Agency Named Desire launches to put sports, entertainment and culture partnerships back at the heart of brand growth
A new independent agency, Agency Named Desire, or AND to its friends, has launched with clear ambition: to support marketing leaders in unlocking the power of well-crafted partnerships to drive brand growth.
AND, focuses on guiding brands through the increasingly complex local and global partnerships landscape, with strategic and effective sponsorship, partnership and ambassador campaigns, leveraging decades of experience from the founders, and an independent, rights holder agnostic approach.
The agency’s philosophy is a values-driven approach to cut through an industry often weighed down by jargon and complexity.
Agency Named Desire is founded by industry pros James Bartold, Marnie McManus and Grant Rose. The trio bring together vast experience leading commercial and partnership strategy across sport, entertainment and the not-for-profit sectors, delivering some of the region’s most high-profile partnerships like: Crown & Taylor Swift, La Roche Posay & Alex De Minaur, Shaw & Partners & Surf Life Saving Australia, Caltex & Newcastle Knights and Pepperstone & Aston Martin Formula One.
Bartold and McManus have an established and successful leadership relationship (formally both at independent agency Bastion), and hold exceptional client relationships and experience in multiple sectors. Collectively, they have worked on national and global partnerships with the likes of Bunnings, L’Oreal, CommBank, Suntory, Pepperstone, Crown, and Challenger.
Rose brings significant experience in agency establishment as the founder of Six Point, Vivid Sports Management and Flare Media Partners, leveraging his end-to-end experience across the sports and entertainment ecosystem in senior roles both brand side and with renowned rights holders working with Lion, Sanitarium, Sydney Swans, Shaw & Partners and Chevron.
Having come together in late 2025, Agency Named Desire has already hit the ground running, launching with an impressive client roster including GWM, Swyftx, HOKA, waterdrop®, Caltex, PepsiCo and Vinomofo.
The agency specialises in building integrated partnership strategies that deliver real impact, addressing a critical need in a market where many brands continue to grapple with an overwhelming number of opportunities, investment understanding, tactical execution and measurement effectiveness.
Says Managing Director James Bartold (above right with Rose and McManus): “We love partnerships. It’s work that genuinely excites us, and we wanted to build an agency with a singular focus, helping brands understand the role partnerships can play in their marketing mix, from cultural relevance through to real commercial impact, and then making them successful.”
“We’ve lived other agency models, and we don’t want to try to be a PR, creative or media agency, or a one-stop-shop, our role is different. We’ll bring a complementary offering to a brand’s agency village. We help brands find smarter, more integrated, and genuinely interesting partnership activity that serves their brand strategy,”
Agency Named Desire is set to continue its growth into 2026, with plans to scale while staying true to its specialist positioning. The agency is headquartered in Melbourne, with offices in Adelaide.