Squarespace’s Ben Hughes on creating ads for Australians from across the globe
As Squarespace prepares to launch its first-ever Australia-specific campaign, Mumbrella spoke to the company’s VP of creative, Ben Hughes, to get an insight into managing a campaign from the kitchen at 3am, entering a foreign market and figuring out Australian slang.
While it is uncommon for a company as big as Squarespace to keep all of its creative operations in-house, but from an Emmy-award winning campaign with John Malkovich to winning 2020 AdAge A-List In-House Agency of the Year, it seems to be going pretty well for them.
VP of creative at Squarespace, Ben Hughes
Working closely with chief creative officer David Lee, Hughes leads the team at Squarespace that creates all of the company’s advertising, brand design and content. Hughes joined Squarespace three-years-ago from Stink Studios, working as executive creative director, previously working at West, B-Reel, and Strange Industries amongst others.
Squarespace creates an annual Super Bowl ad, and is known for often enlisting some of the globe’s biggest stars, from the aforementioned Malkovich, Keanu Reeves, Idris Elba and Oscar the Grouch.
In the midst of a big week for the company, which saw Squarespace Inc (SQSP.N) valued at US$6.5 billion (A$8.36b) in its market debut on the New York Stock Exchange, Hughes spoke of a new kind of challenge for his team of creatives.
Today is the official launch of ‘Make a Name for Yourself’, the campaign which plays off of the Australian phenomenon of giving everything and everyone a string of nicknames.
In entering a new market, Hughes said that the number one consideration has to be “making sure you’re connecting with people in a real way”, as it is too easy to tell who has and who hasn’t done their research.
“As a New Yorker, I hate when brands show up with a bunch of lazy insights that were clearly sourced from Seinfeld reruns. […] For this campaign, we were lucky to have a lot of research to draft off of, as well as local partners and native Australians on our team who deftly steered us away from clichés.”
The end-product was two films, both described by Squarespace as following “the personal journey of a protagonist and the nicknames they receive throughout their life”. The resolution is how the protagonist has been able to launch a business online with Squarespace and not just take a name, but make a name for themselves.
Contrasting the experience of being given nicknames your whole life, and the journey of an entrepreneur, Hughes said the result is “a classic coming of age story where the hero learns to define him or herself instead of letting other people do it for them”.
In developing a campaign specifically for the Australian market, it certainly helps to have a few around who can help make sense of a few of our peculiarities.
“The other big learning was the idea of ‘Tall Poppy Syndrome.’ To be honest, it’s a pretty foreign concept for Americans, because we’re basically told from birth that we were put on this planet to be the very best, but that’s also what made it interesting.”
The two ads go live on Australian TV today, 24 May, following Roberto, the dance instructor and Sarah, who owns a hair dye business. The ads were shot in Australia, led by Director Sam Hibbard, but the whole operation was still run out of Squarespace’s New York office, which meant a change of strategy for the team.
“Staring at an iPad at three in the morning while your kids are sleeping isn’t as glamorous as being on set in Sydney, but the fact that the process works at all is remarkable,” Hughes said.
It is not just working with a team on the other side of the world that is new, developing campaigns during the pandemic has proved to be a challenge for everyone.
According to Squarespace, research has shown e-commerce in Australia has grown at accelerated rates as a result of the pandemic, with businesses increasingly opting for an online presence, and for a company that exists solely as an online product, business never stopped.
“I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve made some of our best work during the pandemic. […] When you shoot remotely, you have to give up some control and really trust your partners, but that can lead you to places you never could have gone yourself.”
In catering directly to the Australian market, the online website builder wants to show Australians what makes Squarespace stand out.
“Our differentiator is design. We give our customers the tools to build businesses and sell online, but also the ability to stand out. That’s crucial, especially for people who are just starting, because having a polished, beautiful site makes you look professional right from the jump. That’s why it made sense here to tell stories of people who were at the beginnings of their journeys as entrepreneurs.
And finally, without being able to visit Australia during the process of creating the ‘Make a Name for Yourself’ campaign, Ben was still able to come away with an inside look into some Australian quirks.
“On our treatment call with Sam, he told us that he wasn’t ‘here to fuck spiders,’ and I will not rest until I understand the origins of that incredible turn-of-phrase.”
The new Australian campaign will be run across TV, radio, online and socials from today.
Updated: A correction was made to the market value for Squarespace at entry onto the NYSX.
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Calum Jaspan was news editor at Mumbrella, based in Melbourne. He was also the producer and host of the Mumbrellacast. He left Mumbrella in May 2023.
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