The New Wave ~ Bounce
he New Wave is Campaign Brief’s Q&A series spotlighting the next generation of independent creative companies and exploring how the indie model is evolving. From structure and speed to culture and capability, we unpack where these businesses are finding their edge and what’s driving client decisions today. Next up is Joel Chapman, Founder and Creative Director, Bounce.
1. Give us the elevator pitch. Who are you and what do you do?
Bounce is an independent creative agency established in 2018 and built for brands and marketers with a challenger mindset.
The people we collaborate with don’t come to us because they need “some ads”… They come to us because they care about creativity, want to be noticed, and want an agency partner that also cares about their brand as much as they do. We offer strategy, creative, production, content and all things social and shareable… all wrapped around the thing that still matters most: ideas people actually give a shit about. We help brands punch above their weight. Basically, we call it ‘more bang’.
2. Are indies still challengers, or have they become the norm?
I started Bounce in 2018 because I was frustrated with big, slow, conventional agencies. It was built on relationships, collaboration and proving ourselves through a genuine passion for creativity.
Back then, as an indie, it often felt like you had to sneak past procurement through the back door. You’d get in because someone client-side believed in the work, backed the relationship, and was willing to take a punt.
Now, indies are much more accepted, which I think is only a good thing. It gives marketers more options and makes working with alternate agency models feel more feasible, not risky or rogue. But being independent doesn’t automatically make you a challenger. Sometimes it just means you have fewer people to report to.
I believe that the real challengers are the agencies still willing to make clients a little nervous for the right reasons. Sharper thinking, braver ideas, faster decisions and work that has a reason to exist beyond filling a media plan, or fitting within budget. So yes, indies have become more normal. But proper challenger energy is still somewhat abnormal.
3. What’s your unfair advantage over the networks today?
We don’t need to drag an idea through seven departments, three holding company layers and a budget alignment call with someone who has never heard of the client.
Our unfair advantage is closeness. The people who make the work are in the room early. The people who sell the work remain accountable for the quality throughout the entire project. The people talking strategy are close enough to production to know whether an idea can actually happen.
We’ve worked with some of the biggest brands in the world, but we’ve tried to keep the mentality that got us in the door in the first place: care more, move faster, make the work better.
We’re also pretty intentional about what we take on. We only want work we care about, when we have the capacity to invest ourselves properly. Clients who work with Bounce should feel like they’re a priority, not just another brief on the pile. Of course networks have scale. We have speed, taste, senior attention and a healthy allergy to all things boring.
4. How are you using AI to compete above your weight?
We see AI as a way to supercharge the team’s capability, not replace instinct, taste or craft.
There’s a thought I love about AI: it makes productive people more productive and lazy people more lazy. Which I think applies to all areas from process through to ideas and outputs. AI levels the playing field, which is exciting and terrifying in equal measure. It means smaller teams can suddenly explore, prototype, pressure-test and produce at a scale that used to require far more people and far more money.
But the trap is using AI to make more stuff, quicker and cheaper, mistaking that output for better. We’re trying to use it the other way. To accelerate ambition. To push beyond the first obvious answer. To build stronger sell-in tools that make brave ideas easier to understand, buy, and execute.
AI can get you to average very quickly. Our job is to keep pushing past that.
5. What kind of clients are choosing indies right now, and why?
I’m biased, because it’s the kind we work with, but I believe the best clients have a challenger mindset.
They might be established brands that need to behave differently and become less like wallpaper. They might be growing brands trying to push into a bigger category. They might be marketers inside big businesses who know the safe option isn’t always the smart option.
What they tend to have in common is a belief that creativity can still be a commercial advantage. They want senior people in the agency to care and be close to the work. They want ideas that feel built for their brand, not dragged out of a global network template and rebadged for Australia.
And increasingly, they want speed to market, without the cookie cutter approach.
That’s where I think indies can really win. Not by defaulting to more, quicker, cheaper. But by using smarter ways of working to protect distinctiveness, sharpen differentiation and ultimately make the work better.
6. What’s next: growth, staying lean, or something else?
For us, it’s not growth for growth’s sake. That’s how agencies get slow, expensive and lose the spark that makes Bounce, bounce.
The goal is to maintain momentum without adding unnecessary layers, becoming complacent, or losing the hunger to keep pushing interesting work out the door.
We want to keep building Bounce around senior talent, creative courage, strong partnerships and AI-powered ways of working that let us take on bigger opportunities without becoming a big boring machine.
So yep, we want to grow. But only in ways that make the work better, keep the agency sharper and the clients braver.
The plan is pretty simple: stay independent, stay hungry, and keep making work that makes a bang.
Check out the other New Wave Q&As below:
Read SICKDOGWOLFMAN’s Q&A here
Read Kill Boring Dead’s Q&A here
Read Oblong Creative’s Q&A here
Read The Many Australia’s Q&A here
Read Bureau of Everything’s Q&A here
Read Art of the Possible ANZ’s Q&A here
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