Stephen de Wolf Wants to Do More Than Push “Boundaries at Clemenger”. “My Ambition: Push The Industry's Boundaries”

Eight days into his new job, Stephen de Wolf’s primary challenge isn’t to Clemenger BBDO, but the industry at large: Collectively get back to greatness, be accountable for “solving clients’ business problems”, and push boundaries, “because we haven’t done that for some time.”

Asked about the boundaries he wants to cross, Clemenger BBDO’s chief creative officer said in his first public comments in the role, “My hope is more an industry one. What I have always loved about Clemenger is when it's at its best – and that is part of the job, to bring it back, but different – it did hold an industry accountable for what great work really is.

“And as an industry, we need to look at what we're doing and really ask ourselves, are we pushing boundaries in the work we're doing, and in the creative we're doing, in the craft of what we're making? Because I don't think we are. And we haven't for quite a long time. We have moments of it.

“But 10 years ago, Australia and Zealand, on a global stage, was amazing. It was pushing agendas globally. So rather than pushing boundaries at Clemenger, I'd rather we got back to solving clients' business problems in really innovative ways that work, fresh ways, ways that actually start holding the industry accountable again in what big platform thinking is.

“I want the whole industry to be doing that, because we need to. There's so much facing us. The headwinds for this whole industry and beyond ... it's crazy at the moment. I'd rather we were all pushing boundaries, because we haven't done that for some time … all ships rise if we're doing great things. That is my ambition: push the industry's boundaries.”

Stephen, best known as Wolfie, returned to the agency at the start of last week. It’s a very different Clemenger to the business he left in 2020 for BBH London. During his last stint, Clemenger enjoyed a world-leading run, and work like ‘Meet Graham’ and Snickers’ ‘Hungerithm’ made the clients, agency, and creatives famous.

This time around, his brief is to restore the business to creative greatness, with a bigger toolbox at his disposal: With CHEP and Traffik now rolled into Clemenger, Wolfie is expecting the likes of chief media officer Stuart Bailey -- who joined just six weeks ago after 14 years at OMG agencies, including nine at PHD -- to make the work better.

After a career in media agencies, Stuart has already noticed the impact of creative and media being housed together.

“One of the challenges you have in a media agency is how you work with a creative agency,” he said.

“Sometimes you have a really great relationship. Sometimes you don't ... I'm sure the clients in the room will say one of their top three peeves is when the agency village doesn't work well together, right? So coming in here, I was excited by the proposition … It happens in real time, as opposed to when you've got a creative agency and media agency [and] it happens at set times: once a week, once a month, once every two months."

Wolfie added media and creative agencies having different KPIs is “a big part of why the villages don’t often work.” The biggest opportunity for him and Stuart, he argued, is “to bring media upstream ... that is a superpower. I think anyone media would be really annoyed at those moments when you go, 'Here's the idea, the client's had it for four weeks.'”

Stuart argued integration makes media planners better, too. “Having media people work in a creative agency means when they work with a creative agency, they understand a bit more about how they operate. So it enables us, even on the clients where we don't have creative, to understand how to work seamlessly with them.”

Wolfie and Stuart were joined by strategy director Sophie Gallagher on a panel hosted by LBB in Clemenger’s Sydney offices. The discussion -- which preceded a screening of The Monthly Cut, the world’s best work from around the world -- centred on how to create work that crosses boundaries. Strategy director Sophie explained how Samsung’s ‘Clash of Commuters’, which recently won a Grand Prix at the MFA Awards, blended the physical and digital worlds.

The smallest details -- like exact replicas of buses, ferries, and trains, including their seat covers -- make an experience immersive and “meaningful,” Sophie said. “We needed to make it feel iconically Australian, so we drove cut-through with the brand.”

Strategically, she starts each project by asking, “How do we make new media that hasn't been done before … that intercept consumers, that stand out?” Stuart added, “I'm a big believer in colouring outside the lines, but you have to know where the lines are first. There's plenty of work that I've seen where it's a great idea that just doesn't match up because it doesn't drive client outcomes, or it's not targeting the consumer in the right place.”

Making work that connects people with brands starts with people who are connected with the world. Wolfie can remember exactly where he was when he had his biggest ideas. He was with Evan Roberts and Ant Keogh in the State Library of Victoria when they conceived of ‘Meet Graham’, for instance.

“We're talking to people in culture at the speed of culture,” Wolfie said. “How do we know how to do that, if we're not trying to immerse ourselves?”

James McGrath, the renowned creative who stepped away from Clemenger two years ago, had a “superpower”, Wolfie said of his old boss. He always wanted to know more.

“He was always reading and always learning, he was always listening and understanding his client. You have to, otherwise I don't know how you answer the business problem we're being tasked to solve. And that was also what made Clemenger unique and it still does: we weren't always answering advertising briefs. We were answering business problem briefs, and you can't answer them unless you understand the client's business.”

In a story published earlier this week, Omnicom Oceania boss Nick Garrett told LBB Wolfie returning to Clemenger is “going to be extraordinary,” praising his “passion, energy, modernity.”

“If you can harness the best of what BBDO has done historically, and the best of what made CHEP really interesting and dynamic, that's really extraordinary.”

Wolfie agreed. Clemenger now has full-service capability and “we didn’t have that before”. He has the chance to unlock the potential of a “special kind of network.”

“We have a lot under this roof. And hopefully we start inspiring the industry again, all together.”