I come from a brand down under: why Australia should be the next advertising capital of the world
Once upon a time, there were few reasons why a CMO would give a global assignment to an Australian ad agency. But now, now there are over 10 billion reasons, writes Tim Harvey, founder of MADMADE.
“Don’t buy now, pay the price later.”
Excuse the twist on one of the recent multi-billion dollar global brand exports out of Australia, but this is the message we should be sending to all CMO’s across the world and not just Australia’s latest and greatest Unicorn. This should be the sense of feeling from CMO’s in 2022 and beyond – that in not building more brands and creating more powerful creative platforms out of Australia, they are simply missing out. You see, these CMOs have all met Graham, they’ve learned about dumb ways to die, felt the hungerithm in their bellies, and even switched off a light or two for Earth Hour. This is because great Australian creativity travels the world whether intentional or not. And yet, many CMOs see Australia as a local market. A small market. A market for adaptation. Heck, some CMOs even see this as a market within APAC.
Granted, once upon a time, there were few reasons why a CMO would give a global assignment to an Australian ad agency. But now, now there are over 10 billion reasons. Or, more importantly, now there is no reason not to.10 billion is the amount in dollars that Australian start-ups have received since 2021. 39 billion is what Afterpay sold for. And 55 billion is Canva’s latest valuation. This is no longer a satellite market for the brands of the old economy, it’s the launchpad for the brands of the new one (though the rocketship analogies should end there).
