“Safe work is dangerous if you’re an agency
that wants to be known as a creative agency.”
Shane Geffen’s career spans two continents
and four cities, as a creative at agencies including Ogilvy Johannesburg, DDB
Sydney, Clemenger BBDO Melbourne and VMLY&R Melbourne. It also covers the
world’s biggest brands such as McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, Volkswagen and BMW as
well as Australia’s famous Sydney Opera House, Myer, Monash University and the
Australian Defence Force.
His untraditional work has been amply
rewarded at the world’s major award shows. He has invited people to the Sydney
Opera House through their selfies, created a WiFi Christmas bauble that lets
children know if they’ve been naughty or nice, enlisted AI to help recruit
humans into the Navy (winning a and created a dystopian future to attract
students to join a university, launched a new Toyota by destroying it and
turning it into a lab-grown diamond, and most recently showing male gamers what
it’s like to play through the eyes of women, earning Maybelline New York its
first Cannes Lions ever.
ADFEST: The Australian news media
went to town with the maxim, bad news sells, in 2024. How did this affect
HERO’s business and creative work?
Shane Geffen: Creating work that is newsworthy, whether through shock, innovation, or creativity, will always get attention. And we’re in the business of attention for our clients, whether they’re launching a new product or service. Presenting ideas as news headlines is something we always consider when selling bigger ideas. I think we do a good job of that. Most recently, we transformed a Toyota with a diamond-inspired design into a limited collection and printed the world’s first memories for Instax. If you can sell the headline, you can sell the idea.
ADFEST: Safe work and following
ad trends are easy to do and often easy to sell. But are they dangerous?
Shane Geffen: They’re dangerous if you’re an agency that wants to be known as a
creative agency. Right now, there are probably about 20 creative agencies in
Australia consistently doing interesting work. Then there are about 9,000
others (I’m not kidding Google it) that probably aren’t too concerned about
that. Some play it safe, make good money, and support a lot of people and
families, which is great. It really depends on where an agency is in its
journey and what it wants to achieve.
Personally, I believe, and I’m sure most
readers would agree, that the agencies producing thought-provoking, innovative
work are the ones people and clients naturally gravitate toward.
ADFEST: What does the
successful agency, successful advertising industry, of the future look like?
Shane Geffen: Things are changing rapidly in Adland. To stay ahead, agencies must
integrate AI as both a production and creative resource tool. But when it comes
to long-term success, one thing will never change - having the right mix of
people with a shared ambition and relentless tenacity to create interesting
work.
The agencies with the highest concentration
of people who share that mindset will always thrive.
ADFEST: If advertising can
be anything from a stand-up comedy routine to a talking tree are there still
essentials that define great work?
Shane Geffen: If you share it with your mates, talk about it, and envy it, I’m
pretty sure it’s good.
ADFEST: What did you have to add to
your skillset to become a national ECD from a copywriter? What did you have to
let go of? What are you most proud of?
Shane Geffen: Every person is shaped by the people they’ve worked with. I’ve been
fortunate to work with some insanely humble and talented creatives, planners
and suits over the years. Learning, whether consciously or simply through
osmosis, has helped me develop an intuition and radar for great ideas. I still
get nervous with every brief, no matter how big or small, and I kind of like
that uneasiness.
Stepping up nationally, I’ve had to get
better at managing my time. I can’t be actively involved in everything, but
that gives my teams more freedom to step up too, which they do repeatedly. And
it shows in the work.
That’s what I’m always proud of, the work. The work becomes a benchmark for us,
year after year, pushing us to either match it or surpass it. And I can
confidently say, it keeps getting better thanks to the people.
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