Departing Droga5 ECD Steve Coll Joins WiTH Collective

Following this morning’s news that Droga5 executive creative director Steve Coll (pictured Left) has departed Droga5 comes the announcement he has joined WiTH Collective as partner and chief creative officer.

Justin Hind (pictured right), CEO of WiTH Collective, said the hire is a wonderful boost for the agency, which has enjoyed a meteoric first five years. Hind co-founded the agency with wife Dominique Hind in 2010, bringing with them 15 years’ experience at leading international network agencies.

“We established WiTH Collective to help answer real business problems for our clients in the most creative, collaborative and measurable way possible,” Hind said. “And we believe we’re doing that by embracing data and digital technology in a way that few of our competitors can. In Steve, we’ve hired a first-class creative leader with a reputation for producing campaigns that help transform client’s business. That’s a perfect fit with our culture and a great precursor to our next step.”

Coll is one of Australia’s most respected creative leaders, known for transformative campaigns including McDonald’s ‘Inner Child’; the Walker’s ‘Sandwich’ campaign, which won the inaugural Grand Prix for Creative Effectiveness at Cannes; Virgin Mobile’s ‘Fair Go Bro’, another Cannes winner for Creative Effectiveness; and the wearable tech-led ‘Fundawear’ campaign or Durex.

In total, he has won more than 20 Cannes Lions and a Black Pencil at D&AD.

He is also the only creative to have been invited to join the board of ADMA.

Coll describes his time at Droga5 as a “fantastic learning experience working with very gracious and wonderfully talented people”. Prior to this, he was ECD at Havas Worldwide and named Havas Worldwide ‘Person of the Year’ for 2014 across the 35,000-person agency network.

Coll says the rapidly changing landscape of the advertising industry presents an exciting opportunity.

“WiTH Collective is a wonderful place to realise those opportunities, as the agency has deliberately chosen to sit in a unique space at the intersection of creativity, data and technology,”Coll said. “The future will be won by those brands who know and communicate with customers in the most creative, personal and measurable ways and I know WiTH Collective has their sights set well and truly on that space. I’m also a huge believer in collaboration, a belief I share wholeheartedly with Dominique and Justin. The fact they chose the name WiTH says it all. I couldn’t be more excited about this next step and am looking forward to working with the whole team, and continuing the considerable success WiTH Collective has enjoyed to date.”

Hind added: “Our agency almost entirely consists of smart people who have left network agencies looking for a better way. Our model is very different and our culture is ego-free, not just for a nicer working environment, but because we believe working this way helps us get the best results for our clients.”

WiTH Collective’s client roster includes Qantas Frequent Flyer, Qantas Airlines, The SMH, Melbourne Age, The AFR, GoodFood, Drive.com.au, Symantec, Cisco, Pfizer, Google Food, Suncorp Bank and FlexiGroup.

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