Simon Bookallil always knew he wanted work in advertising but it would be remiss to think that the path to his current passion projects, independent creative agency Bashful and sister agency Smile, were without adversity.
AdNews spoke to the CEO and co-founder as he reminisced on the origins of Bashful and considers what the future holds for the agency, industry and influencer marketing.
At 18 the Sydneysider made the leap to London, advertising aspirations firmly in tow.
“I helped with some very small campaigns and then I got kicked out. My visa got thrown out and I came back to Australia,” Bookallil said.
Fortunately, the London agency Bookallil had been assisting was receptive to his offer to open doors as their Sydney agency.
“I said, ‘I want to stay in Sydney, but I’ll be your agency,’ and they said ‘why don’t you pitch on Lee Jeans, that’s our pitch,’ and that’s how I started,” the Mosman High graduate recalled.
From there Bookallil’s advertising ambitions rapidly scaled and the twenty-one year old went on to found Spin Communications in 1992.
“It was the first of ‘360’ or ‘integrated marketing’. We had a PR division, a creative advertising division and the two worked together. It was an integrated creative solution, something no one else was doing at the time,” he said.
“We launched eBay, we launched Xbox, we started fashion week.”
During those hazy first days Bookallil’s personal brand went from strength to strength, the young adman running Tropfest Events for five years and directing Mercedes Benz Fashion Week for a decade from 1995-2005.
Spin Communications operated for 17 years, a period that included its acquisition by conglomerate BlueFreeway, a fatal move that would eventually end in large-scale liquidation and Spin Communications folding.
“It was a disaster but out of that I launched Bashful with Emil Vrisakis and three to four clients,” Bookallil said.
Bashful an independent creative agency based in Paddington, Sydney bears little semblance to the multi-faceted Spin Communications.
Bashful offers laser-focus on creative and strategic thinking; scrapping in-house PR and events and outsourcing all back-end digital. This strict adherence allows for heavy investment in creative and strategic thinking, something of great importance to Bookallil.
“We’ve invested all our energy into creative and that’s what our focus is. 2.0 building an ad agency is much easier; you know who to hire, what skills you need, I knew the minutiae of the business so I knew what it would take,” he said.
Over its nine year existence Bashful has curated a robust list of clients, including foundation client and Australian clothing juggernaut Zimmermann.
Boasting a client list including P&O, The Star and Kennards Hire, the agency recently launched a spin-off luxury agency, Smile, offering creative, strategy, production, design and digital services to fashion, lifestyle and beauty brands.
“Smile is our new kid on the block and we’d like to grow that throughout Asia. We work in the Philippines now and worked across Asia with Wrangler, Lee Jeans the same. You don’t need to be in Asia to work in Asia,” Bookallil said.
The Smile portfolio already has Alice McCall, Noni B Group, Jag Jeans, Zimmermann, Hot Springs and Goldwell Hair on board. It also just recently picked up the creative for Surfstitch - a major coup for the group after losing the Best & Less business.
Bashful co-founder and creative director Emil Vrisakis leads the creative department at Smile while Bookallil acts as CEO for both sister agencies.
David Astwood, general manager, and Guy Marshall, strategy director, are both equity partners in Bashful.
A time of resurgence for indies
Some argue that consolidation in the industry is making it harder for independent agencies to compete with the big end of town, but Bookallil believes clients still want an alternative to the big six holding companies.
“We’re far more nimble that the holding companies, we don’t have their constrictions and we can be there to nurture clients who don’t want the red tape or the fees of the big consultancies," Bookallil said.
"We don’t have the bureaucracy, we can make decisions fast, we can resource out quickly. We’re far more nimble than the holding companies."
Bashful has somewhat operated in the shadows of the Sydney ad market. Now it's approaching ten years, Bookallil said the agency has earned its stripes.
"You can’t canter straight away in this game. You’ve got to learn to walk and trot first. Certainly agencies turn up and go for the full canter, and that’s a recipe for disaster," he said.
"We're now in a position where we can turn down work, instead of agreeing to everything, as we did in the early days."
"It's actually a bigger challenge to be a successful business long-term than to be an overnight success."
Bashful rival Banjo was recently acquired by Bastion Collective and there have been a number of Aussie independents acquired in the last 18 months. Having always wanted to work for himself, Bookallil said being bought isn't on his radar.
"I’d like to see us grow into a bigger group and I’ll probably invest in a couple of companies. We’re going to continue to grow Bashful substantially."
The next nine years
As for the future of the industry, Bookallil has a slightly different view as to what role influencers and social media will play and how the industry will operate.
“Four years ago, I was all in on social media. Now I’m all out. It’s just another platform to advertise. We’re not building communities or investing in our users worlds anymore. We’re investing on our worlds and using it for advertising opportunities,” he said.
“Brands have to continue to listen to their consumers, they have to play an active role in terms of making them a beacon for leadership for their consumers, make consumers relate to who they are and what they want to achieve.”
And as for influencers?
“I’m over influencers, we’re moving back into a world of creating brand ideas and brand stories that don’t need influencers to sell,” he said.
As to whether the future (or non-future) of influencer marketing is set in stone, Bookallil remains staunchly positive about where the next decade could take Bashful
“We’ve been strong and steady and grown a proper business that’s here for the long term. Our industry is fantastic. It doesn’t feel like a job, creating interesting things that impact people in a cultural way, I’m very lucky,” he said.
The Work
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