Cam Blackley and Emily Taylor – M&C Saatchi’s former CCO and CSO, respectively – have launched a “creative office” called Bureau of Everything, supported by an advisory board featuring Jeff Goodby.
Blackley left M&C Saatchi last October after almost six years with the agency, and Taylor followed in February. She’d been with M&C Saatchi for three and a half years. At the time of his departure, Blackley said:
“For several months now I have had robust and respectful discussions with Justin [Graham, APAC CEO] on the shape of things to come. M&C Saatchi globally is going through a period of transition and that has accelerated the decision to part company.
“The ad industry feels beautifully disrupted at the moment, I’ve never been one to lean into the status quo and I’m keen to build something new after a break.”
That “something new” is Bureau of Everything, or BoE, which the duo does not call an agency. Taylor told Mediaweek that the term ‘agency’ “feels like it has quite a lot of baggage for clients, at least the ones we spoke to. Whether that’s because they default to ads as the solution or because they’re focused on the creative ideas they want to make, not the work the brand needs.”
Instead, BoE “a new shape of creative office, designed to deliver exactly what a more complex world demands … world class strategy and creativity as the nucleus of a more progressive creative model and business.” Blackley becomes creative founder and Taylor strategic founder – the pair is gearing up to move into an office space in Sydney’s Surry Hills.
Taylor said the venture came about organically. “During our time at M&C we were always a power duo,” she said to Mediaweek. “Of late, we were freelancing together, we could see the real value in our combo, so we decided to formalise it and do our own thing.”
Blackley agreed the shop is “a response to what we have been hearing from clients for years, opting for a strat/creative directorship as the core for more impactful problem solving. We want to partner with brands and people who are also feeling the urgency for change.”
Taylor explained that there will be “stewardship from end-to-end rather than the dipping in and out. The value of that is there’s creativity in the problem-solving upfront and there’s a strategic thread that is keeping the creativity honest all the way through. We are also designed to operate with clients in different ways – retainers, projects and augmenting in-house teams.”
The mission? To make things as unmissable as the world they live in. “There is no alternative unless you like setting piles of money on fire,” Blackley added.
Taylor distilled the purpose too; Bureau of Everything is designed to “truly answer the big question we hear from clients: What is my business problem and how will you solve it?”
BoE joins an ever-growing list of independent agencies launched by ex-holding co execs, including Howatson+Co, Today the Brave, Supermassive, Reunion, and It’s Friday. In March, an ex-Droga5 duo and the brains behind Hawke’s Brewing Co launched a similarly-governmental sounding creative shop: The Ministry for Communications & The Arts.
The Bureau’s model sounds most similar to Supermassive’s “hub and spoke” approach. Blackley and Taylor explained: “Bureau builds bespoke teams for every project, based on the brief.” It will call upon talent the duo has worked with before.
Bureau of Everything is already working on a few projects, “with interesting brands with big opportunities. Brands interested in doing things a bit differently.”
“We are purposefully super senior, purposefully leaner, and purposefully flexible,” Taylor said. “Mixing brand and digital skills, uniting business and brand thinkers with the ability to shape teams depending on the brief. This model allows us to always have a rock solid foundation but still be bespoke and importantly, a lot less ‘cookie cutter.'”
Goodby, the internationally renowned co-founder of US agency Goodby, Silverstein + Partners, said: “I’m really impressed by Cam and Emily’s determination to bring a whole new way of interacting with clients in order to get things right. It’s about time.”
Together, Blackley and Taylor have more than 40 years’ experience, dozens of Effies, and a slew of creative awards between them. They have worked at agencies like Droga5, Leo Burnett, BMF, and AKQA. At M&C Saatchi, some of their most notable work included the G’Day platform for Tourism Australia – the agency is about to lose the account, since it is no longer part of the ongoing Tourism Australia pitch – and Minderoo’s Thrive by 5 and Plastic Forecast.
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They credited design consultancy M35, Caro Gilroy, Simon Harsent, and production studio Limehouse for helping to create the Bureau of Everything brand.