I was an art kid cliché. In a band, deep into the rave scene, and co-hosting a graveyard show on local radio on the side. I trained as a graphic designer because I wanted the work to be closer to art. Advertising felt like selling out.
My first job was at Lifelounge, a studio run by skaters out of a dingy St Kilda warehouse. We started a magazine about street culture, design and music. Clients came because of it. Being curious about culture turned out to be worth something.
Making films in LA was the dream. I went over twice. Sent hundreds of emails, got two meetings, and a visa that ran out. Same result both times.
Then an email found me on the west coast of Mexico. From Media Arts Lab, Apple’s agency. I said yes to the interview before I really understood what it meant. I got the offer, then told them I lived in Australia. They sponsored me anyway. I had no idea what I was doing.
Apple changed my mind. I learnt you could say something true inside someone else’s brand, and people would feel it. Advertising could be art. Or artful at the very least.
The first thing I worked on became World Gallery, and eventually Shot on iPhone. Apple had billboards all over the world and gave them to the people who bought the phone, for photos they’d taken on it. Every one of them a product demo.
A year on a reboot of the line that rebooted the company. It never ran. Months on a sound stage for a launch. Hundreds of scripts that went nowhere. Most of the work doesn’t survive.
Then Perspective, a keynote film about what Apple believed. Eight years later I joined Apple in Australia and they showed it to me in my training. Still true.
Then a stretch on other brands. A mapping product. A prison drama. A dating app, that one in-house. They had nothing in common except people, and the same question every time. What does this actually give someone?
A few more years agency side. I realised I wanted to be closer to the source, so I came home and went in-house again.
Canva. We went back to why it was founded. Democratise design so people could achieve something.
The part I cared about was what came out the other end. A classroom. A business.
Then Apple again, this time in Australia. Same products, same truths. But the job now was finding the exact spot where a global truth becomes personal. A ballroom house in Sydney. A tennis crowd in January.
The watch. Every brand sells you what a product could do for you one day. We found the people it had already done it for.
Then Afterpay, where I built a global team. The whole category was focused on demographics. Young, female, online. So I went back to the product.
More on that soon.
There’s other work too. A television series nobody asked for, photography nobody commissioned. That’s where I find out what I actually think.
The questions haven’t changed much. But the system is changing.
Much of marketing is being automated. Budget in, campaign out. Agents are starting to shop for us, deciding on our behalf.