With some help from our friend Kathleen Gunther, we’re taking a look at some of the most creative minds in Melbourne. Gunther partners with independent agencies across Australia and New Zealand to scale their brand presence and drive sustainable growth. This week, we’re chatting with marketing doyen Eugene Healey. More recently, Healey opened proceedings at the Content Summit Australia conference in Brisbane touching on the industry’s reluctance to change operating structures.
1. How long have you been in Melbourne and if you weren’t born here, did you choose it or did it choose you?
I moved here from Auckland to study at Unimelb. I was basically pushed out the door by my mother who told me “New Zealand is not where someone like you wants to live their life and make their career”. She herself moved to Melbourne from Malaysia when she was 16, before settling in New Zealand.
To her credit, she was right. Melbourne very much feels like home.
I think you learn everything you need to know about a person based on their opinion of Melbourne. This pervasive establishment media beat-up of it being debt-ridden/crime-riddled, or it being ‘pretentious’ comes from people who are spiritually impoverished. “Melbourne is where rich people act poor” – yes, because this city understands that wealth is not the measure of an individual, you can have a lot of money and still be a total fucking loser. At least we have the common sense to put them all in Brighton.
This is a city in which you really can have a bit of it all, as long as you’re willing to search for it. The ones who don’t out themselves as being totally lacking in curiosity.
Yes, there are better places to be a millionaire. But if you make under $100k a year, which many do (rising amongst those who are genuinely interesting), there are not many places where you can have a better life.
2. What’s the most Melbourne thing about the way you or your team works?
I suppose that we have a distinctly international outlook. Currently my team of 3 – a social media manager, brand manager and researcher/writer is split across the US, France and Colombia. We make it work, somehow. Just don’t try to get us all in a meeting together at once.
Also, I actually think the space I work out of – The Commons, is a very Melbourne brand. The fact they chose to work with people like Flack Studio to design their spaces, it really comes from a place of genuine appreciation and fandom for specificthings that I think is a typical Melbourne attitude. That is this city in a nutshell – people are nerds about specific things – Zero-sulphur Jura wine, Mauritian cuisine, specific sects of continental philosophy, etc. You find a lot of nerds here.
3. Who in the local industry has shaped the way you think about leadership or doing business? Tell us about them.
I’ve been very lucky in my strategy career in that I worked in two consultancies where strategists were the owners of the business.
Under Erminio Putignano of PUSH, I learned about Brand as an Idea. I learned about heavy-duty strategy, exactitude in words (and slide alignments), and the importance of taking time to find clarity in ideas. PUSH did vitruvian strategy. Never since have I seen brand strategies that I would consider ‘beautiful’.
Under Joe Rogers of The Contenders I learned about Brand as a Tool. We took brand into the boardroom. I learned business strategy and analysis. I learned how to talk to Ops, CFOs, Sales managers. I left the word ‘brand’ behind in most stakeholder meetings and learned how to have conversations about how the business creates value.
And from Joeri Mol (senior lecturer in The University of Melbourne’s management department) I learned that I find brand, on its own, incredibly boring. That the real things I was interested in was people, what they desire, why they desire. I learned about the importance of philosophy in developing a point of view: Fisher, Lacan, Debord, Baudrillard, as well as authors like Ursula Le Guin. It’s been impactful not only on how I do business but how I try to approach life: as something to understand, rather than just accumulate.
4. What’s one unspoken rule of doing business in Melbourne?
It’s a cottage industry, especially with something as specific as brand strategy. Do a good job and you build a reputation quickly. Fuck anything up, or fuck anyone over and you’ll quickly land yourself in hot water, you don’t get the privilege of anonymity.
5. If your agency/personal brand had a Melbourne walk-up song (like the intro song), what would it be and why? It just needs to be from a local band or artist, along with an explanation of why.
U Should Not Be Doing That by Amyl and the Sniffers.
Melbourne based, often travelling (1/4-1/3 of the year). I am both people in this song. This lifestyle does have a tendency to mess other things up, keeping it all together is its own job.
Kathleen Gunther is the founder of Gunther Consulting, partnering with independent agencies across Australia and New Zealand to scale their brand presence and drive sustainable growth. With expertise spanning digital marketing, brand strategy, PR and communications, she brings the pragmatism, specialist connections and industry know-how to help agencies market their most important client — themselves. Kathleen also serves as a Board Member of AWIA, actively shaping Australia’s digital landscape and championing inclusivity in the industry.
