It’s time to re-create the great Australian agency
Australian ideas are a means to an end. And that end is pumping up a share price in Tokyo, London, Paris or New York, writes Bastion Collective CEO Jack Watts.
Every day starts the same. Get up, get moving, get positive. Today is a new day.
Slowly, the day deteriorates. Every time the phone rings it’s a toss of the coin between triumph and disaster. Is this the ‘yes’ I’ve been waiting for, or another problem waiting for me to solve?
Sometimes I wonder why. Why didn’t I go into finance or tech or mining. Surely if you put this much work in in those industries, you’d have more to show for it. Communications, what was I thinking!
Then, there’s the things I take for granted. Surfing on a Monday morning, backstage on a Wednesday night and trying to solve a client’s biggest problems over a drink on a Friday arvo.
It’s easy to forget that this is the greatest job in the world. I spend my life inside the boardrooms of some of the most interesting businesses in the country, working with enthusiastic experts coming up with brilliant solutions out of thin air.
Could there be a better way to make a living than working in the Australian communications industry?
But there is still something missing. Something is not right here. Australian ideas used to be great. We used to punch above our weight because we were prepared to have a crack and apply some good old-fashioned Aussie spirit. Some of humanity’s greatest ideas have come out of this land of droughts and flooding rains.
These days, however, Australian ideas are a means to an end. And that end is pumping up a share price in Tokyo, London, Paris or New York. Our best and brightest ideas are being used and abused to fill a cell in a spreadsheet a thousand miles from home.
And when our best storytellers are stuck in a global hamster wheel, no wonder we can’t tell our own story about who we are as a nation. This is the sad story of our country and our industry. We grew up a nation of dreamers and storytellers. A land of opportunity. The lucky country. The old Aussie dream was to own a home. It’s time we had a different dream.
So tonight I go to bed dreaming and tomorrow, I wake up on a mission. A mission to (re) create the great Australian agency. An agency capable of re-imagining the Australian identity to put Australian brands, businesses and people back at the forefront of this country and the communications industry.
It has taken a decade of work, almost my entire professional life to build Bastion Collective to be ready for this chance. A chance to take the Australian way to the world.
It’s time to put Australian ideas back in business.
Jack Watts is the CEO of Bastion Collective.
What we need is a wall… This covfefe towards the open office has polluted the nationalistic purity of the creative product with the aspirational perversion of deep state account service. We need a big, beautiful wall between the creatives and the suits in every agency in Australia!
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Good read. Run your finger down the list of Agencies operating in this market and you certainly won’t find any stand out names like you used to.
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Australia is full of average agencies, run by average people in a market where there is exponential potential
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“I spend my life inside the boardrooms of some of the most interesting businesses in the country, working with enthusiastic experts coming up with brilliant solutions out of thin air.”
wow… medal worthy…
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Great Australian agencies of the past are the ones that figured how to trigger emotion in the Australians of their day. It’s that simple. The masters to learn from are the filmmakers. Assuming that by ‘great’ you mean making advertising Australians love. Rather than impressive ROI for your clients. Not always the same thing
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Someone in our industry writes something to inspire his industry peers and you, the anonymous, snarky, inexperienced 23yr old has to throw him some shade.
Mate, when you climb a few rungs, get a few wins under your belt, start earning more than $45k a year and generally aren’t dependent on a Friday publisher lunch to get your weekend started, then come back to old mate Jack Watts and have a proper crack.
Until then shut up and keep it positive.
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I really liked this line – it’s what it should be all about. I’m from the big client side and we certainly need help in breaking out of researched to death global campaign adaptations that simultaneously talk to all but appeal to none.
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