“All of us as CMOs and marketing leaders can list these things we have all got – there’s marketing automation, media, data and AI, studio capabilities, design – but what about creative capability? It’s the most important ability I believe for any marketing team,” Smart said while on a panel of marketing chiefs at this year’s SxSW Sydney event.

“At Telstra, we have incredible engineering, product and digital talent in the business. That’s awesome. In terms of the culture we’re trying to create in marketing, I’m trying to build a creative culture inside our organisation.”

Two things lie at the heart of Smart’s plan: creative-led culture itself; and creativity as a discipline. To this end, he recruited a dedicated Head of Creative Excellence, Anna Jackson, to Telstra in July.

“It’s rewiring the way we work, brief, how we judge creative work and feedback on that, all through the lens of how we make this more creative and effective,” Brent said of the role. “We spend as much time on creative as a capability as we do other capabilities. Whereas with most other departments I’ve worked in or for, creative is a magic thing that happens over there.

“If you can create a culture inside a corporation that is creative, generate really innovative and creative thinking, and win the trust of the broader organisation so that creativity can actually live, not die – that’s an incredible competitive advantage for any organisation,” he added.

Telstra's new creative agency approach

Smart’s comments came just days after news broke of his decision to replace incumbent creative agency, The Monkeys, with a two-horse approach enabling Telstra to tap into what many believe is the hottest creative agency in Australia right now, indie shop, Bear Meets Eagle on Fire, led by founder and chief creative officer, Micah Walker.

As reported by Mi3, the new creative agency structure sees Bear Meets Eagle on Fire paired with larger self-professed ‘disruptor’ network agency, TBWA\Australia, in a dual but one-bill arrangement. The agency partnership is being called '+61', Australia's international calling code. On the media side, Telstra retains OMD as an equal partner in the triumvirate.

Parting ways with long-term creative shop The Monkeys left several industry leaders scratching their heads, particularly after the well received This is Footy Country campaign. 

“I’ll start by acknowledging our longer-term partners – we had a few partners for some time who had done some really good work and contributed to Telstra’s business. It’s not about what they’ve done, it’s about how we evolve and move forward,” Smart said.

“My strongest belief is creativity must lead and be at the core of anything we do. This new model is unapologetically creative led. I believe we’re getting the best of both worlds with this that you can’t normally find in one agency partner.”

Bear Meets Eagle on Fire recently claimed the AWARD Award for best individual agency and took out the gong for Small Agency of the Year, International, Silver, at trade publication AdAge. Just prior to his departure from IAG, Smart had firsthand experience with the agency on NRMA’s brand campaign, ‘Until then we are here’. The campaign centred around two 60-second films and was accompanied by out-of-home and press advertising.  

These two creative agencies are now “coming together in a really integrated way” for Telstra, Smart said.

“It’s the creativity of a small, independent creative – silly name, great agency – with the strategic muscle and ability to integrate across all channels and capabilities, plus operational excellence you need for a big business like ours which we get from a network agency like TBWA. But one that’s about disruption,” he said.

“This is about putting creativity at the heart, having true integration, and being able to access all capabilities through one account team and commercial arrangement. I don’t think there’s anything like it. It’s not one of those one-client agencies, which are built for efficiency. It’s a unique partnership and we’re excited to get going with it.”

It shouldn’t surprise anyone Smart’s focus on creative-first is leading strategy in his second client-side CMO posting. His first campaign as CMO at IAG was an emotive two-minute Christmas ad for NRMA Insurance?

That ad came also three months after dropping the insurance giant’s agency, M&C Saatchi, who had held the NRMA account for three years, to move the account to The Monkeys. At the time, Smart positioned the ‘Long Way’ film as a shift back to the storytelling style of advertising NRMA was once known for.

He followed it up by reclaiming the ‘Help’ legacy moniker that had been languishing in the top drawer of the IAG marketing office for 15 years to kickstart a suite of emotive work, from protecting koala homes to ‘Stories of Help’.

Charging ahead with bold creativity

The insight into Telstra’s new approach inevitably led to a broader discussion across the SxSW CMO panel about how they inject creativity into their marketing efforts. Fellow panellist, CommBank CMO Jo Boundy, expressed an appetite to take a bolder approach in the big four bank’s messaging to customers.  

“Where we have seen some recent success is around storytelling. What we do as marketers and brands is storytelling, and building an emotional connection through stories,” she said.

“For us in banking, we participate in an industry and topic that is bizarrely taboo for most Australians: we don’t talk about money. We love money but we don’t talk about money. Someone said to me recently, people would rather tell you how many people they slept with than what their salary is.

“We have a job to do around how we make the conversation about money really relevant. By that, I mean educating people, engaging in storytelling and connecting creatively with people on a topic they don’t necessarily like to talk or think about.”

It’s not always the big ideas, Boundy continued, that are the bravest. “Sometimes, it’s about going back to basics, looking at what is the core and essence of what we’re trying to do with customers as a brand. That’s connect with customers about products and services we offer in a really engaging way,” she said.  

“Money should be sexy – it’s amazing and powers dreams. Financial literacy in this country is falling off a cliff, so we have a responsibility to help Australians get better with their personal finances. And that’s where we have seen a breakthrough over the last few months – leaning in a lot more into content, storytelling, making finance content engaging, accessible and something people want to connect with.”

Taking a stand on trust

Hand-in-hand with brand engagement is brand trust. With trust at an all-time low in many ways, panellists agreed another key priority they share is working to build trust with customers. Smart pointed out trust is an emotional, not rational thing, which takes a long time to build, can be lost in seconds, and takes even longer to win back.  

“Jo and I work in two categories with trust challenges – thank God Qantas came along – but the telco industry suffers from low trust. Telstra as a brand doesn’t perform well on trust rankings,” Smart said.  

“I’ll unpack that. When I joined, I assumed we’d have a trust issue with young people, that Telstra was a mum and dad brand. But it’s the opposite – we are really strong with younger customers; the older customers carry the baggage of what we used to be, not what we are today. We can play a very different role in people’s lives, but we have all this baggage that’s hard to break down and takes time. It’s what we deliver day in, day out that changes that; not advertising. But it’s very deep-seated, hard to move thing brands struggle with. We want to be one of the most trusted brands in Australia.”

Not dissimilarly, Boundy agreed people have long memories when it comes to banking. Rather than focusing on how to build trust in abstract or in response to your own corporate crisis, she stressed the importance of brands responding during or post-crisis, as critical to earning iconic status.

“It’s about how you show up when a nation needs you. Take the bushfires, floods, Covid – how you show up and play leadership role and support others is a huge component of how you build trust,” Boundy said.  

Canva, which has just celebrated its tenth birthday, thinks about trust starting from its product and radiating outwards.

“I recall a teacher at school said trust is like putting cookies in the jar; it takes a long time to fill the jar but not long to empty it of cookies,” global CMO, Zach Kitschke, said. “It’s about building trust every day, in every interaction.

“We have 150 million people using our product every month for important things… if the product doesn’t work, you lose trust in an instant. It’s about every touchpoint from our product up. Our mission is to empower the world to design – that empowerment is the core essence of our brand. Everything we do is about delivering on that.”