Wellcom to a New Era: The Agency Bridging the Gap between Creativity and Production

Discourse surrounding the fate of agency land has always been widespread and plentiful. Opinions about in-housing, independents, media integration, and other scintillating topics bounce around social media daily. 

And whilst it’s hard to argue that we don’t need a frank conversation in changing times, many pundits espouse endless problems, but very few offer actual solutions.

Perhaps we can all agree that if there was ever a time to rethink the traditional agency model, it’s now. In this climate, creative content and production agency Wellcom has stepped up, reinventing itself by harnessing the unrivalled diversity of talent and resources within the agency and its network to create something brand new.

Following decades of success as a production-focused company, general manager Marnie Darren joined the business in 2023, followed by the formidable creative firepower of Oliver Hammerton as creative director in the same year.  This followed a wider leadership change that saw the appointment of global CEO David Bridges and APAC CEO Andrew Lumsden in 2021. 

Since then, the team has essentially transformed Wellcom, evolving the business into a future-focussed creative production agency. 

“Creative, production, and technology often exist in their own isolated environments,” Marnie said, “The world we live in is moving forward, and this antiquated model needs to move with it.”

It’s a sentiment that can often feel somewhat trivial in the ceremony of industry PR, yet with Wellcom, this transformation and its vision for the future has been truly validated by the recent success and growth of the business. Including recent flagship full service agency of record wins for Wellcom Sydney with Freedom Furniture and Stanley Drinkware.

Under the leadership of global CEO David Bridges, Wellcom Worldwide is closing the gap between creative, production, and technology. Rather than just words, this has manifested in real fluency throughout the whole agency. Changing its very DNA, with all three disciplines working together as one from the start.

It's this connected experience and understanding throughout Wellcom that is starting to create real results for both existing and prospective clients. They are rewiring their team to allow considerations for production to be present at the initial moments of strategy and creativity – and then again at the point of production.

The outcome? Threads of strategy and creative now exist inside every decision Wellcom makes, offering a refreshing integrated approach that has already started to outperform the market.

“We have a unique advantage because our creative teams instinctively understand the entire campaign production process,” Marnie said. “They concept and design for efficiency and the greatest possible output, on time, with minimum hassle, while maintaining high quality. Two speciality areas of our business, one great outcome.

“Often, we hear clients' concerns about brand and BAU work feeling inconsistent with one another from a brand or campaign perspective. Yet, with Wellcom’s model, we can operate across all aspects of the clients’ needs.”

“Whether that is lead brand and campaign work or always on assets in their thousands, we have designed the business and its infrastructure to operate at scale and speed without detriment to brand and quality. In turn, this makes us more agile, responsive, and consistent when it comes to client needs, “ she added.

On this new approach Oliver added, “Wellcom has already proven its capabilities in these spaces. We’re creatively pushing the limits of what a world-class creative production agency operation can do, and that’s really exciting.”

And these changes run all the way through Wellcom, as David explains, “We are building a modern agency network, where creative, production, digital, strategy, and technology all come together to support the way brands need to work in today’s marketing landscape.”

With the inclusion of digital agency thelab and Dippin’ Sauce for high-end production, CGI, and retouching, the new-look Wellcom Group is operating across three regions: the US, AUS, and UK. Confident that each brand is now repositioned and relaunched with a clear vision and strategy, alongside consistent services, direction, and culture.  

 

“We know the real big opportunities will come if we bring all three brands together as one creative production network to support large brands,” said Marnie. 

“By coming together, we can work with Brands to help them with everything from Creative Development, channel-specific strategy, design, copy, any type of content production through to delivery all within one integrated creative production network”, said Marnie. 

 

Creating a unique offering in the industry and moving forward with a vision and capability that outshines many of its peers, it’s fair to say this agency has a bright future in an increasingly tough and crowded market.