Behind every great campaign is a brilliant strategist who pushes it forward and brings ideas to life. Without them, the industry simply would not exist; they serve as the vital link between creative concepts and business execution.
Welcome back to B&T’s Best Of The Best! For this week’s entry, we’re looking at Creative Strategists, the multi-talented, creative leaders who unify and deliver remarkable results.
This list includes ten names, but there are plenty more who just missed out. We’ve based it on the success of the agency groups, the quality of work they produce, their stability, and their potential for growth in challenging times.
These lists are very subjective, and the gap between some of the placements is barely a hair’s breadth. Trust us, we took no joy in separating these leaders, but we had to.
So, without further ado… here they are, B&T’s Best of the Best Creative Strategists!
10. Simon Wassef, Chief Strategy & Experience Officer, Clemenger BBDO
Wassef confesses that a near-death experience led him to become a strategist. 22 years ago, while trying to find a way to convince young male drivers to slow down, he nearly crashed and died. But, as he explains, it wasn’t his life that flashed before his eyes. It was an insight. That insight led to the infamous ‘Pinkie’ campaign, which has been described as the most effective road safety campaign in Australian history.
In the time that has passed, Wassef has created valuable, effective marketing and innovation for some of the world’s most iconic brands at some of the world’s best agencies, including AMV, AKQA, R/GA and Chiat/Day, working with the likes of IKEA, Qantas, Adidas, Absolut, Samsung, Red Bull, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Guinness, Google, Johnnie Walker, Volvo, Panadol, Siemens, Nike and Beats By Dre.
9. David Halter, Chief Strategy & Growth Officer, Dentsu International
Halter has more than 20 years of experience leading creative and digital strategy. He joined Dentsu as the chief strategy and growth officer in 2022 from Clemenger Group, where he was chief strategy officer and Sydney managing director of CHE Proximity.
There, he partnered with several household brands, including eBay, Ikea, Virgin Australia, Samsung, and more. Earlier this year, Halter was the CSO working on The ICONIC’s new brand platform, to coincide with its refreshed company purpose: ‘Creating a better way for people to shop.’
A former 30 under 30 winner, Halter loves how vibrant adland has become: “It’s no longer just adland. It’s techland, productland, experienceland, contentland, socialgoodland, dataprivacyland. A whole bunch of new people and perspectives have entered the industry.”
Taylor joined Host Sydney as its first planning director in 2003. Since then, he has moved up through the ranks and was promoted to chief strategy officer for the Havas Group Australia in 2022 (Havas and Host merged in 2017).
A respected member of the media industry and a regular name in B&T, Taylor was selected as one of our esteemed Women in Media judges in 2023.
Havas Group ANZ chairman Anthony Freedman said of Taylor, “he joined Host as a young but precociously talented brand planner and immediately made an impact, playing a key role in the agency’s success and long list of effectiveness awards”.
7. Alison Tilling, Chief Strategy Officer, Australia & New Zealand, VML
With 15 years of experience in advertising and marketing, Ali firmly believes in getting out from behind the laptop screen, finding real insight and combining that with other data for fresh strategies.
As the chief strategy officer at VML, she leads long-term strategy across her client portfolio and heads up the strategy team across Australia and NZ. This includes leadership and support for a team of 14 strategists with specialties ranging from Brand to Data to Communications strategy.
Just a few months ago, Tilling led the strategy on Flight Centre’s new Envoyage brand. Working with the Flight Centre team, Tilling and VML developed the brand to show “the unity and collective strength” of Flight Centre Travel Group’s (FCTG) independent global travel agent network, which previously spanned multiple brands with varying degrees of recognition.
Ali led Aldi’s strategy at BMF for six years, during which time it grew from 4 per cent to 12 per cent market share. Ali worked on a range of award-winning campaigns and developed an extensive qualitative research and CX development program. Previous clients have also included P&O Cruises, Transport for NSW, Dulux, and Schweppes, among many others.
Starting her career at TBWALondon working on Apple, she also spent time client-side working at Apple Europe and at Wieden+Kennedy London.
6. Christina Aventi, Chief Strategy Officer, BMF Australia
A veteran with 24 years of experience, Christina started her career as a grad at Unilever. After getting that solid grounding in marketing and category management, she jumped ship to the agency side and found a permanent home as a brand and communications strategist. Since then, Christina has contributed to award-winning, effective campaigns across an array of clients including ALDI, Government, FMCG. She claims that she is most proud of the behaviour change work she has participated in in both the commercial and social marketing sectors.
Perhaps the most notable and poignant work Aventi has been involved in of late is the Department Of Social Services national “Consent Can’t Wait” campaign. The spot encourages influencers of young people to take the first step in educating young Australians on sexual consent by checking their understanding and speaking to their peers about it.
An industry commentator and regular panellist on Gruen (ABC), Christina has led BMF to be the most effective agency in Australia in 2017 and 2019 and number three in the world in the WARC Creative Effectiveness ratings.
5. Alyce Gillis, Head of Strategy, Today The Brave
Gillis describes herself as a “planning director with a mash-up of experience across brand strategy, communications, digital, PR, social and influencer activity”. Her hybrid of experience allows her to bring a unique combination of skills to her work that shapes the way she approached strategic planning.
Gillis has worked on a number of memorable, award-winning and effective campaigns for clients like the National Rugby League, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Sydney Water, IKEA, Uber, Google, The Body Shop, the National Broadband Network (NBN), CommBank, Weet-Bix and Stockland. These campaigns saved Sydney 170,000,000 million litres of water a day, got Australians talking about the incomparable athleticism of female NRL players, inspired little girls to think differently about male-skewed Christmas traditions and introduced Australia to Dunder, the reindeer from down under.
4. Dom Hickey, Chief Strategy Officer, Howatson+Company
Before joining Howatson + Company, Hickey was head of planning at DDB for six years. During this time, she worked across brands including Coles, Unilever, J&J, and Westpac. She led the strategy for award-winning campaigns, including Matriarch’s campaign for Carefree.
She loves to give back to the industry and help junior talent. In addition to teaching at Ad School, she co-hosts a podcast, The Junior Mafia, which gives young people in the industry a voice.
Recently, Hickey was involved in the creation of the Matilda Bay Hazy Lager ‘Second Favourite” Beer campaign. The campaign saw the brand not compete with people’s favourite beers but instead help them love their favourites even more. By ordering Hazy Lager at participating venues and bottle shops, punters could walk away with unique prizes, like a custom-made VB Knock-Off chair, a one-of-a-kind Carlton Dry hot tub, Great Northern fishing kits, Carlton Draught fridges, snowboards, surfboards, BBQs, plus much more – created, built and sourced by Matilda Bay themselves.
Under Hickey’s keen strategic eye, Howatson + Company took home the 2023 B&T Agency of the Year award for an Independent Agency with More Than 50 Employees, Presented By Pixability. The agency also had a record-breaking win at the inaugural Cairns Crocodiles, taking home 17 crocs.
McPhee is no stranger to the world of creative strategy, having first gotten her start in 2011 working for Droga5. Over the years she has worked in a number of strategy roles across adam&eveDDB and Amazon. Mcphee has been with The Monkeys (part of Accenture Song) for over a year and a half now as the managing director of ANZ and growth markets and the chief strategy officer.
The Monkeys last year went viral for their England Bitter campaign that rebounded off the infamous Stumpgate saga during The Ashes series in England. The moment that Johnny Bairstow stepped out in history quickly became one of the most talked about and, if you’re English, most whinged-about moments in history. In fact, they were so cranky they went as far as refusing to have a beer with the Australian team after the series.
So, The Monkeys created “England Bitter”, a beer to match the bitterness of an entire nation. Within 48 hours, a warm slab of “England Bitter” was shipped directly to the English team’s dressing rooms in Leeds and addressed directly to Ben Stokes and his bitter mates. The PR response was immediate, with all major news outlets in Australia picking up the story. Karl Stefanovic opened a stubby with his teeth live on air, and even the notoriously ad-free ABC devoted a whole minute of airtime to VB. In just three days, England Bitter generated over 23.5 million impressions and $4.5 million worth of earned media. Organic social engagement levels were the highest in VB’s history at +1391 per cent vs benchmark. And to round it all out, the epic campaign took home the 2023 B&T award for Best PR Campaign.
The agency also took home the very first Cairns Crocodiles Grand Prix and four Gold Crocs, three Silver Crocs and one Bronze Croc last month.
2. Adam Ferrier, Founder/Chief Thinker, Thinkerbell
After graduating from university with degrees in commerce and clinical psychology, Ferrier began his career far removed from adland, working in maximum security prisons. In 2001, he transitioned to Saatchi & Saatchi as a Strategic Planner.
In 2004, he co-founded Naked Communications, embracing a behavioural change model while building brands. The agency was one of Australia’s most awarded and successful agencies at the time. After selling Naked, Ferrier created THINKERBELL, combining marketing science and hard-core creativity.
Earlier this year, when it seemed impossible to consume a single second of media without hearing about Taylor Swift, Thinkerbell turned the trend on its head in a creative campaign for Toohey’s New that instead called to her NFL superstar boyfriend, Travis Kelce.
The agency won big at the 2023 B&T Awards, taking home Advertising Agency of the Year and PR Agency of the Year. The XXXX Postcodes Of Origin campaign, which saw the beer brand logo on the Queensland State of Origin jerseys replaced with the player’s community, won the Best Regional Media Campaign, presented by Boomtown. The campaign also took home a gold croc, among a series of other Cairns Crocodiles for the agency.
1. Dave Hartmann, Strategy Partner, Special Group
Hartmann started his career in 2000 as an account manager at Leo Burnett and has since moved his way up through the rankings as a strategist at The Campaign Palace and head of strategy at BMF. For nearly a decade now, he has been a strategy partner at Special Group Australia.
Special had a bumper year last year, with its work for Partners Life and the Uber Eats “Get Almost, Almost Anything” campaigns receiving global recognition, including four B&T awards.
The agency also secured its third B&T Award Grand Prix win in four years, along with the Qld/Other States & Territories/NZ and Victorian Agency of the Year Award.
