A Jake of All-Trades: Jake Barrow on His Pursuit of Creative Solutions

To Jake Barrow, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity the Oscars of the advertising industry. As the group executive creative director at VMLY&R Sydney and Melbourne, and a part-time Cannes juror, you’d have to say he knows what he’s talking about.

In preparation for Cannes Jake was a shortlist juror for the Direct Marketing category, wading through hundreds of submissions. He describes the shortlist jury’s job as “making the jurors’ jobs easier,” by working through a longlist and whittling it down into Cannes’ final nominations.

“Rather than trying to give any absolutes like, ‘this piece of work should be in’ or ‘this piece of work should be out,’ I found myself allowing the jury to be able to discuss a piece of work. Yes, I make the list shorter, but the final jurors themselves are also incredibly capable.”

But Jake, and VMLY&R in general, also had some skin in the game at Cannes. This included their work for Colgate, Monash University, and the Australian Defence Force. He is sure to remind himself that Cannes is one of the hardest shows in the world and a benchmark for global creativity in advertising.

“Even to get shortlisted is really special and spectacular. At this show, good just doesn't cut it, the winners are pretty amazing.”

Funnily enough for Jake, it was a different VMLY&R campaign – Fitchix – that won big on the French Riviera, bagging three awards including a Gold Lion. As he puts it, you can expect the unexpected at Cannes.

“You never really know until you get there if you’re shortlisted, let alone in with a chance of winning awards. You don’t know what to expect. So you go into this week full of excitement at an amazing festival to be inspired more than anything, and with a whole bag of nerves as well.”

The beaches of Southern France are a far cry from Jake’s hometown of Red Cliffs, Victoria, population 2,600. But after carving out a name in graphic design, he found himself sharing an office with the senior creatives who would become his mentors.

“I was designing brochures and things like that, and then one day the art director went on holiday. And so the copywriter at the time just turned to me to bounce around ideas. I thought she was mucking around.”

But she wasn’t. In throwing around ideas, Jake had begun on the path of a more conceptual advertising creative, rather than a designer.

“Not long after that, I got my first job as an art director. I'd worked at a couple of different agencies and moved into being a creative director, then an executive creative director. I wasn’t chasing roles or promotions, I was just the right fit and keen for a new challenge.”

Nowadays, as group executive creative director at VMLY&R Sydney and Melbourne, Jake is in charge of ensuring a high standard of creativity while juggling strategy and account services.

“Our mantra is to create connected brands. That means ensuring every part of the brand's business is singing from the same hymn sheet and delivering the same experience.

In cultivating this culture at VMLY&R, Jake also lives by his own personal mantra: rock up, and do it the best way possible. 

“I’ve always been creatively driven, in high school I wanted to be an artist. So whether it’s a banner ad, a flyer, or a TVC, you’ve got to put everything into it.”

And his body of work is a testament to this attitude, having developed an extensive reel of quality spots over nearly 15 years. There is no shortage of campaigns Jake is proud to have been on.

“When I was a junior art director there was a great campaign for Defence Force Recruiting called mobile medic. It was probably the first time someone had used a mobile device and augmented reality in conjunction with an outdoor ad.”

Jake is also proud of his consistent work for clients like Public Transport Victoria and Monash University, where he felt his work made a positive impact.

“I also did a lot of work for the Lost Dog Sign, one of our pro bono clients for a long time. That was really rewarding because I'm a big animal lover, so to be able to help out an organisation like that was quite special.”

The most important thing to Jake is ensuring everyone at VMLY&R is “for the same thing,” and that every single person in the agency cares as much about creativity as he does.

“It’s not that we never get it wrong, but it's something I keep coming back to, to sort of rally everyone around inclusive creativity. It doesn't mean that everyone needs to be responsible for coming up with ideas or being creative – just that everyone needs to be a champion. That's the daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly challenge.”

This challenge is made easier when you have the right kind of people in your organisation in the first place to develop a healthy culture. As Jake puts it, it pays to have a diverse team that's tapped into different parts of the world, with a culture to take advantage of change.

“Diversity in all parts of life – cultural, age, different backgrounds. It’s great to be able to have a surfer on the Ripcurl account for instance. We worked on a promotion last year that used the proximity-chat feature on the new Call of Duty game to order a Pizza Hut pizza. We called it ‘Pizza Hunt,’ and this nuanced idea of the proximity-chat suddenly became a very successful campaign because we had parts of our team embedded in gamer culture.”

Having people in different pockets of cultural or technological communities and backgrounds is not only central at VMLY&R; it’s essential. For Jake, anything in the new tech space is right up his alley.

“I’m always drawn to that kind of stuff, and I think it’s a really exciting, rapidly changing space. The challenge and excitement of finding the solution for whatever problem a client has for us is enthralling. I love solving those really finicky, weird, troublesome problems to get the best creative result.”

Just like at an award ceremony, Jake’s team are sure to cover all bases – you have to be in it to win it.