It might sound negative to describe a year as “transitional” for The Monkeys, sorry, Droga5, but change can sometimes be positive, and that certainly was the case for one of Australia’s most decorated advertising agencies. 

The Monkeys iconic name was officially retired in December in favour of the more globally harmonious Droga5, while some of its key executives, including former CEO Mark Green (now global CEO of Droga5) and CCO Tara Ford (now CCO of Droga5 London) were promoted to huge roles abroad within the Accenture Song network. 

Filling their boots admirably have been Matt Michael, who stepped up to become Droga5 ANZ CEO, while Bronwyn van der Merwe has become the Accenture Song lead for ANZ. Existing ECDs Barbara Humphries and Damon Stapleton were promoted to become co-CCOs, while Melbourne bosses—Ant Keogh, Paul McMillan and Michael Derepas—left to set up their own shop. Keeping up?

Despite changes to the agency’s senior playing roster, The Monkeys, sorry, Droga5 (Christ, we’ve got to stop doing that) kept its eye on the ball and delivered some cracking creative and excellent new biz success.

The agency won the NRMA Insurance account in March 2024 and the highly coveted Tourism Australia creative account in June 2024.  

Droga5 told us it won 10 new accounts over the year, bringing the agency’s total to 33, with 15 on retainer. The agency said it did not lose or have to contest any of its accounts over the course of the year.

Droga5’s creative work was tip-top. It swiftly embarked on a root-and-branch repositioning of NRMA Insurance as ‘A Help Company’, completely reworked the insurer’s CX and even knocked out some decent ads to promote its Cricket Australia partnership.

The agency also dazzled with another killer Lamb Ad for Meat & Livestock Australia, the ‘Generation Gap’, which was a favourite in the B&T newsroom. In 2025, it might have gone even better yet with ‘The Comments Section’, but you’ll have to wait a while to read about that in the next year’s Agency Scorecards.

Yet again, The Monkeys (aka Droga5) excelled on the awards stage. It picked up more than 100 individual gongs at a variety of awards shows from the Webbys to WARC to Clios.

Highlights included: one B&T Award; four gold and three silver Cairns Crocodiles; a silver and two bronze at the APAC Effies; and six silver, three bronze and the Colin Wilson-Brown Award at the Australian Effies. It also collected the Grand Clio and four wood D&ADs.

But the pick of the bunch was surely winning the Film Grand Prix at Cannes Lions for the exceptional ‘Play It Safe’ for the Sydney Opera House. 

The four-minute film, directed by US-based Australian director Kim Gehrig, features comedian and performer Tim Minchin singing the virtues of conformity, as archival footage shows the Sydney Opera House taking shape on Bennelong Point. 

“Quite simply, it’s the best film of the year and makes you proud to be in this industry,” quipped jury president and Apple executive Tor Myhren.

Droga5’s creative spirit shone brightest and the agency continues to be a standard-bearer of creative excellence not just in this market, but the world over.

The name on the front door might have changed to Droga5 (finally!) and leaders moved on – the kind of tumult that can throw otherwise strong teams off-balance. However, Droga5 proved it has deep foundations and continued to go from strength-to-strength in 2024. Another outstanding season.