep trying to change history by deleting anything they don’t like from their Wikipedia page. The page belongs to the global online community.
There used to be a lot of sourced narrative about Sydney shutting down and so forth – sourced from Mumbrella articles and others as per Wikipedia rules. I enjoyed reading them and have applied many of the learnings. But every time a link to a Mumbrella or similar article is loaded in Wikipedia, supporting the Wikipedia narrative – they get deleted. I am referring to fact based content not troll type of content.
We operate our agencies in times of constant change where mistakes are natural and opportunities for all of us to learn.
It would be better to see one of Australias most successful admen sharing the learnings instead of trying to erase history please.
If you set up a Wikipedia page for your business and yourself it is important that it remains truthful. In the context of Wikipedia it feels that to delete truthful accurate and relevant information to benefit you personally, or your business, is as big a crime as inputting false information.
I get that the trolls and poppy cutters can be pretty ruthless but it feels just as bad if not worse to erase the truth and therefore remove something that was not in fact given to you but given to the community – stealing content I guess.
Please stop, Droga5 achievements are remarkable as is the brand Droga – no need to do it.
With respect and sincerity from a fan.
Tim – word love to see a broader piece on brands and Wikipedia, not Droga related. Given school children use Wikipedia as a text book, it would be interesting to discuss the role of Wikipedia and learning. It makes me think of how the history syllabus is always designed to meet the broader political direction of a country, eg how we have taught Indiginous studies in the past in Australia.
The difference with the Droga scenario and Wikipedia is significant in that it is the acute minority that can rewrite history by theoretically deleting history every time it appears.
Sent by iPhone delayed on a runway.
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