Did the Three Drunk Monkeys, which became the highly successful creative agency The Monkeys, ever really sober up?
“I’m not sure we’ve sobered up,” said co-founder Scott Nowell.
“We can’t really go out there with a name like that … it was different at the time and it seemed to work.”
Nowell and Justin Drape, who along with Mark Green, founded the agency in 2006, were interviewed by Liana Dubois, CMO at Nine, in Talking Creativity, a special edition of Nine's podcast series, exploring creative minds at the Advertising Council Australia's This Way Up Festival.
Nowell and Drape were this week inducted into the AWARD Hall of Fame during a ceremony as part of This Way Up.
“Everybody said we were mad,” Nowell said. “There were so many independents. The world doesn’t need any more advertising agencies.
“All you’ve got is your faith in what you’re going to do and how you're going to change things. We wanted to do things differently.”
Justin Drape’s father said, when he heard the name: “You’re a bunch of bloody Dreamers.”
However, Drape and Nowell really believed in what they were doing.
“We believed in each other,” said Drap.
“And there was a really great moment in the industry where clients were starting to be enabled by the Internet and could do longer format storytelling and experiments.
“We were at a place where we quite quickly got two TV series on air. When people were coming to us and saying, ‘Can you guys do anything beyond advertising,’ we were able to point them to watch those shows.”
Nowell said the industry was undergoing a lot of change, whether via technology or the economy.
“There’s pressures everywhere,” he said. ”But what this industry does -- and it doesn’t matter if you call yourself an advertising agency or whatever you want to call yourself -- the power is in taking that abstract thinking and nurturing it and turning it into an idea that can affect the bottom lines of these billion dollar brands.
“And that's where the power lies in our industry and no matter what … that will always be true.”
Drape said don’t assume the people you work with get the idea and think it’s amazing.
“What’s the goal there? What's the objective for the team? What does the account manager or marketing manager want out of that?
“Think about the budget considerations. Everybody has their own movie playing in their head about what the best outcome is going to be.
"Try and understand that when you’re sitting there and don’t just be arrogant and walk in … ‘this is going to be amazing. It’s going to win a war’.”
In partnership with Nine Entertainment, AdNews features a series on Talking Creativity, a special edition of Nine's podcast series.
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