Nick Cummins has “accidentally” started two independent advertising agencies – and both have grown to become multi-award-winning, culture-led businesses.
Next week at ADFEST 2019, he’s going to share the secrets behind the success of Sputnik Agency, one of Australia’s first digital agencies with a staff of 80, which he ran for 10 years.
Cummins is now one of the founding partners of The Royals, which has also quietly emerged as one of Australia’s hottest shops since opening seven years ago.
Do you really (truly) think the world needs more advertising agencies? What inspired this topic & what do you hope people will learn from your session at ADFEST?
No, of course the world doesn’t need more
advertising agencies, but I believe our industry desperately does. I also
believe if new vibrant creative, intelligent, businesses pop up and flourish
with people who come to work to solve problems in new ways, we may find some of
them might just help solve some of the problems our world faces today.
Can you tell us a little about The Royals – how did you find yourself accidentally launching another agency? What was your vision seven years ago at launch, and have you stayed true to it?
Starting a business is easy. Sticking to it
is difficult. For us, starting The Royals began with a conversation at the pub
about what kind of agency we felt Australia needed at the time. I went home
that night and told my wife I was going to start another business and we would
probably have to sell the house. She is very supportive, my wife.
Our vision was to create an agency that sat
between large multinationals that are good at strategy and storytelling and
digital shops that are great at understanding new platforms and technologies.
So we started collecting the kinds of people who get modern communications and
we are still collecting them today.
Yes, I believe we have stayed true to our vision. We try to look at the agency
as an operating system. We are constantly making updates and improvements and I
think being independent makes that easy. We don’t have to ask New York for
approval to change a process or try something different. It helps us avoid
falling into the trap of just doing things the same way the industry has for
the last 50 years.
The Royals has a very distinctive mission: to be the most interested agency in the world. How did you arrive at that mission and what impact does it have on the work you create for clients?
Striving to be the most interested agency
in the world is a huge part of our culture. It is something I think our
industry has lost along the way. I love the legends of great advertising people
from the ’60s going out to factories interviewing the makers of a product to
get a better understanding of how to market it.
So being interested in our clients’
businesses, products and consumers is nothing new but incredibly important. But
‘most interested’ goes beyond that – it is a healthy interest in pop culture,
community sentiment, platforms and channels that we can use to make connections
with our audience. Finding people who are personally ‘most interested’ helps
our business and our clients’ businesses immensely.
The Royals hired 40 people in 2018. What are the challenges of growing so rapidly?
Culture. And remembering everyone’s names.
I’m shit with names. Creating a culture together is one of the most exciting
things to be a part of in any business. If you get it right, it is rocket fuel
for an organisation. So managing culture while having rapid growth is
incredibly important. Like rocket fuel, if you don’t have a tight grip on the
wheel things can get wobbly.
The Royals now has its own research and development lab, as well as a CX division. How has this impacted your own creative process or improved the agency’s work?
These two skill sets are a great example of
how we have stuck to our vision of creating a truly integrated and modern
agency filled with a very diverse group of people. Even though we call them a
department, they work in true collaborative fashion with the broader
agency.
Our CX division was born from being ‘most
interested’. Listening to our clients, it became clear this was something they
wanted to channel energy towards. Our CX team is knocking it out of the park at
the moment. Advance Party, our product research and development lab, has been
part of our agency for the past few years. It has its own dedicated space
within the building. Having this mind set and skill set enables us to solve
problems for our clients that normally wouldn’t come to us in the form of a
marketing brief.
With offices in Sydney and Melbourne, do you have plans for expanding into other markets? What are your goals for 2019?
At the moment we are focused on Melbourne
and Sydney. 2019 is going to be a year all about our creative product.
What do you look for when you’re hiring creatives?
For me, it is about finding interested
entrepreneurial people. I have seen individuals shape independent agencies.
Tapping in to that passion that someone has can create incredible momentum for
the agency. We have revelry as one of our three values. If our staff are
revelling in what they love to do, if they are hustling and shaping the agency,
it makes things exciting and creates growth for the agency and all who live
within it.
What’s your proudest achievement – professional or otherwise?
I think being part of starting two
successful agencies that people talk highly of would have to be something that
makes me proud. Creating an environment and atmosphere that people remember as
being a great chapter in their lives after they move on is a worthy achievement
to me. It’s why we named the company The Royals. We think of ourselves as a
gang. I’m a Royal, you're a Royal.
Oh and my kids. My kids are pretty cool and
I had a hand in raising them.
* Don’t miss ‘Why the world needs more agencies and how to start one’, which takes place next Friday 22nd March as part of the Creative@ADFEST stream. Book tickets via ADFEST.com
