Dream Teams: Building Creative Success on a Foundation of Foosball

Loz and Jimmy aren’t your typical creative duo. They never expected to be written up as a ‘dream team’ and yet, due to the nature of the Cocogun offices, they’ve created a dynamic that is deserving of that status. 

“We get on like a house on fire” explained Loz, “we crack creative ideas together, collaborate on execution and we couldn’t be more stoked at how this partnership has turned out.” 

Jimmy agreed and noted that sometimes two art directors are better than one. Loz described herself as decisive and quick moving. She’s balanced out by Jimmy’s empathy which informs his creative process. According to Loz, Jimmy is always ‘getting to the bottom of difficult design techniques and perfecting his craft.” 

Last year, the Cocogun office decided to forgo the traditional ping pong table for a foosball one instead. It didn’t take long for Loz and Jimmy to become obsessed, cementing their status as a dream team by crushing the competition. 

“We teamed up to dominate and surprisingly the way we played felt all too familiar with the way we work. Loz provides the hard hitters at a rapid fire pace, while I hold and finesse for the perfect cut-through angle that spins out the other players,” explained Jimmy. 

This playfulness and notion of ‘go hard or go back to your desk’ when perfecting the ultimate foosball strategy is what brings to light their creativity and allows them to work seamlessly. 

For those interested, according to Jimmy, the unofficial head of foosball strategy, the perfect foosball game involves: 

Getting into the other team’s head 

Keeping one eye on the ball, the other on their hands, and another where they are looking, and another on the goal. (You may need to grow more eyes) 

Be calculated

Know your strengths and weaknesses, and hope to god that your partner knows them too. You’ll need to push hard in places and you need to trust that they’ll do the same. 

Like many creative duos, Jimmy and Loz have found a way of working that suits them. Loz has a tenacity for keeping things moving, while Jimmy can find himself getting stuck focusing on one single thought. Jimmy is competitive in ‘the most non-dickheadish refreshing way,” according to Loz. When Loz can feel herself losing steam, it’s Jimmy’s competitive nature that brings her back. 

In saying that, however, a memory that brings both Loz and Jimmy a shared feeling of joy involves the downfall of Jimmy’s winning streak. Jimmy’s competitive edge saw him enter an office planking competition. He held a plank for five minutes - an admirable record, but one that was beaten immediately by Cocogun’s managing partner. 

“Seeing Jimmy beaten by CK brought me a lot of joy,” Loz said. 

“It was a terrible mix of emotions that day. I was disappointed and proud of myself at the same time. But mainly I was scared of CK’s perpetual almost robotic ability to infinitely plank,” Jimmy said.

Together they’ve embarked on the journey of becoming AWARD tutors, a massive milestone for the both of them. Loz and Jimmy entered the advertising industry from two completely different backgrounds, Loz previously worked in PR and Jimmy was a photographer and graphic designer. These unconventional pathways to the industry played a huge role in their decision to become AWARD tutors. 

“The reason we get out of bed in the morning is to make ideas that matter. Jimmy and I have been at Cocogun for three plus years. It's a special place, the values that guide the agency and our standard of creative excellence is the magic dust that we’d like to share with the next generation of creatives,” she said. 

“Hopefully Loz and I can shed a new light on what it means to be a ‘creative.’ You don’t have to be in a conventional team to create ideas that matter, you just have to make yourself useful to the people around you and good stuff will come out of it,” Jimmy added. 

This AWARD school adventure is nerve-wracking for the pair, “we don’t want to fuck it up,” they both said. However, with a legacy of being foosball champions by their side, becoming AWARD School tutors will be a breeze for the pair.