Bravery Not Bravado: Jaimes Leggett On Today The Brave

If you ask Jaimes Leggett, every day is a good day to be brave.

And why wouldn’t it be? After more than twenty years in advertising, being courageous has made Jaimes a heavyweight of the Australian industry. It’s hardly surprising then that his latest undertaking was founding the creative agency called, simply; Today The Brave.

The agency made waves after its launch last November, taking out a full-page advertisement in The Australian, with no other press or advertising. Hardly  surprising from a business launched as, “a full service creative agency founded on the principle that brave work can change the world.”

At the time, Jaimes said that the fact Today the Brave chose to launch in the paper was an important statement of intent. 

“We believe measured, meaningful, and definitive action drives growth for brands,”Six months later a lot has changed at the agency – but this principle remains tantamount.

For Jaimes, this full-page advertisement paid off for the ambitious new agency, with “the proof  in the pudding.”

“We did that [the launch ad] deliberately because in this business, talk is cheap but it’s action that differentiates and makes you stand out” Jaimes said, speaking to LBB.

“What we didn't want to do is come out and talk about what we intended to do, our ambition was always to launch with examples of what we had recently done as evidence of our proposition. I'm really looking forward to people seeing the work because it's good, it has a sense of confidence in it, but also it is substantiated in proper, robust thinking.”

In recent weeks alone, the agency has released work for Zambrero and News Corp, while announcing client wins from the likes of Coposit, adding to the existing roster including the University of Sydney, AMP North, Hoyts and Mercury Capital. 

The founder has seen the rise of digital marketing from its inception. As a New Zealand native, Jaimes’ first advertising role was in Auckland in the late ‘90s.

“Digital agencies weren’t really a thing at that point. The closest we got were companies that made presentations, they used to make interactive CD-ROMs. My first job in advertising was as an account exec, making interactive CDs — that was the start of digital marketing.”

“By the late 2000s, traditional ad agencies were recognising they needed different types of people, thinking in different ways. By that point I’d been the outlier, in a world of advertising folk, but it felt like the tide was shifting. At the time, Ogilvy and Mather in London felt they needed change and they hired me in as the MD of the Ad agency. Which was a big call at the time. For four and a half years, we did some great stuff, changing the London agency from being a kind of staid, traditional shop to being one that was winning both local and global business  — including the global Philips business out of that office.”

But around the same time in London, Jaimes was embarking on an entirely different period of this life — being a family man. After his wife, Lee, trialled the Sydney life for about a month, the family made the permanent move to Sydney, with Jaimes accepting the role of Group CEO at M&C Saatchi AUNZ. However, with that move came a fresh perspective for a different advertising market.

“That journey of change was predicated on the belief that Australia is not a big enough market for an 800-person agency,” Jaimes said. “But it is big enough for ten, 80 -person agencies, so if we wanted to scale, the way we would was through diversification.”

His strategy worked, over the eight years Jaimes ran M&C Saatchi, the group won agency of the year four times, was named the most innovative company in AUNZ, twice, by the AFR and saw double digital growth for each of the years he was at the helm.

By reworking the traditional agency model with Today the Brave, Jaimes is careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

“There is a time and a place for businesses that are orientated in that [traditional] way,” Jaimes said. “In my mind, however, there are far more opportunities for clients and brands that operate  in a more agile way. That are hungry, entrepreneurial, focused and driven in an excitable way. There's a whole bunch of opportunities for agencies that can pivot with client needs, who aren't encumbered by overhead, processes and hierarchy.”

“In some of the larger agencies, you can be pressured to start using square pegs to fit round holes. If the client needs a round hole and you've got square pegs, you find a way to make those square pegs work.”

Today the Brave is the antithesis of that.

“Stay lean, stay agile, stay hungry, stay driven, stay focused,” 

This mantra is the short, medium, and long term plan for Today the Brave.

“We will build our agency in a way that best fits the clients we have and the clients we want. I hope that we'll never find ourselves in a position where we are just flogging something.

“So, why come to Today the Brave? Put simply, we are in the business of driving growth. If you're a brand and marketing CMO who wants to drive growth in their business, we fundamentally believe that requires a degree of bravery.”

“We believe that bravery is a critical component in driving growth. Bravery is not bravado; it's measured, considered, it's deliberate. I think creativity is risk taking. It seems like a negative thing, but every creative since the beginning of time has taken a risk. Every time they share work, they're putting themselves out there, and the risk is that people see it and don't like it.”

“The core value we bring is simplicity. Clients come to us for big brand platforms. There is a world of opportunity for brands at the moment. If you have the right mindset.”

“You can't dive into this next period doing what you've always done. If you want to win, you’ll need to be brave.”