Campaign Brief Q&A with Princess – A Creative Company: A team built on love and originality

After recently launching Princess – A Creative Company, Campaign Brief chats to founders Beth O’Brien, Sam Dickson, Cameron Bell and Jonny Berger about their mission to make “famous, fun, effective, ‘fuck yeah’ work” and the values driving them from day one: Personhood, Endurance, Integrity, Love and Originality.

Can you walk us through the thinking behind the launch? What made now the right moment? 

When the four of us met each other, something different clicked.

There was that instant creative love, an admiration for each other’s work, and crucially there was a shared energy.

But more than that chemistry, we realised that between us, there was a new capability. A way of working faster, braver, and sharper than anything we’d been part of before.

When you have that magic combination, it doesn’t really matter when you launch.

Where did the name “Princess – A Creative Company” come from, and what does it represent for the company? 

“Princess” is a word with a lot of preconceptions. Much like our mission as a creative company, we wanted to take that word, subvert it, and fill it with new meaning. Hopefully, in a few year’s time when people think of the word “Princess”, they think of famous, fun, effective, ‘fuck yeah’ work.

You’ve spoken about “breaking the category” as a core mission. Can you explain what that looks like in practice? 

To break a category, you have to bring something entirely new to a category, or reframe how you exist in a category, both of which immediately makes everything you’re competing with feel out of date. You can do that a few different ways, give us a call if you want to know how.

With decades of experience at some of Australia and New Zealand’s top agencies, what lessons or philosophies are you bringing into Princess – A Creative Company? 

As we started building Princess – A Creative Company, we spent a hell of a lot of time on taking lessons, philosophies and experiences from our working (and personal) lives to come up with a set of values. Those values are how we think, move and make. They are Personhood, Endurance, Integrity, Love and Originality. We believe that by operationalising these values we’ll love what we do for years to come.

Looking back, what’s a favourite piece of work any of you have done in your careers, and why? 

The First Digital Nation – why? It was an idea that added a new chapter to the long narrative of climate change.

Footy Country – why? It was a simple story that allowed room for so much personality.

I’m Drinking it For You – Why? It spread across channels by behaving like entertainment, not ads.

Optus Sport Premier League with Idris – why? Because it was built by fans for fans.

Where do you personally go to find inspiration when starting a new project? 

A lot comes from each other. One of our values at Princess is “endurance.” To us, if there is an expectation of high performance, there should also be an understanding of the importance of recovery. That means protecting time for each of us to rest and recuperate. To go to galleries, concerts, movies, nature, and bring back stuff that inspires us. Stuff we can share with each other.

Where do you see yourselves in five years, and what mark do you hope to make on the industry? 

We want people to really want to work with us, whether that’s clients or talent, because we make work that makes the world a more fabulous place to be.

Are there any new mediums or approaches you’re particularly excited to experiment with? 

We are trying to build Princess – A Creative Company with the mindset of “What does it look like when you start a Creative Company today?” So yeah, there is tech we want to try, mediums we want to use, but those things are only as exciting as the idea you put in them.

For creatives looking to launch their own indie agency, what’s the one piece of advice you’d give? 

Our advice would be to talk to other people who are doing it. There’s a whole indie community out there who are generous, kind, passionate people, and they can’t wait for you to start doing your own thing.

Finally, what’s your secret to consistently creating work that’s original, emotional, and effective, three things you’ve achieved across decades of award-winning campaigns? 

We think it’s by constantly talking about creative and its impact. Constantly tearing apart ideas from anywhere and finding what makes them tick. Constantly sharpening your ability to critique work – what makes it good, bad, what would you do to make it better? Your job is to blow yourself away, so you need to figure out what makes up something that can do that for you.

To find out more about Princess – A Creative Company, visit www.princess-acc.com.