Meet The Team – Emotive’s independent streak

Creative agency Emotive has had a lot to celebrate over the last couple of years, including winning the Brand Partnership Award at the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards and revamping a former scuba shop into a funky office in a beachside suburb.

But for the eight-year-old business, one constant positive has always been its independence.  

Emotive, counting a team of more than 50 people and with a growing client base, sees its status as an independent agency as more important than ever as it looks to execute on the second-year of a three-year strategy with the aim of becoming the best independent agency in Australia. 

AdNews spoke to Simon Joyce, founder and CEO of Emotive, who said that despite the broader macro-economic trends in the market, the year has begun “amazingly well” for his agency. 

“It's really interesting because you can't help but read all the headlines, but when you're an agency of 55 people, you don't necessarily follow the broader economic trends. In terms of people, in terms of culture and in terms of the work, it’s begun fantastically well," he said.  

“We’re putting out some big work – we’ve just put out the Glenlivet campaign, we've got a campaign live for the NRL. Across our entire base from Optus to Google to Breville and beyond, there's really good momentum at the moment.” 

Joyce said that when he thinks about Emotive’s culture, he’s reminded of a quote once said to him: "If you grow a culture, you grow an agency."

And that while every agency focuses heavily on its creative culture and its people, what sets his agency apart is “how we defend [the culture], day in, day out”. 

“There's four values of the organisation - fun, honesty, ambition, and emotional intelligence," said Joyce.

"They’re the framework of how we operate, they’re the framework of how we recruit and they set the tone in terms of who we partner with. 

“The big thing that drives the business is what we call an additive environment. If we can hire people who have got great EQ, where no one thinks they're better than anyone else, where they're super skilled, where there's acknowledgement that good ideas can come from anywhere at times, where people feel safe to speak up - that is the magic in this business.” 

Joyce said that as a smaller agency, everybody ends up indirectly contributing to every campaign, which helps to build camaraderie among team members. 

“A line that’s stuck with me my whole career is ‘if you don't care, you don’t belong’. This is the beauty about being independent - everyone here has a sense of ownership of the business. When it comes to ambition, there's nothing holding us back," Joyce told AdNews.

“We've set a ceiling on our growth of 70 people - we think that's where you hang on to that culture where you know everyone, you do business on a more human and sustainable scale and you're working with the people and clients that you like. You're big enough to work with the best clients in the country, but you're also not tempted to take on work that may not quite be right for you.  

“That's the magic of our model and that's what we're very, very committed to. Would we ever go beyond Sydney? Yes. But we said when we launched the business that the 70 people number is our magic number; we're obviously getting close and I think we'll be there in the next 12 or 18 months.” 

The Emotive management team

Joyce said that he cannot see a future in which he ever sells the business, saying that “independence is our weapon” and many creative agencies don’t actually improve once they’ve been acquired by the likes of a large holding group. 

“The whole magic of this place would be lost if it wasn’t independent," he said.

“Our staff retention last year was about 91%. We're coming up to eight years now and we've hardly ever lost a client. That speaks to our culture and that level of caring and I think for the clients, the added benefit they get is it's a really senior team.  

“You're dealing with people at the top of their game here. There is less layers, less bottlenecks, greater ownership. The importance of continuity for agencies and teams is in the value you build up.” 

Emotive has a number of different service areas, including a specialist brand experience unit and an in-house film production unit, the latter of which was started due to the agency feeling like a lot of the production companies at the time weren't focused enough on the nuances of platforms. 

“We've got a suite of directors, line producers, editors; we do end to end, but equally we do integrative, so it's all about what is right for the idea," he said. "The other benefit we’ve got here is two beautiful edit suites, which means we can just move a little bit faster.

"We've got a production unit built into the agency and it does million-dollar ads down to $100,000 pieces of content and everything in between.” 

Joyce said another key difference of the agency is what it calls "creative amplification" – essentially using amplification strategy to bridge the gap between idea and channel context.  

“When an idea is coming to life, and you're starting to understand connections, there's a big job to be done to ensure you're showing up with best practice," he said. "Because we've always been a little bit more media-centric as a creative agency, Rhian Mason - who runs that unit - looks at unexpected ways to use media to bring ideas to life.  

“We’ve recently worked on a big partnership with Three Birds Renovations for Optus Smart Spaces. We’ve got a bespoke content play, we’re integrating into their world and then we’re working with them as talent to also create a bespoke branded content series called Flipping Smart. 

“That's something that we've negotiated and we drive end to end because we’ve got total visibility of the idea, it's heavily integrated into our production process and overall creative process. I think it's a great difference for the agency and now more than ever, the channel ecosystem is so complex that if you're not doing that as a creative agency, especially the digital world, you're not going to maximise how your ideas travel.” 

Joyce said that at the start of last year, Emotive set out a three-year plan, with each year having a specific theme to it. Last year was all about consolidation, while this year is focused on breakthrough.  

“In 2022, we said no to nearly all pitches," he said. "We recruited 18 new people and we just made sure that we were meticulous in how we maintained our work, our clients and the culture of the business. Then, at the end of last year, we started building into breakthrough mode.  

“What it means is how do we take our work to the next level, how do we make it more distinctive, more unexpected and get those moments where someone goes, ‘Whoa, did you really do that?’  - creating those moments that have an impact on culture.“ 

Emotive went through the business “forensically” to understand what needed to be changed.  

From strategy to creative to design to production to amplification to brand experience and beyond, the agency asked itself questions such as "What are we going to tweak to give ourselves a better chance of making breakthrough ideas?" and "There's a million ways an idea comes to life, but what gives us a better chance to generate good ideas?"

“We've made a whole lot of structural changes that underpin that," Joyce told AdNews. "We all came in at the start of January and onboarded this mission and said these are all the changes we made structurally and operationally to give ourselves a better chance to push back on briefs a little bit more, colour outside the lines, help clients create work that they're going to be famous for and do it in a really effective and efficient way.  

“The theme for 2024 is transform and by next year, we will have transformed into the leading independent creative agency in Australia.” 

On what the rest of the year holds, Joyce said there’s lots to be excited about, including not just executing on the ‘breakthrough’ plan, but also in a raft of new hires and upcoming clients. 

“We have a new creative director, senior art director, strategy director, business director and senior account director, as well as five new clients we're about to announce," he said.

“We just did the Glenlivet campaign, we've got some great work coming through from YouTube. We won Tresemme recently and we’re about to do our first brand piece for them, new Google work coming through, new WotIf work. If I went through all our clients, virtually all of them are active at the moment, so there's a huge pipeline of work.  

“We've just got the most amazing bunch of individuals here that all care for this business so much. Super senior, super skilled, super passionate and really believe in the culture. We're coming up to eight years in and the energy I feel in this business and the excitement is no different from day one. I just feel really fortunate to be surrounded by great people.” 

What’s the biggest challenge in your role?  

Pretence.

What do you love most about your role?

Interviews.

What are you focused on for 2023? 

Improving.