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 If theres one thing weve learned from this whole AdTown lark, its that theres an awful lot of Ad Agencies out there. Yeah, yeah, we know, therell be those of you who want to try and differentiate between the real agencies and the pretend ones. But in these anything goes times, thats not a past time we feel inclined to engage in. If you act on behalf of a client, youre an agent for them. If the action you do happens to be advertising, youre an 'advertising agent'. Thats good enough for us. Although we accept that logic falls down if what you do for them is also secret, because that hardly makes you a secret agent. But you get the picture. So does Adelaide really need another Ad Agency? Hell, Why not! we say! Especially if its one that wants to kick some serious creative arse.
Enter Xtra Shiny - the brainchild of award winning creative Adam Johnson. After stints with a number of local agencies including Einstein da Vinci, WDM and Showpony, Adams decided his days of servitude are over. I love working with all sorts of people, but I dont want to work under people I want to work with them he explained of his move to go solo earlier this year. But heres a guy with some fairly serious creative principles so dont expect to see him whoring himself out on any old project any time soon. Because after a few months of testing the water, the doors of Xtra Shiny are about to open on Rundle Street where hes set himself the lofty goal of not only creating great work, but to help lift the overall standard of creative work coming out of Adelaide.
I just want to do good work for good people and try and raise the bar a little bit for myself as well as the collective so people stop looking at Adelaide as a second rate creative town he said, adding in one mans utopian ideal thats possible. And he has the suits that sit between the clients and the creative people who dont stand up for their good work enough firmly in his sights. A lot of great ideas probably die because of the middle man. My biggest point is that creative teams that arent exposed to clients - theres a big gap there. I want to be in clients faces a lot more. Its a model KWP! successfully championed in their early days, giving clients direct access to the people who create the work. Although its more modern agencies like Sydneys The Glue Society Adam is keen to emulate. Im doing ads, design and branded environments he explained, going on to say Unless the work we do is better than the last job weve done, I dont feel fulfilled. I just want to keep doing better and better work and challenging myself.
Xtra Shiny will be doing awesome stuff for anyone - including other agencies. And his recent work on the Fantastic Noodles Pimp My Kettle campaign through agency Clemenger is, he says, an example where direct client contact allowed the creatives to answer any client questions articulately and immediately and resulted in unfiltered creative work and a better end product. He refuses to believe Adelaide lacks creative opportunity, explaining Theres a lot of creatives out there complaining budgets arent big enough, client arent brave enough, but I think a lot of it comes down to the creatives need to be bolder and more confident and argue a point. Adam sounds like a man on a mission if ever weve heard one, and with his creative track record and enthusiasm we certainly wont be getting in his way.
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