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Supermassive Turns 2: How Founders Built Agency For Future Amidst “Intense Upheaval”

07/07/2025
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Laura Aldington, Simone Gupta, and Jon Austin tell LBB’s Tess Connery-Britten they’ve navigated just two dramas in two years: “We woke up to the news and thought, ‘Shit, are people going to think our brand new agency has murdered one of the country's oldest, most beloved brands?’"

As Supermassive blows out the candles on its second birthday cake, the independent agency’s founders say “starting an agency in a recession, and in the midst of a period of intense upheaval and reckoning for the industry was either the worst idea in the world, or the best, and only time will tell.”

Founded in 2023 by ex-Havas leaders Laura Aldington, Simone Gupta, and Jon Austin, it’s been a case of hitting the ground running and never slowing down. Since setting up shop, they’ve won a Cannes lion, spearheaded a legislation-changing and world-first initiative through ‘36 Months’, joined clients’ boards, and navigated the shuttering of their first and biggest client.

Cracking into year three, the team tell LBB, “the agency of the future will be formed differently to those of the past.”

Over the next few years, they say an agency that “feels like the right place to be” will have “a senior, more consultative model, built around both fixed and flexible resources, low overheads, a relentless focus on attracting the best talent into our fold, a pricing model that doesn't sell hours, and a warm embracing of how new tech can help us deliver more, and in some cases, actually allow us to work less.” 

“We've got some great projects on the runway, we've brought in some wonderful new clients to the fold in the last few months and most of all, we're still having the most fun of our careers doing it all. It's year three with day one energy – we're feeling very optimistic.”

When asked about Supermassive’s standout projects since opening its doors, the trio laugh, “without sounding like a down-low, no-good fence sitter, we've found all of our projects defining in different ways.”

But reviewing their work through the lens of Supermassive’s philosophy – ‘making a disproportionate impact’ – the team pointed to a handful of moments that “stand out in our minds.”

“Driving world-first legislation change around the age of social media citizenship for ‘36 Months’, which has led to more and more countries lining up to use our blueprint to do the same; relaunching Australia's most iconic cruise company P&O and giving them their best commercial year in the last fifteen; campaigning for the world's largest living entity, the Great Barrier Reef, to win a Lifetime Achievement Award, and seeing the initiative garner almost a million signatures of support around the world; and most recently, launching Futures – the first rehab radio station, accessible 24/7 for young detainees in Aussie juvenile detention centers.”

The ‘36 Months’ project saw Supermassive shortlisted alongside FINCH for a Titanium Lion at Cannes this year, and ultimately pick up a Silver Lion for PR Effectiveness, in a “massive moment” of recognition that “helped validate the kind of impactful work we set out to do when we started Supermassive”. The campaign was also recognised at D&AD, Spikes and Adfest.

“It’s been a galvanising moment for the team. It’s demonstrated that a young, sharp, independent agency can punch well above its weight when the comms strategy is strong, the intent is clear and the passion to get it done is there,” they said.

They added while, “it would be silly to pretend it isn't a great feeling to see a campaign we worked on recognised on the biggest global stages alongside the best work in the world,” they are “are also very careful about worshipping at the altar of shiny awards.”

“All of our awarded work is great, but not all of our great work is awarded, and that's fine. We're about impact, and we want that impact to happen in the real world. If it also happens in a jury room, that's lovely – but it's certainly not the end game.”

Two years into owning an agency, the founders have expanded on their vision.

“When we first started Supermassive, we had a really simple vision – to combine our core disciplines of strategy, PR and creative to create genuinely effective, non-traditional work. After all, that was how we'd arrived at our most successful, interesting, celebrated campaigns when we'd worked together previously. 

“But what we soon realised is that those weren't the only core skills we were combining. 

"Years of running businesses and departments meant that we had other tools in our toolkit which were very compelling to our clients.”

These skills include “clarity and calmness” or the ability to “make you feel at ease in an instant” that Laura and Sim picked up as qualified executive coaches. For clients, access to senior people who could “help them solve organisational problems, co-create briefs rather than just take them, and offer counsel when it was needed most” have set Supermassive apart, they said. 

Plus, they laugh, Jon has a deep knowledge of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

As two of the three co-founders, Jon and Laura have also been joining their clients’ boards to get closer to the marketers they work with. 

These skills “led to sharper strategy, bolder creativity, a deeper trust in amplification through earned channels” for clients – “and so Supermassive's philosophy of making a disproportionate impact was crystalised,” the team said. 

“It's a philosophy that isn't just applicable to the work, but to every step of the journey. We ask ourselves how we can make a disproportionate impact to our clients' businesses every day, in every single way.

“However it's also the stuff that hasn't changed at all since we opened our doors that we're really proud of. Approaching this job with energy and optimism. Taking every learning as a privilege. Remembering that a culture of excellence can be built on kindness, fairness and fun, rather than fear and exhaustion.”

As with any business, there have been a few hurdles along the way. The most significant was when the agency’s first and biggest client, P&O, was subsumed into the global Carnival brand without warning, and the team “had to sunset a genuine Aussie icon.”

“We woke up to the news and thought, ‘Shit, are people going to think our brand new agency has murdered one of the country's oldest, most beloved brands?’ We didn't, promise. But even that provided a really fascinating journey on how to successfully say goodbye to an icon, and we’re stoked to have contributed to a really successful commercial and emotional send off for the brand. The incredible team at P&O put their hearts and souls into it, and remain some of our favourite marketers, best buddies, and biggest supporters.

“Oh, there's also a war raging within the studio right now about whether to let Jon paint magpies on the wall. So two dramas in two years. Not bad.”

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