30 Under 30: Industry Success Story Ricci Meldrum Reveals What Makes The Best Ads Great

The 30 Under 30 Awards, presented by Vevo, are back for another year, in a celebration of the industry’s young blood and new wave of talent—the ones to watch for the future.
In the lead-up to the event, B&T is chatting with some of advertising’s biggest success stories—people who took their first steps into the industry from where you are standing now.
What does it take to carve out a career in advertising? For eager young creatives keen to make their way in the broader media landscape, Ricci Meldrum’s advice is clear.
“I remember having a peer promoted ahead of me and only after many months of silence inquiring why with all the awards, effectiveness and recognition I had brought to the agency, ‘why him and not me?’, only to be told ‘you never asked’,” she says.
“Which is not to say ask for more, but to let your ambitions be known.”
Now TBWA Melbourne’s managing director, Ricci Meldrum grew up loving ads, but she knew little to nothing about the advertising industry—or how to get into it, at a time when advertising degrees were rare or non-existent.
However, after a brief foray into public relations after studying the media discipline at RMIT, despite the insistence of her family that she study law, Meldrum was offered an opportunity in ad-land—and she never looked back.
“A friend of mine started dating someone who worked at Mattingly Advertising (later Mattingly Y&R),” Meldrum says.
“He offered me a job as an account manager working on Myer (retail production being a great starting place for anyone learning the ropes in our industry) … and 26 years later, after four years at Mattingly, nearly 15 at Clemenger Melbourne, almost two as managing partner of BMF’s Melbourne office and coming up to seven years at TBWA Melbourne … And yep, I still love ads.”
In 2021, she finds herself a few months into the managing director role at TBWA, after taking over the position from executive partner at the agency.
“It’s hard to separate changing the role from living in COVID,” Meldrum, based in Melbourne, says. “As an exec team we’ve had to really dig in from day one and be focused on our staff … but also balancing that with the needs of the agency as well.
“In some ways, as a managing director, I certainly feel that that’s my role, but as an exec team we probably all played that role prior to that [the coronavirus lockdown] as well, realistically.”
An industry success story, Meldrum has received just about every major award in the land for her work, with 23 Cannes Lions across 12 individual campaigns, including a Cannes Lion Grand Prix.
According to the TBWA Melbourne MD, great work needs to meet a client brief exactly and be done in a unique and different way.
“I think too often, we can get pushed into what’s been done before or what’s safe,” Meldrum says. “But pushing the boundaries, trying to do something unique, trying to do something different, it doesn’t just get awarded but get noticed by people as well.”
When asked whether any of ad-land’s recent work hits all these notes, she points to Australian Lamb’s latest effort, via The Monkeys, ‘Make Lamb, Not Walls’.
“It’s such a benchmark in our industry—looking at the Australia Day lamb ad each year. I don’t know if they were fortuitous that the borders closed again … but it hits a really good note,” Meldrum says.
“We’re going to talk about it, we’re going to respond to it. They’re going to get noticed.”
Make Lamb, Not Walls was followed-up with an eye-catching OOH campaign that sees various premiers who, at one time or another during the coronavirus pandemic, went head-to-head over border closures come together by sharing a lamb cutlet.
The campaign was a riff on the famous Berlin Wall artwork, The Kiss. Meldrum said the whole campaign by Australian Lamb found a meaningful way to have a conversation about 2020 without being over political.
“It’s not making a commentary on the premiers, who are doing the right thing by their own states, which I think is great,” she said. “It’s just acknowledging that there are divisions and that we all want to be together, which is tricky because they’re in a difficult spot with Australia Day.
“That’s what they’ve [Australian Lamb have] struggled with for the last couple of years, to find how they can talk to Australia in a meaningful way without stirring some of the political conversations that happen around Australia Day.
“They found a way to do that in a meaningful way for everyone to relate to.”
The opposite side of this coin of great work versus absolute stinkers is, as Meldrum says, whether it is visible or not. She says she can’t name the worst piece of work she’s seen, because it is “invisible”.
“Annoying work is more effective than invisible work,” she says. “Even if it gets talked about for the wrong reasons, at least it gets noticed. But work that is so safe and so dull, that no one even talks about or bothers thinking about, then why bother spending money on it?”
Do it: Back yourself and enter B&T’s 30 Under 30 Awards! You can submit your entry here.
The 30 Under 30 Awards will be held at The Metro Theatre, Sydney on Thursday, 15 April.
If you’d like more information on the event, head to this website.
Other key information
- Entries close Monday, 22 February 2021
- Late entries close Monday, 1 March 2021
- People’s Choice Poll launches Wednesday, 3 March 2021
- Judging period: Wednesday, 3 March to Friday, 19 March 2021
- Shortlist announced Wednesday, 24 March 2021
- Early bird tickets close at 11.59pm Wednesday, 2 April 2021
- Full price tickets on sale at 12am Thursday, 3rd April 2021 (until sold out)
- People’s Choice Poll closes Friday, 26 March 2021.
Thank you to our incredible sponsors for making this event possible.
Latest News

Net Profit Up 60% For Southern Cross Austereo On The Back Of Leaner Operating Model
Southern Cross Austereo's profits up 60%! Which certainly made interviewing Grant Blackley today a lot less awkward.

Cummins&Partners Welcomes PR Agency Romano Beck, Bringing Creative, Media and PR Under One Roof
Cummins&Partners has welcomed Romano Beck, who may sound like a swarthy Italian actor but is actually a PR agency.

CarsGuide Partners With Mitsubishi, Wavemaker To Create Virtual Road Trips
CarsGuide, Mitsubishi and Wavemaker create virtual road trips that includes virtual car sickness.

Petition To Ban Same-Sex Kiss In Cadbury Crème Egg Ad Garners 56,000 Signatures
Cadbury Crème Eggs join Durex condoms & Frankie Goes To Hollywood on list of things Christians find hard to swallow.

Future of TV Advertising Conference: Times Are Tough, But We’re All In This Together
B&T's reporting live from today's Future Of TV event. Not before mistakenly going to the dental hygienist conference.

TV Will Not Only Build Your Brand, It Will Get Your Cash Registers Ringing
There can be no denying TV's power as an advertising medium. Putting aside Holey Moley and Plate Of Origin, that is.

TikTok Continues To Fight COVID Misinformation
Current COVID misinformation includes the vaccine can make you pregnant while developing a Lionel Richie addiction.

Wednesday TV Wrap: 10’s The Cube Debuts To 567,000, Gives MAFS A Little Hickey
B&T's delivering all of last night's TV numbers, dipped in chocolate, rolled in coconut, with a tasty jam-filled centre.

As Bruce Springsteen Is Cleared Of Drunk Driving Charge, Jeep Resumes Use Of Super Bowl Ad
With the Springsteen saga dealt with, Jeep now turns its focus to Michelle Bridges as its next brand ambassador.

WPP AUNZ’s Unveils 32.6% Profit Drop For 2020, Revenues down 14.1%
WPP AUNZ's results out today made for some pretty sobering reading. That's why B&T read them with a couple of daiquiris.

Faceook Pledges $US1 Billion To Support Journalism
Facebook pledges a billion dollars to journalism. Primarily journalism that involves cats playing the harpsichord.

Sam Armytage Hosts New Podcast For News Corp’s Stellar Magazine
Sam Armytage will be taking her Sunrise pedigree to new News Corp podcast. But don't let that put you off.

Impact Promotes Sam Morton To Partnership Director, Peter Bray To Sales Director
Impact's Sam Morton and Peter Bray pose for press photo before catching the ferry to Manly.

Delacon Adds Bridgestone Australia, Simply Energy and Smart Pay To Clients Roster
Delacon staff forced down the local Bob Jane T-Mart for new tyres after someone went and won the Bridgestone business.

Learning Your ABCs From Your AAIDs: Understanding Mobile Data
Learn your ABCs from your AAIDs with this top read. Although it does have a strobe effect for anyone with ADHD.

Comscore And Samba TV Launch CTV Partnership In Australia
Comscore has today announced the expansion of its TV measurement footprint to Australia, driven by its partnership with Samba TV, the leading global provider of omniscreen advertising data and audience analytics. The new connected TV (CTV) measurement solution, launched last year in select European markets, has now reached this key market in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) […]

UnLtd Launches MOOD Tea With All Proceeds Going To Fight Youth Suicide
B&T certainly takes our hats off to this top industry initiative. Our editor is even threatening to take his pants off.

Leo Burnett Snares CNH Industrial Australia Creative Account
Leos snares the CNH Industrial Australia creative account. Believes it to be some sort of farming/agricultural firm.

IVE Reinstates Interim Dividend Following Strong H1 Results
IVE has reinstated its interim dividend. Plans afoot to reinstate Arnott's Assorted Creams to office biscuit barrel.

How To Win With Video Advertising In 2021
Here are must-read tips on how to win with video advertising. Sadly, no tips on today's horse racing at Eagle Farm.

Think HQ Makes 18 New Hires
Absolutely no one knows anyone else's name in the Think HQ office this week after agency announces 18 new hires.

TikTok And Shopify Announce Partnership
TikTok & Shopify announce partnership. Can't decide on the vanilla cream sponge or chocolate mud for the cake cutting.

Toyota Media Pitch! Three Agencies Left As Race Goes Down To The Wire
As clarification, this article contains comments from "unnamed sources". Industry parlance for "possibly under crap".

Snapchat Research Suggests Millennials And Gen Z Embrace Value Driven Brands
Study finds Gen Ys & Zs "embrace value driven brands". Strangely they also like the music of Shawn Mendes & the cronut.

Woolworths Dominates Coles In New Years Sales
Woolworths dominates Coles in sales for first six weeks of 2021, as Status Quo's agent waits patiently by the phone.

Nine Secures Rights To Viral Britney Spears Doco
News of Britney's doco has created an excitement here at B&T not seen since the arrival of our cordless electric knife.

Women Leading Tech: Why HubSpot’s Kat Warboys Prioritises Transparency
HubSpot's Kat Warboys drops by the B&T office for a chat on all things tech and to critique our lemon drizzle cake.

Seven Signs Deal With Facebook Following News Backflip
The media companies continue to jump into bed with the tech giants. It's like a slightly less interesting MAFS episode.

RMIT Online Reveals Why Employees Don’t Want Free Lunches
Study reveals staff prefer training to free lunches. However, fat people did skew the numbers back in favour of lunch.

MAFS Teaser Trailer Accidentally Reveals Affair Spoiler
B&T does warn this comes with a MAFS spoiler alert. In so much as it includes randy, horrible people with bad tattoos.