TBWA\AUNZ's Revenue Is Up 30%. Up Next: Strategic and Creative Dominance
TBWA Australia and New Zealand has spent two years becoming a new business powerhouse, transforming its pricing practices, investing almost half its payroll in strategic and creative talent, and embracing bespoke models to boost revenue by 30% and buck a trend of large agencies shrinking.
In an interview with the agency’s regional leaders, AUNZ CEO and president Paul Bradbury tells LBB, “Let’s be honest, the last couple of years have been very turbulent and tough for many of the network agencies.
“The tide still feels very favourable for independent agencies globally, so to be the one network agency that is pushing against that tide in Australia and New Zealand is an exciting place to be.”
TBWA’s global proposition is to act as ‘The Disruption Company’. Paul acknowledges growing in a market peppered with mergers, big account shifts, and widespread consolidation requires internal disruption too. The agency’s pricing approach has been subject to “serious innovation”, centred on digital platform ‘ScopeManager’, which the agency built to ensure pricing transparency and track projects’ progress in real time.
“In Sydney, 90% of our agency pricing for clients is output-based, not head hours-based pricing,” Paul says.
“It is this kind of innovation that enables us to handle large clients, like Telstra, with large scopes of work in an efficient and effective manner with their marketing and procurement teams.”
45% of each AUNZ office’s payroll is spent on strategic and creative talent, the agency says, including the Sydney office’s new CCO and CSO. TBWA\Sydney has an all-new leadership team, as revealed by LBB across February and April: Elektra O’Malley as MD and Michael Hogg as CSO, and Matt Keon as CCO (predecessor Evan Roberts left to set up his own agency).
“We are unified around a renewed creative ambition, and a shared belief in the kind of work we want to make -- work that is grounded in solving real business problems in fresh, disruptive, elegant ways,” Elektra tells LBB.
“With our new leadership team in place, there’s a renewed hunger and clarity of purpose. We move fast, we think sharp, and we bring a strong point of view, but we also have the infrastructure and experience to deliver at scale. That combination is rare, and it’s exactly what clients are looking for.”
Paul positions the business as “having the heart of an independent agency with the scale of a network”, offering blue-chip clients scalable and global solutions while attracting the calibre of entrepreneurial talent increasingly striking out on their own. Sydney CCO Matt, for example, previously ran and sold his own agency in London, and founded multiple start-ups focused on healthcare, technology, and AI.
“At the end of the AI arms race, when everyone has a data thing and an AI workflow tool, it will be world-class strategic and creative talent in an agency culture, that allows creativity to flourish, that will win,” Paul says.
TBWA\AUNZ is now a 370-person business operating across Sydney, Melbourne, and Auckland (it formerly had an Adelaide presence). Regionally, Paul and chief operating officer Adrian Paul have run the business for 10 years, and been with the agency for more than 20. Sydney is headed up by Elektra, Matt, and Michael; CEO Kimberlee Wells and CCO Paul Reardon have led Melbourne for 14 years, with Eloise Liley promoted to CSO at the end of last year; and in New Zealand, CEO Catherine Harris and CCO Shane Bradnick have spent five years transforming the agency.
“Each of our three agencies in Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland are led by strong, entrepreneurial leadership teams who own real equity stakes in their agencies,” Paul says.
The Promise
Each CEO is clear on their promise: help clients grow, act as a true business partner, and create work “with clarity, charm, and commercial impact.”
New Zealand’s client list includes ANZ, 2Degrees, The Warehouse Group, Southern Cross Insurance and Fonterra. CEO Catherine says her job is to “help them win.”
“We are seeing less formula and far more appetite for big disruptive platforms and creativity that delivers big gains,” she says.
“High trust, strong partnership and deep business understanding from the most senior leaders means we can support in elevating and expanding the role of marketing within businesses.”
Cracking the client partnership means doing more than simply cracking briefs, Elektra adds. When the relationship is right, “we can be upstream strategic partners, and we can shape ideas that change the trajectory of brands and businesses -- ideas with clarity, charm, and commercial impact. That’s the space we want to play in, and the kind of work we’re here to do.”
True partnership involves cutting through the clutter, understanding the business problem versus the advertising problem, and unlocking growth in new ways, according to Melbourne CEO Kimberlee.
Her clients -- including Defence Force Recruiting NAB, and Specsavers -- need “high-trust advisors who can help them stay focused on what really moves the needle, not distracted by flashy gimmicks or creatively indulgent work, and not bogged down in short-termism or tactical cycles.”
“It's clear no brand has enough budget to create mediocre work,” Kimberlee continues. “Disruptive strategy and creativity has therefore never been more important.”
In response to clients’ needs, TBWA has preferred creating bespoke models over participating in traditional agency villages. The agency’s success with TBWA\Media Arts Lab for Apple and Nissan United gave Telstra CMO Brent Smart the confidence to pair TBWA with indie hot shop Bear Meets Eagle on Fire in 2023. The resulting outfit, called +61, has produced a world-class run of work that many industry leaders regard as the best in the country.
Late last year, former Omnicom Advertising Group (OAG) CEO Troy Ruhanen -- formerly TBWA’s global CEO before his promotion -- told LBB this lack of territorialism, and a willingness to play with indies, sets OAG apart from competitors which remain inflexible.
“The others, either their agencies have gotten weak and they therefore have become one, or they've collapsed so much that it's a lot of holding company solutions all the time,” he said.
OAG’s AUNZ plans are still unconfirmed, and stablemate Clemenger is bedding in its merger with CHEP Network and Traffik, plus continuing its hunt for a CCO. Despite market uncertainty, TBWA is the fastest growing creative agency group across the region, Paul says.
The Growth
TBWA’s promise is paying off in pitch rooms. It ended 2024 with a flurry of wins: Australian Defence Force Recruiting (ADFR), Kraft Heinz, Goodman Fielder, and Henkel (the latter is also a global client, whose portfolio includes ColdPower, Earthwise, and Schwartzkopf). 2023’s additions to the client roster included Telstra, Specsavers, and Patties Food.
ADFR was one of last year’s biggest and most hotly-contested pitches, and has given the Melbourne office a “fire in the belly”. Kimberlee says winning one of the country's biggest creative accounts has added “significant scale and opportunity to the Melbourne agency,” which has upped its full time headcount by 25 in four months. That “additional strategic and creative firepower” has benefitted existing clients too, she says. “A rising tide floats all boats.”
The office has also made multiple promotions, and expanded its executive leadership team from four to seven. That group now includes Kiefer Casamore as executive general manager, Eloise Liley as CSO, and brand new chief AI and innovation officer Lucio Ribeiro, whose appointment was announced this morning. The former Seven and Optus exec becomes the first person in a local creative agency to hold a C-suite level AI role.
“AI is a huge opportunity for the business,” Kimberlee says.
“We have been playing with the toolset for the last couple of years but are now accelerating our focus in this space, ensuring we have the right skills in the right places to augment what the technology can do."
In New Zealand, TBWA is the reigning Effectiveness Agency of the Year, and won a Grand Effie for its ANZ work. The bank was recently ranked in WARC’s top 10 for long-term success, which “further demonstrates that we do work that works,” Catherine says, “and clients are always attracted to us for the proven business results we deliver.
“TBWA in New Zealand has defied the market, consistently growing every year for the past seven years, with over 30% growth in the past couple of years alone.”
The Challenges
While the influx of independent agencies in Australia has created stiff competition for networks, Elektra believes TBWA is proving scale still matters.
“There are a lot of independent agencies in the market right now,” the former Anomaly New York head of account management acknowledges, “and while they bring fresh energy and new perspectives, we’re starting to see where the cracks form when it comes to scale, consistency, and the ability to sustain long-term, high-value client relationships.
“The opportunity for us is to match that same agility and creative spark [as the indies offer], but with the added ability to manage the complexity of big, ambitious brands. And to do it with hands-on attention, strategic depth, and a genuine partnership mindset.”
Elektra notes the challenge is staying focused. “There’s no shortage of noise in the market -- trends, tech, tools -- but what clients really need are partners who can help them make the right calls, not just the latest ones.”
Catherine believes “opportunities and challenges are often two sides of the same coin.”
“It's a very volatile world right now. In this context, New Zealand is a particularly brilliant place to live and work, and the scale of our partners means we can help positively impact this.”
The Work
The execs count 2degrees’ ‘Reshaping Rugby’, ModiBodi’s ‘Fear Not’, Mastercard’s ‘First Wheelchair Ballkid’, the run of Specsavers OOH, Apple’s ‘Rick’s Rescue’ and Telstra’s ‘Into Art’ and ‘Dominos’ as work of which they’re particularly proud, and expect to enjoy success at upcoming shows like Cannes Lions.
The ModiBodi work, which saw a diver swim with tiger sharks while menstruating to demonstrate the product’s efficacy, is “bold, creatively fearless, [and] centred on a powerful human insight,” Elektra says. “It’s sparked cultural conversation and proven that brave work can also be highly effective.”
‘Rick’s Rescue’ recreates a swimmer’s survival story, set to a voiceover of the emergency call he made using his Apple Watch. It’s “emotionally powerful, beautifully crafted, and already gaining global attention.” The +61 work for Telstra, meanwhile, defies category conventions in its joy, distinctiveness, and craft, Elektra adds.
The Melbourne office’s Specsavers work has achieved acclaim, including the Grand Prix at the inaugural Outdoor Media Association creative awards. The campaign welcomed passengers to Sydney airport with a ‘Welcome to Melbourne’ billboard, playing with the culturally-embedded platform, ‘Should’ve gone to Specsavers’. “The simplicity of the idea is its brilliance, serving as a reminder that there is potency in remaining single-minded and doing one big thing well,” Kimberlee says.
“These examples show how powerful it is when a brand and product become the emotional centre of the idea,” Elektra adds, “brought to life in ways that feel fresh, human, and deeply compelling.”
Across the Tasman, Catherine points out, “our clients come to us for work that is literally game-changing.” For telco 2degrees, the agency created the world’s first TikTok final, airing a women’s rugby match on the social platform with a vertical broadcast of the game. It “not only helped save the tournament from cancellation, but also helped reshape sports broadcasting forever to [become] a truly social experience.”
The ambition, she says, is strategic and creative thinking that “inspires, motivates, entertains and brings joy, confidence and optimism.”
The Future
TBWA's next step is creative and strategic dominance in each market. “Whilst we are really pleased with the growth we are seeing across our agencies and for our people, what really matters to us going forward is to be the most creative and effective agency partner for our clients in each market,” Paul says.
He’s confident Catherine, Kimberlee, and Elektra are well-equipped to achieve that goal, backed by the global network’s offering: cultural intelligence tool Backslash, innovation platform NEXT, and a platform called Collective AI, trained on the agency’s Disruption methodology and decades of case studies, strategies, effectiveness papers, and work.
“The leaders create their agency cultures and capabilities to fit their market conditions and where they see the future heading,” Paul says.
“We have a strong ambition to continue to apply our creativity further upstream into our clients’ businesses to help them differentiate and get to the future, faster. We will continue to tap into the best of Omnicom locally and globally to achieve that with credibility and scale.
“What we will never compromise on is our unique culture at TBWA. A culture inspired by Disruption, but nurtured by a special group of leaders who look out for each other, and the talent that walks into their agencies everyday.”
