Another indie media shop has landed in the Australian market with the launch of Fourteen10 by Duncan Allan, Cameron Roberts, and Tom O'Connor. The trio plan to challenge the traditional media agency business model, with a focus on bridging the gap between big-brand marketing and startups.

The new agency's approach combines marketing science, experimentation, and direct response advertising, with investment in technology and AI to allow the team to automate routine tasks and focus on impactful work and deliver value to clients.

"Fundamentally, we believe advertising has never been harder and the need for skilled agencies never higher. Our collective experiences garnered from media agencies, working with high-growth startups and behind the curtain at Google, have shaped our vision for a new type of agency model that's laser focussed on helping companies solve their biggest advertising challenges, as they mature through different stages," said Allan.

Allan and O'Connor both herald from roles at Google, where O'Connor spent five years in senior marketing roles, and Allan spent three years in digital roles. Robert's background is on the agency side, having spent most of the last decade in roles for consortium agencies, including UM Australia, Bohemia Group, and MediaCom, the latter of which he crossed paths with Allan.

"Designing an agency from scratch to solve important advertising challenges for its clients, means the new business model must look nothing like the status quo. We've designed the agency with a clean piece of paper to help our clients achieve profitable growth as advertising and marketing becomes more complex. We're in the business of simple, not easy," said Roberts.

"We are really clear on what we need to build and what media agencies need to do to stay relevant as we move into an AI future. I couldn't be more excited to be joining Duncan and Cam on this journey. We know the biggest advertising challenges brands will face moving forward and are solely focussed on providing solutions to address them," said O'Connor,

The agency targets growth-oriented challenger brands and its foundation clients include Stake, Fast Cover, Mosh, Archie, and Wageta.

"Fourteen10 brings an exceptional level of expertise in paid media, with a deep understanding of how media mixes should evolve through each stage of a company's growth. Their proactive, forward-thinking approach is reshaping the agency model and making them a standout partner for any business looking to scale," said Founder and CEO of growth fund Archie, and ex-CMO of Uber, Steve Brennen.

"Too often I have found myself working with media agencies that are completely out of touch with the realities of a scaling business. Fourteen10 has been the antithesis of this. Not only is their knowledge of media exceptional, but they also understand the intricacies of the landscape and can communicate with us not just in media terms but in the language of the boardroom," said CMO of Mosh, Nick Holden.

The name Fourteen10 is derived from the shared birth date of co-founders Duncan Allan and Cameron Roberts, October 14. "Duncan and I share an October 14 birth date and so October 14th being the fourteenth day of the tenth month, and our name, seemed like an auspicious date to officially launch," said Roberts.