In this first of a new series running this week, B&T is highlighting the businesses that are set for a noteworthy 2025—or simply, the Ones To Watch. This time out, we’re looking at the nation’s creative agencies. Tomorrow, we’ll be looking at media agencies.
The list below is presented in no particular order.
Leo Burnett
Leo Burnett had perhaps seemed to be slightly in Saatchi & Saatchi’s shadow in recent years. However, two big and hotly contested client wins—ANZ and all of Suncorp’s brands—in the final months of 2024 has put Leos right back on the map.
CEO Clare Pickens, formerly of Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam, joined in April last year and has ably led the team to these two important wins. Of course winning the pitch is only the start of the work, not the end. While Leos’ previous work for Suncorp has been impressive in its ambition, the agency needs to hit the ground running with new work. We’re expecting big things.
AKQA
WPP has been on a mission to consolidate its sprawling list of agencies over the last couple of years—six in total. The most recent of these was the merging of design-focused shop AKQA and storied agency Grey (or whiteGrey in Australia) in five markets: Italy, Belgium, China, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.
Lee Simpson, CEO of WhiteGREY in Australia, departed. WhiteGREY was absorbed into AKQA with Brian Vella, then AKQA Asia Pacific’s managing director took the helm. He has since been promoted to AKQA’s APAC CEO.
“By bringing our teams together, we’re combining the best of both worlds—Grey’s renowned creativity and AKQA’s world-class design and innovation,” said Laura Maness, Grey Global CEO.
Last month, BMF’s chief innovation officer and co-ECD Tara McKenty became ECD of the newly merged AKQA. How the two newly merged agencies fare remains to be seen, but McKenty’s hire is a strong signal of intent.
Droga5 ANZ
When it was announced that The Monkeys was becoming Droga5 ANZ, some were sad to see the storied agency brand disappear.
Amongst the angst over the name, there were some significant people moves. Former The Monkeys CEO Mark Green moved to New York to become the global Droga5 CEO. Matt Michael became the Droga5 boss locally. The Monkeys Melbourne top trio all departed, too and are reportedly set to open up their own agency.
But there’s more going on than simply personnel changes. What the refreshed Droga5 does with the Tourism Australia account it won in July remains to be seen but we’re certainly excited to see it. We liked the most recent Lamb Ad, so here’s hoping that’s indicative of what’s to come.
Howatson+Company
Howatson+Company head honcho Chris Howatson told us last year that the agency has now found its “forever home” in Sydney, with a new one to open in Melbourne shortly. It is also approaching the “intimacy inflection point” of 200 staff. In an industry obsessed with growth, what happens next for the business will be interesting to observe.
Meanwhile, Howatson+Company has opened Plus Also Studios, a new “AI-enabled” creative technology company offering brand asset creation, personalisation and automated orchestration, with complete performance attribution.
“Where other market offerings have aligned to an AI partner, we remain agnostic, creating value in how we train, secure, fine-tune, and combine multiple AI models to create the perfect, highly crafted output to the brief,” said Hoang Nguyen, co-founder, Plus Also Studios.
“It’s not unusual for over 50 AI models to be ‘canvassed’ to create a campaign visual indistinguishable from the traditional production process. In this way, the Plus Also difference is in the people, compliance and process. We leave the AI development to well-funded global tech innovators”.
The new studio has already garnered interest from the market. In November (technically before the official launch of Plus Also) B&T revealed that Endeavour Group, owner of Dan Murphy’s, BWS and a number of venues around the country, canned its internal creative and production division, giving it to the new H+C spin-off.
DDB
DDB had a trickier run-in to 2025 than some agencies. It lost the pitch for Westpac—an account that it had held for some 13 years. B&T understands that a winner was set to be announced this month but that this has been delayed—Westpac declined to comment when we reached the bank.
Some of the McDonald’s account, which DDB has held for 55 years, also went to pitch. Macca’s said that it was seeking to find an “additional creative agency partner from our existing global agency roster.” DDB remains McDonald’s agency of record handling brand, retail, sponsorship and social in Australia. But some of the account could be Ham-burgled away.
In July, its CCO Stephen de Wolf departed with ECD Matt Chandler stepping into the top job.
It’s far from panic stations at the agency. But we’ll be watching keenly to see how it bounces back.
Born
When B&T first crossed paths with Born, the founding duo had only recently stopped working in a library and had moved into a shared office space. Now it has moved into its own office space on Crown Street in Surry Hills, has made a slew of new hires and has added a range of clients to its impressive portfolio of work.
In fact, we were so impressed with the agency’s progression, we named it our Emerging Agency of the Year at the B&T Awards. During the judging period, the agency tripled its revenue and picked Bare Funerals in a competitive pitch and produced its first-ever TVC.
There is plenty more to come from Born, we suspect.
Bear Meets Eagle On Fire
Last year was a standout for Bear Meets Eagle On Fire. The indie hotshop’s work for Telstra as part of its bespoke +61 agency model has catapulted it onto the world stage.
The agency took home eight LIA gongs last year, with its ‘Better On A Better Network’ for Telstra scooping the Grand LIA for Production and Post Production. LIA later named it Regional Independent Agency of the Year. Shots named it Agency of the Year Asia Pacific. It won four gongs at Berlin’s CICLOPE Festival. ‘Better On A Better Network’ placed third on Ad Age’s best ads of 2024 list. It featured on Creative Review’s list, too.
How Micah Walker and the rest of the team top this, remains to be seen. But we wouldn’t bet against it.
The Bureau of Everything
When M&C Saatchi chief creative and chief strategy officers Cam Blackley and Emily Taylor departed to start their own agency in May, they joined a growing number of small indie shops in the country.
The Bureau’s work so far has been strong, with a decidedly Aussie flavour. Its Hawke’s Brewing Christmas campaign was fun and showed the Bureau could perform at both ends of the funnel (not something all its small indie competitors can say). Its work for the Australian Republican Movement in the run-up to King Charles’ visit was eye-catching, too.
“The jet setting, the security, the flash hotels, paparazzi, limos and photo ops have more parallels with ageing Rock Stars than a working Australian Head of State,” Blackley.
“We felt that leaning hard into the idea of a nostalgic farewell tour is a suitably kitsch way to lower the curtain on the outdated concept of the Monarchy as our highest national representative.”
It was announced that the nascent agency would also be launching an as-yet-unnamed eBike brand. We reckon The Bureau of Everything is set for a big 2025.
