Life’s a beach at Bondi Advertising
Being one of the Australia’s most famous creative communities, it’s somewhat surprising that only now has Bondi Beach finally become home to an ad agency. Tapping this vibrant energy has taken the combined efforts of two experienced industry creatives and long-time Bondi locals, Steven Thomson (left) and Jonas Allen (far left).
Both recently returning from successful stints overseas, Thomson having spent 5 years with TBWA\Chiat\Day Los Angeles while Allen’s efforts were spread between running his fashion label Skipping Girl, creative directing at Moon Design and building a digital studio in India.
Having worked together on various projects since the early 90’s, thepair decided it was time to join forces yet again and set up shop onlya stone’s throw from the beach.
Favoring action over hype, this week the guys unofficially launchedBondi Advertising with a fully integrated national ad campaign fordenim brand Mavi jeans.
This colorful celebration of the Social Networking world that bothrefreshes the Mavi brand while also showcasing a diverse product range,has now been picked up and adapted by the denim giant globally, runningit extensively throughout Europe and the United States.
Bondi Advertising is conveniently located behind the North Bondi RSLclub, where either Thomson or Allen will be more than happy to comeover and sign you in.
37 Comments
FINNNAAALLLLY!!!! SOME COOL DUDES IN ADVERTISING AT MY FAVOURITE PLACE IN THE WORLD!!! ROCK IT !!!
two ripper guys and a ripper of a first campaign, good luck to you both
– L
So glad that Bondi is now representing on the advertising front. Until now, it’s just been totally incomplete, just a stupid beach with hot birds (some of them in thongs!), but now it’s like anything can happen here. Your faces are the future of Bondi advertising and maybe the beginnings of a creative hub, kinda like the Factory was for that Gandy Ahole guy in the 50s, I feel you dudes – the smiley glasses guy and the had too many coffees guy, I fucking love you.
And I love The Mavis’s! What a great first campaign for a great band, glad you have reformed! Fuck yeah!
Brett
it’s a shame the only thing that either of them can surf is the web (India and LA).. Na.. Good on you guys, you’ll be fine as long as you don’t drop-in on me.
POWER to you both!!! hope we can do some cool shit together in the future.
I remember Steve when he was a male model.
He’s still famous at the GAP for the model that could walk and TALK.
Great to see those brains didn’t go to waste.
This is going to be like season 4 of “Madmen”, but heaps boring eh.
Well Done Guys!
I’m Steve’s Mum so slightly biased but they’ve worked real hard & deserve praise & above all success.
Terrible name for the agency though.
You guys are gonna rip it !
You guys are gonna rip it !
Ok, so I checked out the Mavi Jeans stuff.
It’s a social media campaign and that means you need to get fans/followers.
So far –
Anna and Marcus have 93 fans each (woohoo)
Daniel has 121 fans and Serena is leading the pack with a whopping 127. You go girl.
Not a lot of “fans” to be honest, I think my brother’s dog has more fans on Facebook.
Daniel’s big fan base must be due to his uber cool update on April 14 at 12:53am where he tells us he “is at the beach biatch”. Really Daniel? At 12:53am? Seems strange “duuuude”.
But then Serena gives us an insight to her uber cool life with an update at an odd hour, this time at 12:58am, where tells us she “is on the back of da bus!”
But, it’s good to see the partners of the agency hit the “Like” button on some of these comments, gee it’s lucky they saw the comments and liked them.
My cynical mind is leading me to believe that maybe, just maybe, the updates are coming from the Bondi Advertising boys themselves when they get home from the Bondi RSL. Which is ok, this is ad land after all and nothing is real, but come on guys, enough with the homie talk (“da bus” and “biatch”), you are in friggin’ Bondi, not Compton “yo”! Sounds like Mr Thompson picked up more than a salon tan and hair highlights while living in LA.
So, there’s a sub-total (as I write this) of 434 fans, many of which are the same people on each fan page, so a rough guesstimate gives me around 150 actual fans maybe (too lazy to count each one so am more than happy to be corrected on this), in a country of around 25 million people. Not sure if I would call this a resounding social media success, but like I said, this is ad land, so no need to let the facts get in the way of some press exposure.
Anyway, I am gonna get on “da bus” and head to the beach “biatches”. Hopefully Daniel will be there hangin’ with his homies to keep me company, because as we know, he only goes to the beach “biatch” when the moon is out.
Yo. Word. Tell it like it is brotha. Word to your motha. Yo. Biatch. Where my homies at?
hang on a minute, so if the facebook pages are managed by the client it is not a “real” social network concept, as in the talent on the pages are not involved. wouldn’t it have been more real and a bigger idea if they were actually responding and interacting with the audience, that is what social media is all about. shame. would have been a more interesting and relevant idea if that was the case.
Steve Thomson, you go girl, me and the other kiwi miss your musk.
Actually the winter season FB page advertising has been delayed due to the unseasonably long summer. Thanks
Actually, it’s great name for an agency.
Bondi is a world renowned brand in it’s own right.
Nicely leveraged.
nice, can i have a job there?
11.04 Don’t be a dick. Leverage my arse.
ditto 10.58. LOVE IT.
It would appear that 3:12 is asking for “a dick” to “leverage (his) arse.”
I’ve seen some pretty raw requests on this blog, but I think that one takes the cake, so to speak.
Perhaps this isn’t the ideal forum to vent my concerns (sorry Bondi guys) but after looking at the Mavi Jeans campaign I felt genuinely perplexed. You see, it’s one of those campaigns which urges you to sign up, take action, get involved and have an ongoing conversation with the brand.
Am I the only person in the world that’s just too fucking lazy for this stuff?
I mean, why would anyone choose to spend their valuable bandwidth watching what is essentially and online advert when with only a click of a mouse they can watch hilarious clips on youtube or jerk off to redtube.
Anyway, as an advertising student of the 90s, I was always told that people hate ads and that you have to be extra clever/ interesting/ funny to entice them to even glance at your work.
If this is still true, then what chance does a campaign like this (or any of these interactive campaigns) have of really getting noticed?
It’s not any refection on the creative, but of the genre as a whole.
Nevertheless, I genuinely wish the Bondi guys the best of luck. They have the balls to do something I would never dream of in this market.
i miss your musk as well stevie t
-js
Worthy comment, 4:31. Let’s never forget: the audience isn’t waiting to see ads. So if you want the punters to notice your work, let alone interact, make it interesting… or pornographic.
4.12 You’re obviously Australian without much experience for the finer eccentricities of the Anglo/Irish tongue.
Trust me, 5:41, I lived in London for a year during which time I did indeed become familiar with the finer eccentricities of both the Anglo AND the Irish “tongue”.
Ah but I digress.
Was that whilst you were rimming one of your 25 flatmates crashing in the lounge room?
By deduction, 9:37, if I’m the Australian, it wouldn’t be MY “tongue” doing the rimming now would it? Think about it.
man, i have seen those same bloody bondi hipsters (that seem to be part of a mini indie hipster sess pool) sprawled accross so many fashion brand collateral/ print ads for general pants, ksubi, monster children ect over the years… infact i have met a bunch of these arrogant bondi doolies, and there is nothing about a young, late 20 something, uneducated slacker, often unemployed mostly working retail at general pants / or ksubi store in bondi, pretty boy / girl that would make me or many people for that matter buy a pair of jeans… its just not enough
… this type of work just shows arrogance on the part of the Bondi crowd for simply thinking that being photogenic and lean would be enough for someone to actually take this stuff seriously.
“Favoring action over hype…” and American spelling over Australian, “…This colorful celebration of the Social Networking world…” is like… just how we roll, dude.
Since when was Bondi’s postcode 90210?
yeah 12:25 there comes that moment in every man’s life when he realizes hes no longer relevant. when that music they blast in general pants sounds just like noise, (not like in your day when they had real songs) or that those skinny jeans that those pesky kids wear look just ridiculous, unlike your old faded 501’s, (now they were a pair of jeans!) .yeah those arrogant young punks obviously just dont get it like you do. poor bastards, the whole fashion may as well just shut and let the cotton trees grow…
to 10:58 May 2nd
Seriously mate I yawned about three times reading your post and then just gave up…
” I used to be with it. But then they changed what it was. Now it just seems strange and scary to me!”
mavi is better than the derivative merde that masquerades as fashion youth advertising in this country
what about Nemo?
Yeah, what about Nemo?
Well, yes, Bondi is a real cool brand and cool place and it would be sure to stay a cool place if we could just stop all the NASTY PROPERTY DEVELOPERS from building their aggressively sized and stupidly designed cocaine-palaces….
It’s the next step in Sydney’s mad property speculation cycle: run-down suburb (Bondi was nowhere before 1995-ish) attracts bohmenian crowd, then trendies arrive, then the money brigade spots an opportunity and develops! Ugh, which destroys the very qualities that made it smart…. Over-developing, over-shadowing, over-pricing, etc: add in the clumsy 4WD mommas, the aggro fast-fooders, and BINGO, no-one wants to go there anymore.
We’ve just had a NANDO’s approved in Hall Street, for god’s sake.
PLEASE Bondi Advertising, put your talents to work to keep the Bondi everyone loves.
Sorry if this is an off-topic rant, but gee, Bondi is far too good to go the way of Surfers…
So not off topic Bondibloke, this is the only interesting and relevant comment posted. Keep the MoFo’s out and stop with the naff over development. And please can we have a quota on South African speaking, 4WD driving mummas… Please!!