This is no backwater, Sir Martin
Just after Cannes last year, I first spoke to Sir Martin Sorrell about moving back to this part of the world. He said, “Why would you want to do that? It’s a backwater.”
It’s true that Australia and New Zealand sport only 25 million people and are no part of the rapidly emerging BRIC markets, or Goldman Sachs’ Next 11, but I did point out that Australia and New Zealand have a habit of proving themselves world class and make a point of punching above their weight.
That’s certainly our mission at Mojo – to produce world class, export quality thinking – to put Australia and New Zealand on the map. To make Sir Martin’s “backwater” front of mind for creative excellence. And it starts with a clear point of view.
We all know there’s a revolution afoot. Technology, cultural and behavioural change is creating a maelstrom of conversation around brands. The proliferation of both brands and media choices often creates confusion and uncertainty. Marketing now has many moving parts and the present can seem impossible to navigate, let alone the future.
In times of great change, clarity of vision and clear principles become even more important. They inform what we do and how we do it, they make the complex simple and they cut through a lot of the industry hyperbole to keep us focused on the truly important.
Mojo vision has a religious simplicity – creativity drives progress. Not growth, not profit, but progress. For us, progress is the enlightened path for business that includes the desire for growth, prosperity and, ultimately, sustainability. In other words, creativity has a real purpose at Mojo.
And, like no other creative company in this part of the world (and, arguably in New York and London), the combination of talents and capabilities at Mojo and Zenith Optimedia allow us to deliver creativity like no one else.
Mojo has a full media planning and buying operation at its core with all the data, analytics and tools that come with it. While the elite of Madison Ave and Soho wax on about the return to the full service model, Mojo and Zedo have been busy getting on with it.
So too with digital capability and design. We are joining up the tribes to create a unique creative culture and community.
In choosing our religion (creativity drives progress) we are spawning a new level of collaboration between all the players inside and outside the company.
So far it’s helped us win a significant chunk of Virgin Mobile's digital business, the assignment for Coca Cola’s Burn in 43 European markets, and Pay Pal (also a digitally led assignment). It’s also led us to complete work for P&G in the US and India, re-invent confectionary communications for kids and Cadbury, launch campaigns for Coke in Russia, pitch the Schweppes business in MENA, design the whole future of Steinlager domestically and internationally and create the largest cultural survey in Australia’s history for Qantas.
If our religion sounds too lofty for you, let’s pin the practice of it down to three core skills – Storytelling, Networking and Momentum.
More on those in upcoming posts.
