Edge’s plan to crack the top 10 creative agencies by 2026
The latest partner at independent agency Edge, Stu Turner has high hopes for the business’ next phase of evolution, asserting the audacious goal of ranking amongst the market’s top 10 creative agencies within three years.
Officially starting working two months ago, Turner’s appointment comes as the agency has been re-writing its creative and strategic capabilities, now also offering a new venture division, alongside media, branding and a “soon to come” PR offering.
As ECD, Turner will spearhead the agency’s ambition to become a creative contender, with the remit of lifting Edge’s creative output, including building out the right creative team to do so.
“We are pretty blunt about the fact that we want to be in the top 10 agencies in the country in the next few years,” he shared. “And everyone in the agency on is on board with that.”
On his decision to join the agency from well-established indie creative contender, The Royals, Turner says the opportunity to take a stake in the business – which was not an option at The Royals – was a big drawcard.
“The reason I left, quite bluntly, was the same as a lot of people in our industry who get to a point where they want equity in the game,” Turner told Mumbrella.
Saatchi & Saatchi’s Alex Speakman and Simon Bagnasco also jumped across to Bullfrog recently, taking a stake in the business.
Having spent over three years experiencing the indie approach at The Royals, after a long career in holding companies, Turner was also drawn in by Edge’s entrepreneurship, being of the view that independents give talent “more leeway to make decisions quicker” and be a “little bit more mongrel”.
“I see a lot of people going to indies, because I think they are tired of having their kind of flavor and personality smoothed down inside big networks, when they actually just want to go full tilt on their creativity and ideas.
“It just feels more exciting,” continued Turner. “I always say when I was in a big network and I wanted to do something big and audacious, I had to have a few meetings, fill out an Excel spreadsheet and speak to some people. Whereas, here, I lean across the desk and ask one of the other owners, ‘hey, should we do this?’, and we chat about it for five minutes. It’d take us a day to make the same decision that would take two weeks at a network.”
He added: “I say that with all due respect to the networks because I made my best work and had some of my greatest friends and times in those places, but I think that was a time and a season.”
“It might swing back, but right now, I feel like we’re in indie time, you know?”
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