5 Minutes with... Matt Batten
Matt Batten is renowned for his exceptional leadership, and his groundbreaking work across diverse industries has developed his deep understanding of both creativity and business.
Having demonstrated a world-class ability to bridge artistic visions and strategic growth, Matt has orchestrated transformative change around the world and has earned over 120 international awards, including prestigious honours such as Cannes Lions and D&AD.
His journey is a testament to his unique strategic prowess. Today, his insights on fostering collaboration and pushing creative boundaries are invaluable for marketers and advertisers alike. Speaking to LBB’s Tom Loudon, Matt discusses his vision for further elevating the strategic and creative offerings of Five by Five.
LBB> Your journey in the creative industry has been marked by both creative successes and business accomplishments. How do you manage to strike a balance between your creative pursuits and your strategic business approach?
Matt> I’m a nerd. A geek. While I was a creative and artistic kid, I also enjoyed the absolutism of maths and the sciences. I think that duality is what helps me understand the business of creativity. Having ideas that fulfil a client’s needs as well as the agency’s own economic needs, whether that’s a campaign, an operational change, or an agency-client partnership.
LBB> Your portfolio boasts an impressive range of projects, from hacking a Fitbit for dogs to conceiving a digital experience that makes users invisible. Can you share the process behind conceiving such innovative and unconventional ideas?
Matt> I like the way technology makes anything possible, even if it's unaffordable. And rather than always trying to invent, there are innovative, creative uses in breaking down existing tech, messing with it, and reassigning its purpose.
Sometimes you start by asking “what if?” and propose the seemingly impossible, then find tech that makes it possible. That’s how my team came to reprogramme a Fitbit to work on a Jack Russell. Sometimes you see a problem that can be readily addressed with existing tech, like when my team uncovered the little-known insight that retinoblastoma (eye cancer in infants) could be detected in flash photography, which meant the ubiquitous phones in everyone’s pockets was suddenly a way to save the lives of children globally, without the need to code, download, build, program or even be online.
LBB> Your tenure at Wunderman UK resulted in transformative change, significantly increasing revenue and agency ranking. What strategies did you implement to achieve such remarkable growth and recognition within the industry?
Matt> Those things are a team effort. The leadership team are all holding the rudder to steer the ship in a new direction. We implemented better new business practices, represented the agency in new ways, interrogated the existing accounts to uncover ways to make them more creative and more profitable, and ignited a fun, collective culture. I restructured the creative department to ensure we had complementary skills for a truly integrated offering to broaden our capabilities, added diverse thinking with some amazing fresh talent pooled from around the world, helped the creatives work autonomously while providing support and direction where they needed, implemented some new ways of working that unlock creativity, and (*puts on geek hat) instructed them on how to make their head-hours more productive, their role profitable, and the creative team a healthier revenue stream. At the same time, I was one of the handful of global creative leaders working collectively and proactively to help the core Wunderman brand evolve.
LBB> Joining Five by Five as the ECD must be an exciting new chapter. What inspired you to take on this role, and how do you envision leveraging your experience to elevate the agency's creative offerings?
Matt> As soon as I met the managing director Matt Lawton, we clicked and I knew he was the kind of agency partner I’ve been missing. Five by Five is an exciting new opportunity. Not just for me, but for our clients, our team, and everyone who’ll join in the future. Being a 100% indie, full-service, integrated creative agency, we can offer clients a totally personal approach, tailored to suit them and fulfil any of their marketing needs, without blowing their budget. And yes, there are a number of agencies around town who can also tick those boxes, but we’ve also got global reach and resources with our fellow offices in London and LA, as well as the beginnings of an interesting new model that we believe clients will prefer. I’ll be leaning into my experience and perspective to help Five by Five offer more and offer better.
LBB> You've won over 120 international awards, including Cannes Lions, D&AD, and Effies. How do these accolades shape your creative approach, and how do you continuously push the boundaries of innovation in your work?
Matt> Awards don’t shape a creative approach. The brief does. Often, the brief isn’t looking for innovation, and sometimes doesn’t need it. Whether it does or not, I look for the genuine human truth. Why would this consumer want this product or service? Why would they even care? Or take notice? Creativity is the final chapter of strategic thinking and understanding. The twist at the end of the story.
But you need the story first. It inspires the creative, leads to it almost naturally so when you see it you say to yourself, “Of course. It has to be that.” And awards are the recognition that you told a good story with a surprise ending that made the reader feel something.
LBB> As a recognised figure in the industry, you've spoken at industry festivals worldwide and even been listed in Creative Magazine's 'Power 20'. How does your involvement in industry events contribute to your growth as a creative leader?
Matt> Absolutely. But the more I’ve progressed, the less time I’ve had for industry involvement. Which is a shame because much of it helped shape me, inspire me, teach me, connect me. Five by Five supports the industry with free workshops and sessions, and will soon be publishing a series of reports, so it’ll be great to get involved and give back to the industry again.
LBB> Your career has spanned across different regions, from the UK to Australia. How do cultural differences influence your creative processes and the way you approach client projects in various markets?
Matt> From Sydney, I’ve worked on projects for Dubai, Korea, Japan and Singapore. From London, I worked on projects in Spain, Switzerland and France, and was responsible for helping fellow agencies across the Nordics, Africa and Western Europe. I also spent time in New York and Chicago for various major projects. While there are big cultural differences between each of those markets, and nuances that can make or break a campaign, there are also universal root sources for human behaviour. Love. Desire. Hate. Fear. These can help guide the thread of a creative solution, but you need local input to truly navigate cultural relevance. This is why so many global brands waste millions of dollars of media spending by dumping an imported ad into the Aussie market, sometimes with a horrendous lip-sync that only erodes any brand love they may have started with, despite telling their agencies they insist on being ‘authentic’ and ‘relevant’.
LBB> With your background in creative leadership, what strategies do you plan to implement to further expand Five by Five's presence and reputation as a strategic and creative agency in Australia?
Matt> Ah, you know I can’t give away the blueprints. Five by Five is already a great team with solid creative capabilities and exceptionally interesting clients. I’ve looked under the hood to see where we can do better and will be working with the rest of the leadership team to all grab hold of that rudder and steer into new waters. First and foremost, we’ll be more united as I connect creative more closely with account management and strategy, and more closely with our clients so they're getting better than they could get elsewhere.
LBB> Collaboration seems to be a recurring theme in your journey, from working with global offices to leading and inspiring creative teams. How do you foster a collaborative and innovative environment within the teams you lead?
Matt> Collaboration has its time and place. It needs to be balanced with healthy respect for diverse individual skillsets, so there are moments for inclusive sharing and open-minded viewpoints, but also moments for letting team members do what they do best in isolation. Agencies hire people for being experts in different skills. Allow them to own those skills and the output. Don’t override them under the guise of ‘being collaborative’. And don’t circumvent their expertise. Lean into it. Rely on it. It’s not about swimming in your own lane. It’s allowing every teammate (including your clients) to play their unique position on a soccer field, all on the one team, with the one goal.
LBB> Finally, Five by Five has clients in various sectors. Could you share an example of a project that you're particularly excited about working on with the agency's diverse client base?
Matt> Five by Five’s clients cover gaming, tech, finance, pharma, beef, and tradie tools. In the finance sector, we work with Australian Payments Plus (AP+) which includes BPAY whom I worked with in my days at BMF. They were one of the best clients I’ve ever worked with – peaking with a campaign that got the distinction of being in the top 3 direct marketing campaigns in the world – so I’m quite excited about the creative possibilities of partnering with them again, and their broader group of innovative brands too. Also, I used to be an amateur gamer, so Lenovo, Riot Games and Intel will be some nostalgic fun ripe for some creative disruption with a tech bent.
