‘I don’t see any significant change happening’: Indigenous-Australian agency launches talent division to improve diversification of voices
Indigenous Australian-led creative consultancy Campfire X has launched an Indigenous talent service for both on-screen and behind-the-scenes, but co-founder, Peter Kirk, tells Mumbrella that he doesn’t expect to see much improvement in the diversification and inclusivity of Indigenous voices in the advertising industry – unless more is done to change the measurements of success.
Headed up by Campfire X’s Jodi Shannon, the new talent division aims to bolster Indigenous talent by providing guidance and opportunities to enhance their identities and voices. Not only is Campfire X focusing on on-screen talent, it will also work with designers, creatives, directors, and more to improve inclusivity across the entire creative process.
“This is what creativity is all about,” Kirk told Mumbrella. “It’s about having diversification of ideas, and we found that just wasn’t really happening.”
And while Campfire X has been running the service unofficially for a while, working with production companies including Endemol Shine to cast talent on TV shows like Gogglebox and Hunted, it has now made its first official signing since launch.
“We had heaps of requests over the years to get into talent management, but we kept saying no because we knew it wasn’t our core business,” Kirk said. “But what made us change our mind was that there are so many talented Indigenous creatives coming through, but there appears to be a lack of pathway for them, and a lack of knowledge from creative agencies or media companies on how to connect.”
But now, according to Kirk, we can expect to see this work on a bigger, and more successful scale.
“Success. That’s really the key word here,” he continued. “There’s a big different between hiring someone or casting someone on a show, and casting them on a show for a long-term view or setting up an environment where they can win.”
Jardwadjali/Wotjobulak music producer Mark Munk Ross, who has spent nearly 40 years in the music industry, marks the start of the talent service’s growing roster of Indigenous talent.
Mark Munk Ross
For decades, he has been producing, writing songs, and working with countless artists and bands from around the world. In 2014, he was inducted to the National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame for his contributions to First Nations music.
And while the agency hopes this will help the advertising industry take a step forward in progressing diversity in the creative process, Kirk said the nature of the industry makes that difficult.
“With the way that work is measured and delivered right now, I don’t see any significant change happening,” he said.
While some brands and government entities are showing the desire to make some change in the space by allocating part of their budgets to Indigenous agencies, directing their agencies to engage with Indigenous-owned agencies, or working with Indigenous talent, he stressed that agencyland as a whole still has a long way to go.
He said that without mandatory minimums, there are no checks and balances to make sure a certain percentage of client budgets are going to Indigenous business, and “that’s the problem”.
“It only then comes down to the goodwill of the client – those that say ‘we want to make sure we’ve got diversity of thought’,” Kirk explained. “And some brands are doing that, but agencies aren’t.”
Kirk said the nature of agencyland means everything is rushed, and few agencies are taking the same initiative as brands in terms of diversification.
“Very few advertising agencies have reached out to us to get to know us, to want to work with us for their own sake – they only reach out to us when there’s a directive from their client to do so. KPIs are all about getting the pitch in as quickly and as best you can, it’s so rushed. I can think of two or three occasions where agencies have sent work out to clients on our behalf and hadn’t even sent it to us for approval because of the speed of the pitch,” he said.
“So until that process changes, there’s not going to be better representation and diversification in the work.”
Kirk described the agency model as “so far behind” other industries in Australia. While he agreed there has been a shift in Australia overall to be more accepting and inclusive of Indigenous culture and peoples, he said agencyland is severely falling behind.
“The agency model needs to be rejigged, that process needs to have better KPIs. But KPIs will only change when the brands turn around and say the measurement of success will be more about inclusivity than winning awards.
“But is the industry prepared to do that? No.”
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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topics
Campfire X
creative agency
Endemol Shine
First Nations
Gogglebox
Hunted
Indigenous Australians
Jodi Shannon
Mark Munk Ross
Peter Kirk
talent
talent agency
The Munk
And there it is, budget allocation.
Why should there be different levels of measurement? There is an industry standard that should apply to everyone in that space. We need people and industry to come together, not create different expectations and measurements.
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