Fourteen10 has launched into the market with experienced marketing trio Duncan Allan, Cameron Roberts and Tom O’Connor at the helm.
The independent media agency – which launches on October 14, Roberts and Duncan’s shared birthday – blends marketing science, experimentation, and direct-response advertising to bridge the gap between established big-brand marketing and the world of startups.
Fourteen10 aims to challenge the traditional media agency business model and create a new media agency thinking era. The agency will target growth-oriented challenger brands ready to take on their categories with robust thinking and strategies.
“Fundamentally, we believe advertising has never been harder and the need for skilled agencies never higher,” said Duncan Allan, co-founder of Fourteen10.
“Our collective experiences garnered from media agencies, working with high-growth startups and behind the curtain at Google, have shaped our vision for a new type of agency model that’s laser focussed on helping companies solve their biggest advertising challenges as they mature through different stages.”
Cameron Roberts, former head of strategy at RyvalMedia and co-founder of Fourteen10, said: “We’ve designed the agency with a clean piece of paper to help our clients achieve profitable growth as advertising and marketing becomes more complex. We’re in the business of simple, not easy.”
Tom O’Connor, the third founding member of Fourteen10, said that the agency is clear on what they need to build and what media agencies need to do to stay relevant moving into an AI-driven future.
“We know the biggest advertising challenges brands will face moving forward and are solely focussed on providing solutions to address them.”
The agency’s foundation clients include travel insurance company Fast Cover, men’s healthcare brand Mosh, Fintech Accelerator Archie, salary advance company Wagetap and investment platform Stake.
Bryan Wilmot, CMO of Stake, told Mediaweek the platform’s investment in marketing in its early days was a gradual scale-up as it had not yet reached its $90m Series A and was not in a position to spend.
“As such, we were more in need of consultancy and support rather than a full-service agency. We were referred to Cam and Duncan as an option of how we could get this support on a more moonlit basis. This suited us as it did Cam and Dunc.”
Wilmot said his team was impressed with the Fourteen10 team and their dedication, diligence and determination to prove they could add value to the business to establish a model.
“They did this by demonstrating deep knowledge and adherence to marketing science principles, but also with an ability to be flexible and savvy in how they could apply these and work with us given the stage of the business we were in.
“It’s been a great working relationship since then, and we are incredibly proud to have been with them on their amazing journey and to be one of Fourteen10’s foundational clients.”
Wilmot said Stake’s partnership with Fourteen10 has been a strong contributing factor to its most significant period of growth.
Bryan Wilmot
The agency helped the platform scrutinise the consumer and competitive landscape, identify opportunities, and allowed it to over-index the impact of its budget.
“With a strong basis of marketing science principles enriched with genuine insights on how to relevantly apply these for a scale-up business, we were able to successfully build a lean but highly effective media strategy.
“The results have been clear. We’ve significantly underspent some key category players but have managed to grow awareness from 6% to almost 30% while growing market share almost 2.5x. We now stand as the 3rd largest brokerage platform in the country,” he said.
Stake’s partnership with Fourteen10 has seen it go from being a niche company with limited revenue and budget to commercial growth with funding rounds.
“We have been able to develop the brand, starting to behave as a more mainstream player. While we still focus on community, content and PR, we have become intentional on long-term brand equity growth, consistency of presence in market and importantly orienting to address as many potential category buyers as possible.”
Stake is now the third-largest broker in the country and boasts over 600,000 customers. Wilmot said the platform’s mission to help ambitious Australians grow their wealth remains amid an evolving economic environment.
Meanwhile, in his outlook on the platform’s relationship with Fourteen10, Wilmot optimistically said there is “only one direction. Onwards!”
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Top image: Cameron Roberts, Duncan Allen, Tom O’Connor