Trisha Shetty (Editor)

SMART (advertising agency)

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Type
  
Subsidiary

Website
  
www.smartinc.com

Founded
  
2000, Sydney, Australia

Number of locations
  
3

Headquarters
  
Melbourne, Australia

Founders
  
Ben Lilley, Paul Findlay

SMART (advertising agency) httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediacommonsthu

Industry
  
Advertising agency Marketing Branding

Key people
  
Ben Lilley, CEO of McCann Worldgroup Ashley Farr, National CEO McCann John Mescall, Executive Creative Director Janelle Toomey, Managing Director Sydney and Melbourne Joe Sands Managing Director Gold Coast and Brisbane Benjamin Davis Executive Creative Director

Services
  
Brand Advertising, Communication Strategy, Social Media and Digital Services

Profiles

SMART is a full-service Australian advertising agency with offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Brisbane. SMART is an independently managed business within McCann WorldGroup, part of the Interpublic Group of Companies.

Contents

Launched in 2000 as a boutique creative agency, SMART was established by a group of ex-multinational agency professionals seeking to create "a strategic and creative alternative to traditional agency thinking". The company's business model has been described as a "borderless" approach, bringing together specialists from various locations and disciplines to service its clients' needs.

The firm was originally positioned as a specialist in youth advertising, partly due to the age of its founding partners who were each under thirty when they set up the agency. Marketing magazine B&T named SMART "the New Age ad agency" in its Agency of the Year awards in 2003. It has since been more broadly noted as part of a new breed of agencies who are "breaking away from traditional advertising models".

The media interest in SMART's "non-traditional" model is typical of a broader industry trend being observed in most developed advertising markets, with independent agencies like TAXI and StrawberryFrog experiencing similar recognition for their unconventional business models.

In 2011, McCann Worldgroup, the world’s largest marketing services company and advertising agency group, acquired SMART and replaced the management of McCann Worldgroup Australia with the management team from SMART. The essence of SMART remains but is now connected to a world of global insights and expertise.

Clients and awards

SMART's creative work has been recognized at advertising award shows including the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, One Show, Clio Awards, New York Festivals and local Australian advertising shows. The business was named B&T Agency of the Year in 2003 and was subsequently recognised in the AdNews Agency of the Year Awards in 2004 and 2005, and both the AdNews and B&T Agency of the Year Awards in 2006. SMART has also featured in the Business Review Weekly Fast100 list of Australia's fastest growing businesses.

The agency is known for taking a selective approach to its clients, focusing on "blue-chip" creative advertisers such as adidas, Coca-Cola, Ferrero, Levi's, McDonald's, Gloria Jean's Coffees, Australand, Grocon and Unilever.

SMART has been recognised for several Australian agency firsts, such as its appointment by iconic Australian brand Mambo, a client who had previously refused to work with advertising agencies. It has also gained infamy for several unconventional stunts, including sending dwarves to the headquarters of Peugeot in an effort to secure a spot on the car maker's agency pitch list. A stunt that involved agency staff disguising themselves as takeaway delivery drivers to post recruitment advertisements inside competing agencies attracted considerable criticism.

Agency principals

The agency's founding partners were CEO Ben Lilley and Creative Director Paul Findlay. Lilley is a regular media commentator, particularly in the area of youth marketing, and was named one of AdNews's forty top industry professionals under forty.

The agency's leadership team includes Chairman and CEO of McCann Worldgroup Ben Lilley, named one of AdNews' top Forty Under Forty industry professionals, ex-Young & Rubicam strategy planner Ashley Farr and highly awarded ex-JWT creative director John Mescall, writer of the global phenomenon Dumb Ways To Die. Mescall writes a regular AdNews column, SmartArse, and is an annual on-the-spot reporter from the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival.

The Executive Creative Director of SMART is Ben Davis who began his career with Ogilvy and Mather in 1989. Joe Sands is SMART Queensland's Managing Director for both Brisbane and the Gold Coast, and Janelle Toomey Managing Director of the Sydney and Melbourne offices.

Companies within the McCann WorldGroup network

  • Craft Worldwide
  • FutureBrand
  • McCann
  • McCann Health
  • MRM
  • Momentum
  • Weber Shandwick
  • UM
  • References

    SMART (advertising agency) Wikipedia