The Experience Advocacy Taskforce (EAT) and Australia’s newly established freelance marketplace, Unjumble, are partnering to connect Australia’s experienced advertising and marketing talent looking for work, with Australia’s 2.6 million small and medium businesses looking for local freelance expertise.
The partnership comes as EAT’s research, The Silent Exit, reveals the scale of experienced talent leaving Australia’s advertising and media industry, with more than half of exits occurring between the ages of 45 and 54 and involuntary redundancy identified as the leading reason people leave.
EAT said that Australia is simultaneously losing experienced advertising and marketing talent from the industry while more than $183 million a year is estimated to be leaving the country on offshore freelance spend.
The research found many experienced professionals remain willing to contribute through full-time, part-time, freelance and flexible models, opening up an opportunity to rethink what a career in marketing and advertising can look like beyond the traditional agency structure.
Greg ‘Sparrow’ Graham, founder of the Experience Advocacy Taskforce and former B&T editorial consultant, said the industry has been too quick to write off experienced talent.
“Advertising and media are losing too much experience too early,” said Graham. “But the skills built in this industry don’t disappear when someone leaves an agency role. Strategy, brand thinking, commercial judgement, marketing problem-solving, media, social and more are incredibly valuable to Australian businesses.
“At the same time, we’re seeing an estimated $183 million a year flow offshore for freelance work. That’s an extraordinary disconnect. There is experienced Australian marketing talent looking for meaningful work, and there are Australian businesses looking for marketing expertise; we need to do a better job of connecting the two.
“This partnership with Unjumble is about creating another pathway for experienced marketers to use their skills, while giving Australian SMEs access to talent they may otherwise never find.”
Unjumble was established to solve a related problem: making it easier for Australian SMEs to find and work with trusted local freelancers across marketing, advertising and media. The platform allows businesses to post projects, compare bids from local freelancers, manage conversations and files, and handle staged payments in one place.
For freelancers, Unjumble provides access to real Australian businesses, with project funds held securely through Stripe until work is approved. Freelancers can bid based on the value of their expertise rather than competing solely on price.
The platform already has more than 400 registered Australian freelancers and is designed to serve the country’s 2.6 million SMEs.
Zac Kelly, founder of Unjumble, said the partnership with EAT creates a powerful connection between two sides of the Australian market.
“There’s a huge amount of experience sitting within Australia’s advertising and marketing community, and there are millions of small businesses that need exactly that expertise.
“We believe the best work often comes from people who understand and have reputation in the local market. Partnering with EAT helps us bring more experienced marketing and advertising talent onto the platform and gives small businesses access to people who have spent years solving real brand, media and business problems.
“We also want to keep more of that work here in Australia. If Australian businesses are going to spend money on freelance marketing expertise, why shouldn’t more of that investment stay in the local economy?”
For EAT and Unjumble, the partnership is also about challenging an outdated perception of what happens to experienced professionals when they leave agency life.
Freelance, project-based and fractional work are often viewed as second-best alternatives to a permanent role. But for experienced professionals, they can provide a commercially valuable way to continue working, earning and contributing, while giving businesses access to expertise without the cost or commitment of a permanent headcount.
For an SME that may not be ready to hire a full-time marketing director, strategist, media specialist or social expert, an experienced freelancer can provide the capability it needs for a specific project or period of growth.
And for the experienced professional, that same project can be an opportunity to apply decades of knowledge in a completely different business environment.
Graham said the opportunity is bigger than simply finding freelance gigs.
“We need to stop thinking about experienced people as yesterday’s workforce. Their experience is an asset and Australian businesses need it,” he said.
“Whether it’s a brand strategy, a go-to-market plan, a media strategy, a social campaign or simply helping an owner work out what their marketing should actually be doing, there are thousands of businesses that can benefit from the knowledge sitting within our industry.”
The EAT and Unjumble partnership is designed to make that connection easier and to encourage experienced marketing, advertising and media professionals to consider the opportunities that exist beyond the traditional agency model.
