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The Dani Bassil era at Clemenger BBDO commences: ‘We’ve been unleashed’
A new era has begun for one of Australia's most historic ad agencies, as it united under one national banner in 2022. Dani Bassil returned to Australia as the new national boss after an award-winning stint in the UK, and this week she spoke to Mumbrella's Calum Jaspan about the tools in place and why it has been 'unleashed' and primed for a resurgence.
Clemenger BBDO Australia’s new national CEO, Dani Bassil has been in the hot seat since 1 January, and she tells Mumbrella this week the agency’s “resurgence” is well and truly underway.
Bassil helmed Digitas in the UK for the past five years, prompting suggestions that Clemenger Group’s new national creative agency would be moving toward a more integrated and digitally focused direction.
However, speaking on this week’s Mumbrellacast, Bassil appeared to pour cold water on the suggestion the agency is set to undertake wholesale change and move away from its historic roots.
“I just found this to be the perfect challenge for me. I’ve spent my whole career in creative agencies up until running Digitas, so the last five years have been very digitally focused, which has been great, but I wanted to come back to brand and creative.”
The nature of straight brand and creative has changed though, adding that there definitely will be an injection of a bit more integration and capability into the agency.
Bassil: Using Clems’ historic work to inspire its new era
Bassil says the agency recently put together a reel of its most famous work in recent years, including ‘Not Happy Jan’, ‘Hungerithm’, and ‘Meet Graham’ to remind itself that great ideas transcend channels.
“I’m about helping us make incredible work and making our client’s brands famous, and it shouldn’t really matter whether that’s a TV ad or anything else.
“We’ve got some really, really good capability here, but it’s just not integrated in the right way, and we’re not using it in the right way, and my job is to help the agency realise that.”
This is made easier, she says, thanks to her great working relationship with Jim Curtis, the agency’s national chief creative officer, who was also recently elevated into the role.
Some industry corners suggested that in steering in this direction, Clemenger BBDO might be stepping on the toes of its sister agency, CHEP Network, which also has a new boss in Lee Leggett, who took up her post last week.
CHEP Network: room for two
How does the agency plan on differentiating itself?
“I think we complement each other in some respects but are very different in other respects, and we just have to make sure that story is clear to ourselves and the market, which I think it is very much so, and I think there’s room for both of us to do what we do, and do it well.
The agency has been through a period of transition in recent years, with two different CEOs across both Melbourne and Sydney agencies in the few years since Nick Garrett departed after leading both.
Bassil referenced the agency’s culture-shifting work in the past, and as you’d expect after a dominant era, included it being named Mumbrella’s creative agency of the decade, winning agency of the year in Cannes in 2017 and scooping up 56 Lions in that year alone (more than three times the amount won by Australian agencies in 2022).
Has the standard at the agency been up to scratch in recent years?
Bassil says walking through the halls of the Palais in Cannes last year, she thinks the standard of work across the board has been nowhere near as good as in other years.
“I think that’s just been Covid and the industry and it all makes sense when you think about it.” But at Clemenger, “we’ve had some really good work, and some surprising work actually when I look at the reel, especially last year,” she says.
“But I think the industry as a whole, there’s been a bit of a hole of amazing work really.
Curtis, the first national CCO at Clemenger BBDO
“I think we’ve done a really good job during that Covid period, but I feel like now we’ve been unleashed a bit, and you can feel it in the agency. It feels buzzing and all the things that agencies should be.”
“So I feel like this is kind of, not the turning point because I think we’re in a really good place, but I feel like there’s going to be a bit of a resurgence for us.”
New work has started to trickle out of Clems, with its new campaign for HCF praised by creative heavyweights on a recent Mumbrellacast Campaign Review, and Carlton Draught’s first brand ad in five years garnering attention this week, too.
“I think we have an incredible set of clients that trust us, want to do great work and think in the same way that we do. And as I said, push us and we push them, and that’s really what it’s all about.”
“When I look at the pipeline of work coming out from us really till the end of the year, it’s very, very exciting. There’s a spirit here that people are kind of in it, and that is exactly what you want when you are running a business like this.”
Bassil says she and Curtis are aligned on their creative vision. “Jim and I are very clear that we want to make work that matters, and I don’t mean that in a worthy way.”
“I think the worthy thing is done, a bit. I think customers, consumers, they’re not really looking for that anymore. What they want is entertainment and that’s what I think we can give them.
“We want to make really famous, effective work. That’s what we want to do, and as I said, we’ve got a great set of clients that want to do the same thing too, so that helps.”
Catch the full conversation with Clemeneger’s Dani Bassil on this week’s Mumbrellacast from the 20:40 mark
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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