Dynamic Duos: TBWA’s Russ Tucker and Eleven Sydney’s Amy Ashworth
In this week's Dynamic Duos, GM of Eleven Sydney, Amy Ashworth, and ECD of PR and earned at TBWA, Russ Tucker, share how two Brits from different sides of the river have put aside their differences to drive collaboration and creative earned media campaigns for their shared clients.
In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two members of the same organisation with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.
Russ Tucker:
Like a Shakespearean tragedy, the cosmos placed us with all the other English agency expats, into the land of Bondi. We were and are that cliché. I’ll never forget the first time I heard Amy’s rich Thames estuary accent, the comforting sound of home.
‘Where are you from, Amy?’ I asked. ‘Essex,’ she replied.
Even though we hailed from different sides of the river, we put our geographical differences aside and had an instant connection. We soon bonded over a love of UK garage music, our shared office soundtrack. We went to work on Mastercard, one of our key accounts with great creative potential. Working with Amy on Mastercard, I soon realised that she is naturally passionate about ideas. She is constantly coming up with them and loves helping shape them.
We definitely have a very open collaborative approach to making the work and I really like how Amy fosters an inclusive creative culture. Literally everyone in the entire office is invited to contribute to the ideas. Amy’s determination to overcome any challenge is one of her most admirable traits.
Amy Ashworth:
I met Russ six years ago when I started at Eleven. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t my biggest fan to start off with as I gave him lots of new nicknames – Rusty, Rusco…the list goes on. I think I finally broke him when I introduced him to a client as Rusticles, which was an absolute no-no. Nowadays I stick with Russ.
Like most PR / creative relationships, ours was forged in the fire of late nights and tough briefs. Over the years, we’ve proven to be great partners – we don’t shy away from a debate, we both get that same feeling when we know we’re on to something special creatively and we’re both relentless in our pursuit towards awesome ideas.
Our mantra at Eleven is “Turn It Up”, and I would say our relationship is wholeheartedly based on this shared belief to push the briefs, the work and the culture just that little bit further to make it even better, and importantly more fun.
I’m also a firm believer that anything is possible, and Russ certainly loves to challenge me to bring some of his wild ideas to life, from a VR experience that gets kids to scuba dive inside the human gut, to shutting down a street in Melbourne to play tennis.
He’s a one-of-a-kind creative: firstly, he actually gets earned media. More than getting it, he loves it as much as I do. He’s even developed models to help others understand this “mystical” world of public relations.
He has an uncanny ability to tell human stories in a really empathetic way. And to top it all, he’s great fun.
Eleven would not be the same without him.
Russ on Amy:
Most memorable moment with Amy: I remember we had an idea for Mastercard sponsoring the Australian Open. On paper the idea was really simple: Let’s unite real people through tennis by pulling down their backyard fences and replacing them with tennis nets. Our wonderful client at Mastercard championed the idea and soon we had to turn the PowerPoint into a real production. Imagine trying to get real neighbours in a real street to actually agree to this! Well, Amy and the production team actually pulled it off. It’s still one of my favourite campaigns, mainly because Amy kept a cool head the whole time.
Describe Amy in one word: Rock-solid. If I had to unpack that any more, rock-solid because she is reliable and unwavering in her conviction to great ideas. Not rock-solid as in she has no beating heart. She definitely does have a beating heart. I just wanted to make sure that this is crystal clear before hitting the printing press.
Amy’s most annoying habit or endearing habit: Nothing really annoys me that much about Amy to be honest. I know I annoy her, however, because she often comes to me with ridiculous deadlines and meeting requests which make me audibly huff and puff. In fact I must be super annoying because my wife sent Amy an Aperol Spritz gift pack during lockdown because she felt bad that Amy had to listen to me waffle on about ideas all day.
Amy on Russ:
Most memorable moment with Russ: Definitely both dressing as zebras for the Christmas party. And we only discovered we’d unknowingly picked the same outfit when we dialled into a client call just before the party.
Describe Russ in one word: Original.
Russ’ most annoying or endearing behaviour: He huffs and puffs a little bit…but always comes through in the end (even if it means I have to chase him around the building to get him to look at a brief).
If you and a colleague would like to submit your story to Dynamic duos, please email kwelch@mumbrella.com.au.
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