After two decades shaping the global creative scene, from BMF to Mother London to launching LA agency The Many, Damien Eley has returned home. But this isn’t just another boomerang executive story, nor is The Many’s Australian launch a textbook agency expansion.
For Eley, the bigger conversation isn’t about opening an office, it’s about reframing how creativity works in a landscape that’s fragmented, fast-moving, and audience-first.
“The best creative work in the world will always get your attention or persuade you,” Eley told B&T. “But what we believe is more powerful is participation. It’s greater than persuasion. Greater than attention”.
“In an era where audiences demand agency and involvement, The Many’s approach flips the traditional model on its head – building ideas with audiences, not just for them”.
That belief that participation is greater than persuasion is more than a tagline. It underpins everything The Many is trying to do as it lands in Australia, not with a traditional agency model, but with a flexible, modular offering built around co-creation, branded content, immersive tech and AI tools.
“This isn’t about recreating LA in Sydney,” Eley said. “Australia doesn’t need just another indie agency. It needs a new kind of partner.”
“It’s more about evolving The Many’s offering into something new that responds to, but also challenges, the market here – something flexible, local, and able to grow”.
“This isn’t a traditional agency launch and we’re not here to just work for hire,” said Eley. “We’ve really tried to purpose-build this for an increasingly fragmented, fast-moving, and more audience-led world. We want to participate in our partners’ goals.”
At its core, The Many is a belief system: that audiences, especially younger ones, don’t want to be sold to. They want to be part of the story. They want to remix it, meme it, create with it, not just consume. And that belief has informed the company’s evolution: from a creative agency into a borderless, multi-pronged business that includes The Many Studios for participatory IP, The Many Labs for AI-powered creator tools, a media division managing more $100 million in insight-led spend, and more.
This approach, Eley said, was shaped not just by The Many’s growth in the US, but by the pressure that global markets (and increasingly, tech disruption) place on traditional creative businesses.
“In the States, the market is contracting and a lot of clients are feeling the pressure. You really feel the pressure of constant change, whether it’s AI or new technologies, and that forces you to innovate faster. Those experiences have taught us a lot, and now we’re bringing those learnings to the Australian market”.
But while Eley has been working remotely from Australia for the past four years, he intentionally waited to launch until The Many had something genuinely different to offer.
“Just doing great creative isn’t enough anymore. We had to believe we could offer something new, something that felt relevant to where this market is going,” he told B&T.
That “something” is The Many’s philosophy of building with audiences, not around them. It’s evident in projects like Hot Wheels, which garnered over a billion views driven by fan creativity.
The tongue-in-cheek Mixwell campaign which encouraged people not to buy, and the eBay Vault, a community-first take on collectables and fandom.
While the launch is Australian, the ambition is regional. The Many is already engaging partners across APAC and actively exploring acquisitions, particularly in immersive tech, a space Eley compares to where social media was 10 years ago.
“Rather than opening another satellite agency, we are building a new model of creative business development for APAC, modular, flexible and responsive. This vision encompasses smart, culturally tuned creative solutions for Australian brands, a hub for participatory branded content with monetisation potential, and a strategic base for regional expansion, innovation, and even potential acquisitions, particularly in the immersive tech space,” Eley said.
And yet, despite the buzzwords, Eley is clear that this isn’t a disruption-for-the-sake-of-it play.
“Our entry comes from a place of great respect for everybody here… There are a lot of great agencies in Australia. So it’s just about doing great work, and hopefully we’ll be able to sit alongside some of the better places here”.
Ultimately, The Many’s Australian debut is a test. A proof point. Can this new participation over persuasion philosophy find its place in one of the world’s most creatively awarded markets?
If it can, it won’t just be a win for The Many. It might signal a broader shift in how Australian creativity sees its future.
