Creative Director. Brand Strategist. Agency Founder
I began my career as an Art Director in Melbourne in the late 1980s – at Scali, McCabe, Sloves; then with Ric Hambleton, Glen Chandler, Neil Ruff and John Boucher, then Mojo, then Ogilvy & Mather. These were some of the most respected creative shops in Australia at the time, working on national accounts including Qantas, NAB, Holden, Cadbury, Shell, Medibank, Hyatt, Hertz and Australia Post.
After leaving Ogilvy & Mather to tour with my first band, I freelanced across several of Melbourne and Sydney's top agencies – Y&R, McCann, George Patterson and others. It was great work. But at the end of my second band, I needed a fresh start.
I now had a young family, and saw a place advertised in Hobart. Three times the lifestyle at a third the price of anything we'd looked at in Sydney. After deciding that this 180 degree U-turn was the right move, I made a phone call to David Blackley at Clemenger and received another five minutes later saying I'd have a job on arrival. We moved in 1996 with a plan for a different pace.
In 1999 I founded my own agency. First as Coo'ee Tasmania, later Green Team Australia, and finally SmithAssociates.
What followed, were opportunities that a small agency in a larger city would never have been able to pursue.
In 2000, competing against established state and national agencies, we pitched and won Tasmania's Road Safety account with a single idea: just like that. The campaign delivered the state's first fatality-free Christmas and New Year period – ever – reduced road trauma by 25% in its first term, went on to become the most recognised and recalled brand campaign in Tasmania's history, was adopted by other Australian states, and generated international work. It was recorded in Hansard. Research verified it as producing the highest recognition levels ever recorded for an advertising campaign across any target group.
Soon after, we were invited to address children's health outcomes in regional South Australia. The campaign that followed was described by the SA Health Minister as the best results they had ever seen for a community engagement campaign.
In 2007, Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth changed everything. I was compelled to apply what I'd learned about public education and community engagement to help address the most important issue of our time. My then wife and business partner agreed. By that point, we had eight years of brand creation, public education and corporate social responsibility work behind us, and 34 national and international creative and business awards.
I started thinking about a new brand name and at that time could acquire the domain for almost anything in this space. But looking a little further afield, we came across Green Team in New York.
Founded in 1993 and one of the first communications agencies dedicated to sustainability and social responsibility, Green Team's founders Hugh Hough, Milton Kapelus and Jimmie Stone had created the most inspiring agency. They were pioneers – with clients including Coca-Cola, Walmart and Johnson & Johnson.
We called them. Explained who we were and what we'd achieved. They took the call, listened carefully, and liked what they heard. What followed was a wonderful partnership.
Green Team Australia became the first Green Team office outside the United States, and the first Australian communications company wholly dedicated to guiding organisations on the journey to sustainability. We commissioned deep original research – mirroring Green Team USA's Awakening Consumer™ methodology – specifically for the Australian market.
We were appointed to manage Nyrstar's global communications across five continents. We organised our growing team into shifts covering the Australian, European and North American time zones. We became BASF's first Australian agency appointment – a global Top 100 company. By the time Green Team Australia concluded, we had 46 national and international creative and business awards.
Other work I'm proud of includes the OZ Minerals brand creation – pitched against Futurebrand and won. Delivered across five countries in four languages, reaching 3,900 employees, all within four months of the brief. During this period we created brands and campaigns for organisations of every scale and purpose. Pennicott Wilderness Journeys. Vestal Water. Bodysystem. Still fresh and going strong decades later. And many others. We also took both of Tasmania's major credit unions to number one in the market, consecutively.
In 2011, emerging from the global financial crisis, SmithAssociates became my more nimble consultancy. Two further awards followed in 2014. The campaigns with Nyrstar in Port Pirie continued, culminating in 2016 with Come See Change – a reputational brand for the whole city that became a tourism brand too. In 2019, I was approached to work on Australia's largest aquaculture company.
Over this journey – working with so many highly talented professionals across all disciplines – I had come to observe, track and repeat what works. Across story, identity and campaigns. When these three are fully aligned, results follow. Consistently. Often remarkably.
Today I continue to work with organisations facing complex engagement challenges through Rowan Smith Creative, and teach the thinking behind that work through Creative Brand Coach.
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