Features
The Works celebrates 20 years of ‘putting creative people at the forefront’
In celebration of The Works' 20th anniversary last month, founder and creative partner Damian Pincus, partner Douglas Nicol and managing director Julie Dormand sat down with Mumbrella's Kalila Welch to reflect on how far the agency has come since first setting up office in a campervan in 2002.
The Works, part of Capgemini, has come a long way since launching out of a campervan two decades ago.
Damian Pincus and Kevin Macmillan were two young art directors when they decided there must be a better way to approach creative work than they were experiencing in Australian adland at the turn of the century.
Damian Pincus and Kevin Macmillan with their campervan
“Our frustration was that creative people, or creative people in agencies were just treated to the creative,” says Pincus, The Works co-founder and creative partner. “The scope of what they saw was mostly very creatively focused. But, I think what we felt is that we did our best work when we knew more from a client perspective. When we understood their strategy, what they were trying to do more about their business in terms of the goals that they were trying to achieve – we felt that that led to better work.”
The pair set off to co-found a new agency that would place “creative people at the forefront of running a client relationship”. Though, with little capital to invest into a proper office space, Pincus and Macmillan decided on the next best, most obvious option – setting up the business in a campervan.
“We just drive around with our sketchbooks and our ideas and we met with clients, and they told us about their business issues,”
Pincus explains that the pair had a much more “media centric way of thinking about ideas” than the traditional creative agency.
Damian Pincus, co-founder and creative partner, The Works
“Kevin came from a much more direct and digital background and I came from a brand background, but we always believed we didn’t care what channel the idea was in, we asked what was the right solution for that client.”
The approached worked and The Works succeeded in picking up its first few clients. Six months later, the agency would get its first ‘proper’ office in Milsons point.
“And that’s in a very short way it kind of how it all began,” says Pincus.
Nowadays, The Works is head up by Pincus, alongside Douglas Nicol, who joined the business as partner in 2006, as well as Julie Dormand, who permanently stepped into the role of managing director in September, after filling the role on a contract basis since last November. In 2020, Macmillan took a step back from the agency to pursue a career change.
Five years ago, in August 2017, The Works moved into a new phase of growth when it was acquired by digital services consultancy RXP Services. Four years on, in March 2021, RXP was acquired by global consulting, technology and digital transformation business, Capgemini, with The Works reporting directly into Capgemini from July of the same year and later rebranding to reflect the changes.
Despite the changes, the 20 past 20 years have for the most part have seen The Works stay true to its origins, with a continued philosophy of embedding creatives throughout the entire strategic and ideation process that has scaled to an agency of more than 60 employees.
“Rather than there being traditional suits who sit own in a client relationship, the creatives or the strategists or the social media person, they can go and talk directly to the client, and the client talks directly to them. So it takes away some of those layers. And I think that’s where you see the clients, they latch on to that and they really enjoy it,” says Dormand, who was drawn to The Work’s “creatives at the forefront” approach when looking for the right role after departing her position as CEO of Publicis Groupe’s Mercerbell in 2020.
Douglas Nicol, partner, The Works
“I think it’s worth mentioning the values that we have at The Works are ‘being genius’, ‘have a voice’ and ‘care’. And I think it talks to that we’re saying, if you’re creative in the business, you’re going to have a voice, you’re going to be able to talk directly to the clients, and we want you to share your ideas and keep them coming.”
Of all of the successes and challenges that The Works has come up again in the past 20 years, Pincus’ holds closest the recognition the agency has received from WRK+ Best Places to Work, having most recently taken out the 9th spot in Australian organisations under 100 for 2022.
Julie Dormand, managing director, The Works
“This is a relatively simple industry in that if you have the best people in the industry and they enjoy coming to work every day and they enjoy getting results for clients, then you’ve got a winning agency.”
The agency first won an award from WRK+ Best Places to Work nine years ago, and on the same day, received 14 CVs, cementing The Work’s focus on culture into the future.
“I think that the Best Places to Work awards are absolutely testament to what’s been created over 20 years of having real care for people,” adds Dormand.
Another personal favourite milestone for Pincus was the agency’s work with ACT Tourism on the Human Brochure campaign in 2012. In a time where influence marketing was a new and strange thing in the Australian agency, the campaign called on 500 people to come along and experience Canberra for free – on the provision that they shared their experiences through their social media network. The campaign saw 31,406 applicants and won gold at the Australian Tourism Awards.
“We’ve got a very strong social media capability today in the agency, and I think that’s because we were experimenting 10 years ago during those formative stages. That ability for us to experiment with things like the human brochure, I think, has made us a better agency today as a result,” says Pincis.
As for what the future looks like for The Works, as the agency enters its 21st year, Nicol points to some exciting environmental social and governance (ESG) work with Capgemini global head of sustainability, James Robey, bringing brand strategy together with sustainability.
“‘What I’m personally very passionate about is the ability to deliver an end to end service and philosophy with the wider Capgemini skill set,” says Nicol.
‘Accelerated Journeys’ is the name of the philosophy and process that Capgemini will use to address fundamental problems for clients.
“We’re really looking at overcoming the real world problems that a lot of clients face and building really effective journeys. So we called it Accelerated Journeys, because it should be better for the consumer – they should be able to pass through those journeys better. We can also deliver faster because we have an agile way of working the client, that has everyone at the same team.”
Have your say