Emotive

It’s likely that 2025 will be remembered as a pivotal year for Emotive. 

Early in the year, the agency became fully independent again after buying back the share ARN had held in the business for a little over the decade. Effectively, the agency said it had “re-founded” itself. 

It also made a series of significant and impressive hires that made much of the industry sit up and take note of the Coogee-based creative agency.

Gavin McLeod joins as chief creative officer joined from what was CHEP Network. Jessica Cluff joined as head of earned creative from Poem, Sebastian Revell joined as an executive strategy partner from TBWA\Media Arts Lab (he would be promoted to chief strategy officer in 2026), Sarah Scott Paul joined as head of people and culture) and Clément Simon joined as head of social and content from M+C Saatchi.

However, the agency faced significant pressure early in the year following the loss of Optus, its foundation client of 10 years.

Following one of the most hotly contested pitches of the year, the telco departed radically from its previous agency model, switching to a model led by Droga5 and Accenture Song Media, supported by Apparent and BRX.

A loss of that scale would rightly shake a lot of agencies. However, Emotive fought back hard, winning a whopping 19 new wins including Google Pixel, AMP North, Nespresso, Perfection Fresh and Billsons.

These wins, the agency said, saw it recover approximately 79 per cent of its lost revenue.

Emotive also became leaner, with its profitability increasing by 16 per cent year on year, supported by diversification across new and existing clients.

Work-wise, Emotive delivered some of its strongest campaigns to date, particularly in purpose-led storytelling (Deep Rising) and entertainment-led brand campaigns (DR3 Enchanté Rosé and Weis).

Across all work, the emphasis remained on emotion as the primary driver of effectiveness—and that was proved in the agencies award wins at Cairns Crocodiles Awards and the B&T Awards.

Emotive also embedded AI across workflows to enhance productivity and creative development. It also recorded a 51-point uplift in employee NPS—that’s some doing.

Overall, 2025 could have been a tough year for Emotive. However, its sharp hires, boldness in new business, impressive work and smart decisions to increase productivity have set it up for greater success in 2026.