CB Exclusive Interview: RGA global chief creative officer Nick Law and Sydney creative director Gavin McLeod reveal plans for new Sydney office

R/GA has officially opened its Sydney based office located in the heart of the city on Grosvenor Street. In an exclusive interview with CB this morning in Sydney, R/GA’s Aussie-expat global chief creative officer Nick Law (near left) and Sydney founding executive creative director Gavin McLeod (far left) discuss their immediate plans.

With the aim to hire six full time staff by the beginning of February 2013, newly appointed ECD Gavin McLeod is currently joined by creative director Josh Rowe, producer Chris Rollings, experience designer Lee Gordon and acting managing director Ameer Youssef.

“Above all, we are looking to recruit resilient creatives plus the key person on our hit list is a permanent managing director; someone that we can trust and who can buy into our vision and we into theirs,” explains McLeod.

He admits that while the priority of finding key staff changes daily, he indicates that experience designers and a (unconventional) planner are high on the list.

“It’s been fascinating to see how many local people have reached out to us to be a part of R/GA and its fantastic to get the opportunity to handpick an office of people who truly inspire you,” adds McLeod.

Also in Sydney to help guide the set up of the new office is chief global creative and Aussie expat Nick Law. He has been in meetings this week with Qantas and since being put on the roster back in June 2012, assures there will be two new projects to roll out this year.

“Qantas is great; I was in a meeting with them yesterday and I know they are going to turn into a great client – they are very ambitious in our space and have taken the approach of getting on board a bunch of complimentary agencies so our role will be more around overall innovation, which is fun for us,” says Law.

Also on the horizon is an upcoming project for client RipCurl, which McLeod – a long time surfer – is looking forward to executing. “Although we can’t talk about the RipCurl work just yet, the project will launch in the next six months and it’s definitely an R/GA type of project,” he says.

Both Law and McLeod also don’t rule out the opportunity for existing clients to take advantage of working with the Sydney based office, with R/GA’s track record of working locally with global brands such as Johnson & Johnson and MasterCard.

When asked what the main point of difference R/GA will offer the local market, Law is quick to point out that the structure of the agency (which trademarked the line ‘The Agency of the Digital Age’) is in stark contrast to that of a tradition agency model.

“True of our model, which isn’t the case with most agency networks, we work as a network – when we get a job in any office it’s a question of who is the right person to work on this and it doesn’t matter where in the world they are based,” he explains, of the network’s culture of working remote.

“The trick is R/GA isn’t a digital agency,” interjects McLeod, adding: “Although digital is the agency’s core competence (and we are probably one of the best in the world at dealing in this space), digital is now everything so it’s my hope that clients come to us because we are a great agency, which is of course strong in this area.”

“Many agencies are called in from a campaign point of view or as part of a broader campaign whereas the vision for our office is that we get called in to solve an overarching business problem – think Nike FuelBand  — before we execute the communications part of it,” adds McLeod.

Law is also keen to articulate that today, digital is everything so it’s a false distinction to think of media platforms separately. “There is digital TV and digital radio and I haven’t looked at any screen-based media that doesn’t have an interface design,” he states.

“So, if agencies claim to be experts in media then why don’t they employ experience (interface) designers? Only a few agencies in this part of the world have experience designers and this distinguishes the difference between our approach.”

Resourceful creative talent in Australia is in abundance according to both executive creative directors, but due to a fairly conservative local market, many haven’t had the chance to flex their techno-driven creative muscles.

“The transition of technology has been so rapid in this world and I think the reaction from a lot of big agencies is to figure out what they are good at and how that will translate into the new era, rather than looking at the new era and figuring out what they need to do,” says Law.

“It’s still all about the big idea and I don’t know what to do with that anymore — what’s a big idea now compared to 20 years ago, and in many cases, especially with tech, it’s actually lots of smart decisions that are built on something that already exists.

“For example, the ipod was not a big idea, mps players already existed and the big idea was already had. What made the ipod magnificent was the execution  — a great interface and a system intuitive to how people actually live — and that is more and more true of what we do. So stop worrying about what the big punch line is and look at how people are behaving, then ask yourself, how can we make their lives better?”