In a crowded landscape of independent agencies, Enigma has the advantage of an inbuilt differentiator due to its non-capital city origins in Newcastle supported by teams in Sydney and Brisbane.
Now, the agency – whose clients include Newcastle Permanent, Sydney Airport, Red Energy, Kennards Hire and more – is reaping the rewards of the continued migration of people out of metro areas and growing its team as a result, says Enigma MD Jack Mason.
“We've been operating for over 30 years and the talent that is knocking on our door today, who are wanting to have a quality of life, who want to be able to afford a backyard and can't do so in metro capitals but still want to do great work, they still want to work on national campaigns and service great clients - that's one of the key elements for the Newcastle base,” he said.
“The Sydney base is the same, though - it's people who connect culturally with who we are and buy into an agency that wants to connect with what we call real Australia, the diverse spread of Australians outside of metro capitals. They also get we are an ambitious challenger agency, and I think the type of clients that see the best in us are ambitious challenger brands who need to grow through different ways.”
Mason said that the model of operating across a trio of separate locations can be “tricky”, but the agency finds it “really interesting” to create three distinct cultures that are right for three different cities, as well as tie all of that into one overarching culture across the wider agency of over 90 people.
“Lisa [Sutton Gardner], our founder, often talks about it being just one long hallway stretching from Sydney to Brisbane, with a stop off in the middle, but to do that, it takes time, and it's not easy,” he said.
“It'd be so much easier to get everyone in one office and build it that way, but for us, as we've expanded from Newcastle, to Sydney 10 years ago and to Brisbane four years ago, it's adding a point of difference.
“I love it now that we, from a talent attraction perspective, can take geography out of it. Who is the best person across three cities that we can think to service this role? That has opened up our talent base in a really exciting way, but also our client portfolio as well, and we try and match clients to the skill sets of people and the ways of working.”
It isn’t just Enigma’s locations or teams that are growing, though – the 32-year old agency has also recently expanded its capabilities to become full-service, with a media team, a creative business, a brand offering, digital, data and tech all sitting under the Enigma umbrella and available for clients to tap into.
Mason said that he thinks that gives people a greater chance to grow and thrive, as team members can get exposed to all different parts of the business more so than they would in a traditional one stream agency.
“The other incredible thing is we're expanding our space in Newcastle to make sure that we've got somewhere where people always want to come and work there,” he said.
As businesses debate the amount of time in-office versus at home and flexibility policies get tweaked accordingly, Mason said Enigma is aiming to create both a physical environment and an agency-wide culture where people will willingly want to come to the office.
“The ways of working of people in Newcastle and Brisbane is probably slightly different to Sydney and so we're just exploring the best way to do it in a way that's fair, but also gets the most out of everyone,” he said.
“Connectivity of media and data and digital and creative brains coming together can be done remotely and through flexible ways of working, but the power of getting people in a room is what's made our industry incredible in the first place. We, like all agencies, are juggling that balance and making sure our team have got the flexibility that they need from a lifestyle perspective, whilst we're delivering the results that we need from a client perspective.”
From a talent attraction perspective, Enigma counts a number of universities in its client portfolio, which provides the agency with a chance to make sure that it’s getting the opportunity to talk to emerging talent and bringing them into the business through both internships and full-time positions.
“For us, it's about getting that next generation in and really harnessing their potential and giving them the training and experience. We have the Enigma Academy, which is a training program to allow that cohort to develop and grow together that focuses very much on our media product and the growth of that team,” he said.
“Being full service, we're also a member of the IMAA and the Ad Council and the access to training through both of those governing bodies is great for our team in giving them a chance to grow and develop as well.
“From a talent attraction perspective across more senior levels, the main thing that is successful for us is when people come in and understand the vision of where we're trying to go. We aren't for everyone, but people buy into the vision and being a part of something and the right kind of person resonates with the aspiration of wanting to be a part of an agency and make their mark on achieving great results.”
Looking ahead to the priorities for this year, Mason said a key focus for Enigma will be about taking the product to the next level and future-proofing the offering in a way that that meets the market from a technological perspective.
“Every client's wanting more for less and so we need to make sure that we're creating a way to service those needs whilst protecting strategic thinking and creativity,” he told AdNews.
“We do have business goals around recognition in people and culture and recognition in full service that are driving us but it's a journey to get there, and we need to make sure we're creating the best place to work and delivering a product that makes our clients want to come to us day in day out as well.
“If we've got the people who are loving being here and the product that's getting the results for our clients, everything else will follow.”
Antonio Panuccio (Head of Data and Technology, Media)
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
Breaking down the dense and complex into digestible and actionable tasks. Marketers are expected to know and do so much across a broad spectrum of topics and tasks and to expect that data and technology will just ‘click’ is why projects often fail to get off the ground. Democratising data and technology, and incrementally raising the collective knowledge base in marketing teams (and our own agency), is a task we don’t speak about but is one of the most impactful and challenging aspects of the role.
And that’s outside of keeping up with what’s going on in the industry whether it’s the latest social flash-in-the-pan moment or the next leap in artificial intelligence capability. I mean, this part’s a given and huge props to the curators across LinkedIn, Substack, and other delivery platforms for doing the heavy lifting here.
What does a typical day look like for you?
I put a big focus on the news and so my first hour or so at the desk is trawling through emails and collating what’s happened in the last 24 hours and disseminating that to the agency. After that, it’s a mix of team check-ins, client meetings and workshops, vendor assessment, and finding ways to do things better at Enigma to achieve better results for our clients. We’re full-service, and so we all have our hands in many different recipes day-to-day.
The client work tends to be deep and technical, spanning marketing technology assessment and optimisation through to data framework architecture and implementation. As I mentioned, full-service means switching gears and lanes frequently, and so getting into the fabled ‘flow state’ to crunch that work out can be a challenge. I frame my hours and days around that and I’m lucky that the team is really cognisant of that and will often schedule around me.
What attracted you to Enigma?
Oof, there’s a great story about how I was hired to begin with which you can tap me on the shoulder or nudge me on LinkedIn about. What got Enigma across the line was the full-service offering and flexibility. I’ve always played a bit of a synergist role, coupling data and technology with my creative roots (a degree in creative writing, believe it or not). So, having access to multiple departments to supercharge results by bringing all those disciplines together really appealed to me.
As for the flexibility, having the Newcastle and Sydney offices and shuttling between them is great for someone who enjoys camping. I’ve spent plenty of Mondays to Thursdays working in Sydney only to spend the Friday in Newcastle with the gear packed and wheels on the road at 5:30PM headed toward the Barrington Tops. It’s a nice little perk.
What do you love most about your role?
Problem-solving. I’m a bit of a broken record here but I’ve always said any role with problem-solving at its crux is a role I’m happy with. And there is a lot of problem-solving that goes on in data and technology: we’re not investing in this space just for the heck of it. Data and technology is at the crux of modern communication, and it’s exciting to help businesses solve how they best use data and technology to better reach their customers.
What are you focused on for 2025?
Honestly, keeping up-to-date with what’s going on in the industry and the world. This space is moving at warp speed with the development of artificial intelligence, a tumultuous political landscape, and changing consumer behaviours. The paradigms we’re used to - whether it’s how things work, how we do things, or what we know of our customers - are all shifting, and fast. Keeping abreast of it all and steering our clients through will be huge for 2025 and probably 2025-2030.
Emma Ashworth (Executive Director, Creative)
What attracted you to Enigma?
Enigma is one of the industry's best-kept secrets. It wasn’t until I met with them that I realised the scale of the capabilities from a full-service perspective, or the size of the agency (we have close to 90 people across three offices). Our founder Lisa is a really inspiring entrepreneurial leader, it was really attractive to me to work somewhere with a female-led founder - which is very rare in this (and most) industries.
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
Keeping on top of and abreast of the rapid changes happening in our industry - and then translating how those changes impact us and our clients.
What are you focused on for 2025?
Playing a role in further enhancing our full service product and doing more great work for great clients.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Working really closely with all departments - creative, strategy, media, production, digital, and account service - on various projects or new business. Enigma is very entrepreneurial so we’re always trying to find a better way or solve a big problem. Currently, we are building some exciting AI-powered products, so a lot of my day recently is working with the team and talking to clients about these and how they can create more efficiencies for them.
What do you love most about your role?
I always knew I wanted to work in a creative industry, and still to this day nothing beats having a creative review and seeing the work for the first time. Second to that is seeing it live in the world! I feel really lucky to be able to work in this role, solving big problems for our clients through creativity.
Jesse McColl (Group Director, Media)
What do you love most about your role?
Full service! Having recently moved across to lead media on the Property team, I’ve been working more closely with our Property & Place team. As one workflow, we can have much smarter conversations with our audiences across the property buying journey and alleviate a lot of friction that occurs when there is a misalignment between creative and media. Having access to different departments and skill sets means we can pull various capabilities into a project, where everyone brings a different perspective and can flip what was a media challenge to start with completely on its head. Working closely with other disciplines under the one roof also opens up the capacity to have more empathy for another team’s challenges and ultimately, it reminds us that we’re all working towards the same goal at the end of the day.
What attracted you to Enigma?
A number of things – I was in Amy Dascanio’s (my General Manager - Media’s) team in another Sydney agency more than eight years ago and was lucky enough to join Enigma’s media department early on when we were just a team of six. From the beginning, we have had such a hands-on female founder, Lisa Sutton Gardner, and women in various leadership positions which is truly inspiring and makes me proud to be a part of the agency.
What are you focused on for 2025?
Building a happy team and hopefully inspiring them to keep their spark and remain curious as they grow.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Cliched, but every day is different in the media team, and I’d hate it if it wasn’t like that. Team check-ins, working with publishers and clients on new ideas and budgets, discussing media results with our Property & Place team to refine a campaign approach, a lunchtime dip at Newcastle Baths, and a couple of days in Sydney seeing clients.
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
Remembering to pause and reflect on both the highs and lows is important, as it’s easy to keep jumping from one thing to the next, particularly with how fast everything moves in the media world.
Mitchell Farmer, (Design Director, Brand)
What are you focused on for 2025?
The focus for 2025 is growth – personally, as a team, and as a business. This includes evolving as a leader, expanding the team around me, and building on our foundations. We’re committed to reaching our full potential and establishing ourselves as an industry leader.
What’s the biggest challenge in your role?
The biggest challenge in my role is managing and overseeing multiple projects simultaneously, including my own tasks and those of others. It’s crucial to give each task or project the focus it deserves while keeping in mind what’s next or what’s to come.
What attracted you to Enigma?
I initially joined Enigma as a freelancer, drawn by the opportunity to return to agency work and explore the possibility of finding the ‘right fit’. What ultimately made me stay was the incredible group of people who welcomed me with open arms, leading me to accept a full-time role.
What do you love most about your role?
What I love most about my role is the opportunity to create or transform brands with a fresh perspective. It’s incredibly rewarding to provide businesses with a new outlook or approach that helps them succeed – often beyond what they ever thought possible.
What does a typical day look like for you?
A typical day often consists of many things, ranging from ideating and conceptualising to attending meetings, conducting mark-ups, or reviewing work. Typically, it’s a balance between conceptual or roll-out work and managing projects within the team. Of course, the office banter and general chit-chat always adds some lively entertainment throughout the day.
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