Great Work Needs Space, Time, Talent, And A “Weird Three-Way”

“Not every marketer gets on with every creative person, that's just the reality of it. You throw a director in the mix as well, and it becomes like this weird three-way kind of thing. Sometimes it's beautiful, and other times you're like, 'God, we gotta clean the sheets.’”

That’s according to Matty Burton, DDB Group AUNZ’s newly-promoted chief creative officer, who has argued the path to good work requires stamping out overcomplication and prioritising the four ingredients that “go into making anything great”: space, time, talent, and relationships.

“I didn't say money on purpose because I know money can be tight, but it was a Kiwi who first managed to split the atom, and he famously said, ‘We don't have the money, so we're going to have to think,’” Matty said, speaking on an LBB-hosted panel in Auckland this week.

The quality and shape of Kiwi work proves it’s possible. “The talent is here in abundance, everywhere. We've got the space. Just need the time … Our business is very, very, very simple, but we make it fucking hard and complicated.”

Matty joined DDB Group New Zealand from Google three years ago, before his promotion to the regional CCO role in March, alongside Priya Patel’s elevation to regional CEO. It’s his second stint in the market; the first came 20 years ago, when the Australian arrived to “fill his book”.

“I've never chased money. I'll just go where the work is,” he said.

“I was at Glue Society, and we were making stuff and directing it. It was fucking rad. But here was making more and it was making more interesting [work] at that time. And so that's why I came, and I left a few years later to go chase it somewhere else. It happens in Australia too. It comes back to those four things, man, if you can uncomplicate the shit, and get it all out of the way, and just focus. Look at Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, they're doing great stuff. I reckon that's a relationship-led, time, space, talent, although he gets a bucket load of money too, which helps.”

He was referencing the Australian indie studio’s relationship with Telstra, and its chief marketing officer Brent Smart, which has led to a run of acclaimed work including the stop-motion series, ‘Better on a Better Network’, an ambitious new brand platform in ‘Wherever We Go’, the recent dominos and ‘The Cobbler’ spots and silent film series for cinemas, and this week’s phone box campaign.

Melanie Bridge, the co-CEO of production company The Sweetshop, said Brent’s belief in investing in creativity has benefitted the entire industry, both regionally and globally.

“He’s proven that it pays off. We've seen a lot of that work happening in Australia that's proven it, and I hope that really starts to rub off more in New Zealand.”

Matty argued the market might be too hard on itself, a “little bit pessimistic on just how fucking good you have it and how good it is.” He acknowledged that fewer layers of hierarchy in New Zealand means easier access to the C-suite beyond the CMO, including CEOs. “That’s the shit that really helps.” That kind of access and depth of relationships leads to trust, which leads to creative bravery.

“We've got some clients who buy ideas before we've even presented them. That's how much trust we have. [They say] 'What's the next one?' and we're like, 'You've just got to say yes', and they're like, 'Yes'. So we have people in the pocket like that.”

It doesn’t always happen though, and “that's just the reality of our business, sometimes, the pressure that they're under and the scrutiny that they're under, and the boards they have to present to.

“And so things that I think can make a massive difference from an emotional level can sometimes be changed for a rational reason. And that is the rub of where we live. You've got to be that velvet gloved, iron fisted character somehow.”

Thinkerbell Aotearoa general manager Jessica Allison agreed “there's just less layers of bureaucracy, which makes it a little bit easier to get good ideas up.” On the panel discussion, held at DDB New Zealand’s offices during LBB’s NZ Immortal Awards showcase, she expressed a desire for more marketers to ask their agencies to help them build the power and reputation of the marketing function within their businesses.

“I was having a conversation with a client today, and she was like, 'How can you help me convince our board in the power of brand-building, and the long-term ROI on that.' And some marketers just instantly get it, but it would be great if that was the norm, rather than the gold standard.”

New Zealander Jessica has been back home for a few years after a decade working in the Australian market. Similarly, Duncan Bone has been in Auckland for three years after spending a stretch of time in London, and he feels “like I've discovered this secret place where great ideas can happen.

“It's small enough to get the right ideas through the door, but big enough to actually execute it properly ... You can work in much bigger markets and you'll never get certain ideas across.

“When I talked to some people saying, 'I'm going to go to New Zealand', … they're like, 'Yeah, amazing. Well done', but there's still a lot of people who don't get it. And I don't know if we should keep it as a secret, or just invite more people in.”

As group creative director at Colenso, Duncan has worked on world-class campaigns like Pedigree’s Adoptable, which won New Zealand’s first-ever Immortal Award this year.

Machine learning technology was used to create studio-quality imagery of dogs in shelters that could roll out across every channel and format, and perfectly represent their colouring, markings, and body type. It became just one of four projects globally to be dubbed ‘immortal’ by a prestigious global jury.

“We were lucky to have the right person in the right place to say, 'Yes, let's go ahead and do this,’” Duncan said of the work, “because we've all been in so many situations where you have great ideas, you go in, and it just dies because someone is getting out of their comfort zone. All the stars aligned.”

Colenso, which was also just crowned Spikes Asia’s Agency of the Year, has the same creative ambitions on a local client like Skinny Mobile -- which most recently cloned a superfan to emphasise its position as a cost-saving telco -- as it does on a global behemoth like Pedigree parent company Mars.

“We've worked on stuff that has hardly any budgets, but we still managed to execute some really brave and big ideas,” he added.

A finished piece of work fulfilling its potential guaranteed though, especially when marketers are increasingly tempted to de-risk, favour performance over brand marketing, and face both shrinking budgets and outsized pressure to deliver strong return on investment.

“Sometimes we look at stuff we've made and you've gone through the process, and you're like, 'Fuck. It was so close, but so far,” Matty said.

“It's always where everyone's putting their heart and soul into it. The standards are, everyone is trying to aim for the same thing. If they're not, there's a much more comfortable life to have somewhere else.”