“I’ve never heard of Optus,” Ricky Gervais says in a piece to camera as he leans back on a chaise lounge with a plain white mug in hand.
It was this line that left Australians cackling during Gervais’ first Optus ad to promote a Netflix package back in March 2015 – an ad brought to life and executed by independent creative agency Emotive.
The ad smashed all expectations for Emotive and Optus.
It achieved 15 million video views online with more than five million organic views across Facebook and YouTube. It was the second most watched advert on YouTube in Australia that year, while on Facebook it was the fastest branded video to hit four million views in the history of the platform in Australia.
For Optus, the clever ‘anti-ad’ generated six times higher interest than any previous Optus TV campaign, and resulted in a 165% lift in searches for the brand.
The initial TV spot spawned a series of follow-ups with Gervais which drove a similar narrative and kept audiences engaged over how irreverent the comedian would be next.
For his part in the iconic ad, Gervais said: “They said I could say whatever I wanted, so I did. I wrote and directed the ads and filmed them in a day. Easy money.”
As the inaugural campaign and Emotive mark 10 years, Mediaweek chats to CEO and founder Simon Joyce, behind how the ad was executed and brought to life, its impact and legacy and celebrating a decade in the industry.
The early days
Back then, the agency was just a small, ambitious team of six people, set up in a tiny workspace in Clovelly, NSW. Among the team were Joyce, Alison Daly and Ben Keep, who are all still part of Emotive, plus then ECD Charlie Leahy.
“We set up Emotive because we felt brands overcorrected to performance marketing. There was a lack of emotion in brand communication,” Joyce recalled of the agency’s beginnings as a content agency that offered smart strategy, great ideas, executed through content.
“We saw content and film as some of the best ways to bring emotion to the forefront on behalf of the brands, the most powerful immersive technique there is.
“We had a very clear enemy from day one and that was dull brand creativity, and we felt there was a lack of genuine emotional storytelling on the other side.
Left to right: Ben Keep, Alison Mitchell, Charlie Leahy, Simon Joyce, Aimee Stewart, Jamie Crick.
“We set out on this big mission which is very similar to our purpose now, big ideas change how people feel. Our philosophy in bringing those ideas to life was to ‘create entertainment, not interruption’ whether that’s in ads or in content or experiential or whatever it may be.
“We felt there was a real problem to solve especially, as I reflect on the time, there was just so much ineffective branded content.”
“On YouTube, there were a lot of brands trying to play in this space, with work that was fractured from their brand strategy at times, and it wasn’t working cohesively with the broader campaign.”
“YouTube had become a little bit of a dumping ground of ineffective branded content. We said, ‘No, there’s a role here where big ideas can come to life through content, and you can do it with an ‘entertainment first, not interruption’ lens.”
Simon Joyce on the launch day of Emotive
Walk down memory lane
“When we launched the business, given my media background I was fortunate enough to have a relationship with Optus and we were given the opportunity to pitch our credentials at launch.
“As fate would have it just after launch, this brief came to life quite late. In fact, I can still remember we were briefed on 10 March 2015 to launch an Optus/Netflix partnership, for something that had to be live two weeks later.
“At that time, Optus had more of a retail campaign approach on traditional channels. We had an opportunity with the clients, Nigel Lopez-McBean and Karen Phipson, to work in the content space alongside the more traditional campaign rollout.
“The campaign message was very simple, ‘if you signed up for Optus on certain postpaid packages, you got three months of Netflix for free’ and so that became part of your Optus subscription essentially.
“It was compelling, and Netflix was very new to the Australian market back then. We were fortunate when we launched the business, we pitched our credentials and then there happened to be this gap and it happened to be in our sweet spot, and as I say, the rest is history.”
Casting Ricky Gervais
“As a creative agency founder, in nine out of 10 cases, more time equals better work,” added Joyce. “But you do have to structure the business to jump in and solve problems at pace. You’ve got to understand how to run the business in that way, in those moments, but you can’t have every campaign like that because you’re never going to get the best work.
“But every now and again it works. And as a new business you have no distractions, you’re just single-minded. Optus was our first client, and it was our first real opportunity three or four weeks in. So you live and breathe that.”
“In understanding that brief, firstly we felt there was an opportunity. The driving insight was more of a category insight, there was an opportunity to do the most honest telco ad because telcos were renowned for having lots of terms and conditions and this was actually a really simple consumer offer.
“With that insight and the gravitas of Netflix we wanted to make the most honest telco ad ever. That’s where we started leaning into that category truth.”
Ricky Gervais on set
From there, it was go time for the Emotive team as they moved into discussions about who they could work with, while they kept in mind Netflix’s position at the time as becoming the epicentre of entertainment culture.
“We said, if our idea is the most honest telco ad ever, creatively, we need to show up in a way that’s as entertaining as Netflix itself. We need Optus to be synonymous here with great entertainment, they’re going to represent Netflix,” said Joyce.
“At that point, we agreed the best way to do that with the time we had was going to be a talent-led strategy. We then cast three particular talent that we wanted to negotiate with and one of those was of course the one and only, Ricky Gervais.
“And it moved incredibly quickly. I can remember, we presented the idea, we got permission to go forth and continue and set up the discussions with Ricky. That was from late on a Wednesday night, and by Friday midnight, the deal was done.
“Then we went through this incredible journey. Saturday, 2am, it was off. By Saturday, 6am, it was back on. We were on the plane to London by 11am that morning, where we shot there on the Monday.
Production team on set with Ricky Gervais
“There were four of us that worked around the clock, then we had such a fast post-production, it was beyond fast and furious.
“It happened at incredible pace and Optus were amazing throughout in really trusting a new agency at the time and giving us that opportunity.
For Joyce, as a leader, the experience was incredibly hectic, stressful and exciting all at once.
He recalled: “You’ve just started, you’ve got nothing to lose, but you’ve got everything to lose. It was our first piece of work and we really wanted to make a statement. Looking back, we had no right to get Ricky Gervais, but we had belief, tonnes of tenacity and the planets did align.
“That underpinned our way of thinking at the time, to have that crazy level of belief that you can take stuff on, that you can make what seemed like the impossible happen. Sometimes it comes off, but you should never, ever lose that level of belief. And this was one of those moments.
“To this day, there’s a fair bit of that ‘let’s give this a crack’ ethos that remains in the business.”
BTS of Gervais on set for Optus
Leaning into simplicity
The ads oozed simplicity, delivered through humour by Gervais, and were anchored in truth.
Joyce explained that the team trusted the audience to recognise that Gervais was being paid an exorbitant sum for the job, that he did not know who Optus was and that he wanted to do the bare minimum.
‘There was this beautiful truth about it, and in a category that’s renowned for a fair bit of puffery in what is communicated, this was the exact opposite and the audience lapped it up.”
Joyce noted Gervais as a key factor about why the ad was a success. “When you work with talent, you’ve got to get that synchronicity between brand talent and audience. This absolutely had that. This was vintage Ricky. He’s the only talent that could pull that off.
“The audience got more of what they love from Ricky, and it just so happened it involved a brand, and they (the audience) lapped it up even more.
“So often when you work with talent as a brand, it’s going to be an underperforming content vs non branded work. But in this case, it was one of Ricky’s best performing ever assets in terms of the content that he put out there through his social channels.”
Joyce noted that the ad set a new benchmark for brand uplift, sales uplift scores and media metrics.
“It had a pretty big impact and still to this day, the amount of people that still talk about that and still remember continues to amaze me.”
Credit to the team
Joyce praised the hard work and effort of the small team who brought their inaugural campaign with their first client, alongside Starcom Optus’ media agency at the time.
Among Emotive’s key people at the time were Alison Daly, who managed the delivery of the campaign, and Ben Keep who worked with Joyce on negotiating the contract – both still work for Emotive.
Joyce highlighted Charlie Leahy, ECD at the time, as a “massive part” of bringing the creative together and Jamie Crick, who oversaw the ad’s distribution. The team worked with UK production unit Caviar London with director Sam Washington who Gervais was keen to work with.
He also credited Will Ward, the comedian’s talent agent from WME, for taking a chance on Emotive, despite it being a brand-new agency.
Will Ward commented: “Ten years on and the brilliant Ricky Gervais Optus ads are still being talked about. It was one of those rare moments where the stars aligned: a perfect synchronicity between brand, talent, and audience.
“And though we hadn’t worked with Emotive before, it was immediately clear they had a real desire to embrace Ricky’s unique & groundbreaking scripts, and that they were perhaps slightly rebellious and a little mad given the insane timelines we had.”
Charlie Leahy, Sam Washington with Gervais
Joyce gave special mention to Optus, saying they took a gamble on so much. “The way they backed it at the time, that rarely ever happens,” he said, still incredulous.
“There was some wonderful leadership, and they were willing to trust the audience to understand the joke, and to understand and realise this is classic Ricky.
“Optus were just the best partner and have been the best partner for ten straight years.”
But for Joyce, no one deserves more credit than Ricky Gervais. He said the improvisation and all round comedy genius was what made this entire campaign a hit.
“He’s an absolute legend.”
Joyce also thanked his family who have supported him in his endeavours with Emotive since its beginnings. “My wife, Tarnia, and our three kids, Lucas, Kalan, and Milla have all been part of this journey in one way or another. Their backing has been massive, and there’s no way Emotive would be where it is today without it.”
Launching a new brand identity, a production company and celebrating ten years
Joyce’s chat with Mediaweek marks the start of Emotive’s celebration of 10 years that’s seen the agency grow and develop attention-grabbing campaigns, including HOKA, Unilever, Google, Optus, and Pernod Ricard.
Over the next three months, the agency will have a program of events to underscore the unveiling of its new brand identity that brings to life its purpose: ‘Ideas that change the way people feel.’
“That’s a litmus test for the ideas we put forward,” Joyce said. “And having an agency wide ambition of fame is critical to deliver on that. After all, you’re more likely to change how someone feels if you can create an idea that’s worth talking about.”
“As a philosophy, it means ideas first, not ads. It means fame as an essential, not a nice to have. That then means, execution-wise, how do we entertain instead of just interrupt?
“We’ve got the idea firepower, but equally, we understand there’s mechanics that are more likely to propel an idea into culture.
“That’s where our specialism come into play, covering social, talent, PR, brand experience and partnerships, that all sit under the one roof. We understand the nuances of these areas and that are more likely to over-index in earned media.”
The agency will also be launching Emotive productions, a wholly owned business that specialises in bringing ideas to life through content via an end to end production offering.
On marking a decade in business, Joyce said: “Hitting a decade as an indie is huge, and it’s important to take a beat and celebrate, not just where we’ve been, but where we’re going.
“More than anything, I feel grateful. So many people, our team, clients, partners, have helped build this business, and this is a great chance to acknowledge them all.
“We’ve got a clear plan for what’s next, but over the next few months, it’s about taking a few moments to appreciate the crazy fun, stressful and rewarding journey so far.”
Top image: Simon Joyce