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Born
Team PROFILE
Agency Type
Creative
Ownership
Independent
tagline
Great brands are born from great stories
LEADERSHIP TEAM
Jenny Lennon
Co-founder
David Coupland
Co-founder
Scott Wrightson
Associate creative director
Anna Leary
Account director
Sam Brown
Designer
Thea Hayes
Creative
Kerryn Miller
Creative
Key Stats
Offices
Sydney, Adelaide
Headcount
16
Gender Balance Staff
M: 33%
F: 67%
Gender Balance Leaders
M: 40%
F: 60%
Client book
Client Wins
20
Client Losses
0
Client extensions
6
Largest clients
Discovery Parks
Unity Bank
Toro
Trophy Cabinet
B&T Awards
Agency Scorecards report
Over the past few years Born has gone from a left-field challenger—think Billie Eilish or Tame Impala—to a more established player in the market.
The agency’s rise has been tracked through successive B&T Awards: Emerging Agency in 2024 and Independent Agency with fewer than 50 employees in 2025.
Now, the team is largely based in its shiny new Surry Hills home and is starting to appear on pitch lists for some of the most important brands in the country.
Its focuses are two-fold: performance not needing to be performative and that great brands are built from great stories.
Growing while holding fast to these maxims is not easy and, as Born said, it needed 2025 to be a year of recalibration and taking stock as much as it was about growing.
That said, Born made further headway in attracting top-tier clients.
It won the University of Canberra’s largest ever brand campaign and followed it up with a remit for a full rebrand via a competitive pitch.
It won a similar rebrand for Dymocks, and this work should be coming later this year. It also won brand strategy and refresh work for Yo-Chi and Spring and Summer campaigns for Toro through a competitive pitch.
Despite Born’s small size, it managed to expand relationships with a number of clients—proving the agency delivers results and doesn’t have to burn anyone out in order to do so. It expanded its relationship with Discovery Parks on the back of its strong work with the G’day Group. The Discovery Parks work was won from one of the country’s premier independent creative agencies, based just down the road from Born, too.
Similarly, it is now the full creative agency for Unity Banks, WikiCamps, Bridgit and has expanded its remit with Pacifiq.
It added four new team members in 2025, including a new strategist. It expanded its presence to Adelaide. It still maintains a strict 9-5 working day. It provides training budgets to all staff. It still offers its Born This Way low-bono offering for businesses/projects that support the normalisation, acceptance and health outcomes for LGBTQI+ audiences, and in 2025 extended that to anyone with a disability and men’s mental health outcomes.
Hightlights reel
Yo-Chi: 'The Positive Action Company'
We identified Yo-Chi as a vibes business. Good vibes, fun, flavour. They also cared, a lot, but this care lacked direction. They were passionate about reducing single-use plastic, creating ethical supply chains, and sourcing quality ingredients – yet without direction and rigour, those efforts lacked clarity. They needed to stand for more. Vibes are temporary, and in today’s culture of suspicion, they can even undermine the real good being done by a brand as disingenuous.
The transformation went beyond surface-level change. We refreshed their full brand system for international rollout and internal adoption, embedding Positive Action into every layer of the business. Visually, we evolved their look with greater boldness, depth, and playfulness, creating a more flavourful and confident identity. This gave Yo-Chi the clarity and consistency to move beyond being just a fun frozen yoghurt brand – to stand as a company committed to making positivity tangible across product, place and community.
Hightlights reel
Discovery Parks: 'Do It All'
The travel category is crowded and competitive. Discovery Parks were struggling with standing out, and needed more than a campaign to solve it. They needed an icon. Enter stage left: Bruce.
Together we created a loveable mascot (and official Bark Manager) who could bring warmth, humour and recognisability to every touchpoint.
Starting with traditional sketches, character craft and VFX, we harnessed Discovery with emerging AI production tools to rapidly bring Bruce to life across destinations, platforms and storylines. This hybrid approach allowed the campaign to scale efficiently while maintaining a strong, consistent brand presence.
More than a mascot, Bruce is a storytelling device helping Discovery Parks become more memorable, the way only a dog can.
Hightlights reel
Uni of Canberra: 'U CAN @ UC'
We helped the University of Canberra launch its first major brand repositioning in over a decade — built around a simple idea: university should feel like a place you can belong.
‘U CAN @ UC’ became both an encouragement and a challenge, asking people to back themselves, try things they’re unsure of and believe they’re capable of more. Through authentic storytelling across TVC and OOH, we focused on real moments of uncertainty, growth and self-belief.
Because sometimes the most powerful thing you can give someone is the belief that they can.
Born's take on 2025
For Born, 2025 was a year of recalibration. Because we’ve always seen ourselves as outsiders. This bunch of nobodies doing outsized work without the spotlight. And that story was very real for us. It was our identity in the industry. But this year, that story stopped fitting.
We found ourselves in bigger rooms, winning bigger work against bigger agencies, and being recognised in ways we hadn’t previously allowed for. And with that came a shift: from proving we belonged, to accepting that we already do.
That change showed up in our performance. We won Dymocks, Yo-Chi and Unity Bank, were appointed AOR for Toro, Dymocks and the University of Canberra, grew every retainer, and didn’t lose a single client. We were also so proud to be named B&T Independent Agency of the Year. But more than a collection of wins, 2025 felt like a collection of evidence. That what we’re building is real. And that we’re only just getting started.
Thea Hayes, Creative (Art)
As creative designer at Born Agency, Hayes works on developing and executing major advertising campaigns.
She works closely with the Born team to conceptualise and bring the work to life for various brands across print, digital, out-of-home, and motion.
If we were a band, we'd be...
Pulp
Pulp spent decades proving that ordinary people are far more interesting than they’re given credit for.
And their best work came from stories.
We’ve built a business around the exact same beliefs.
Born
B&T's Agency Score
8.2
Previous season: 8.5
Critic's Comment
“Born continues to grow and set an example for much of the industry. We consider 2025 to be another impressive album, though perhaps without riotous energetic insurgency of the first.”