Mumbrella hangout with Iris founders
In a live video hangout with Mumbrella and Mumbrella Asia two founders of advertising agency Iris global strategy officer Sam Noble and CEO Ian Millner opened up about the difficulty of getting established in new markets, admitted their Sydney and Singapore offices were in an “adolescent” phase and told us why they would never, ever sell to a holding company like WPP.
Iris started in London in 1999 as an alternative to the “advertising led” networks, and now employs around a thousand people with offices gloabally including Sydney, Melbourne, Singapore, Delhi, Shanghai, Mexico City and New York. It works with global clients like Adidas, Sony, Shell, Unilever and Heineken.
In a joint hangout with Mumbrella Asia, the pair talked about building a global independent agency network from scratch, creative innovation and why brands should participate or die.
Millner
Millner was a founding partner of the agency leaving IMP where he was new business director where he had secured clients including Philips, Procter & Gamble, Fiat and Virgin Direct.
Noble started joined Iris the year it was founded from IMP. He has held the roles of marketing director, head of planning and client services director before becoming joint managing director in 2006.
The video hangout was live on this page from 3.15pm eastern, and we put questions to the pair that were submitted in the comment thread here, or via the hashtag #askiris.
