The New Wave ~ jnr.
The 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 jnr.
1. Give us the elevator pitch – who are you and what do you do?
jnr. is an independent, trans-Tasman creative agency. We are one agency with two footprints: in Aotearoa and Australia.
We service clients in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Taiwan and Korea across strategy, creative, design, PR, social and influence.
2. Are indies still challengers, or have they become the norm?
The growth of indie agencies in Australia has certainly meant that it’s no longer a point of difference to simply be independent; it has become normalised. But that doesn’t mean that they’re not challengers. The Indies are still deftly challenging and changing how things can be done.
3. What’s your unfair advantage over the networks today?
Well, we don’t want to broadcast what our unfair advantage is, because then that gives the networks a chance to combat/answer it in pitches! But I think one of our advantages is fairly obvious: clients get access to senior talent, and the type of talent clients see – and get promised – in new business pitches . . . and then never see again.
4. How are you using AI to compete above your weight?
At jnr. we set out to create a modern agency model, powered by AI and technology, ensuring our time, client’s time and money work harder and faster.
AI and technology has enabled us to move and deliver at the speed and size of a much bigger agency. Utilising platforms such as Claude, Adobe Express, Productive in all facets of our business and workflow to move at pace and speed.
Further proof of our innovative working model, we are currently in production with a full campaign utilising a hybrid talent and generative AI production model and another campaign is using full AI to rollout massive amounts of static and video content.
5. What kind of clients are choosing indies right now – and why?
Honestly? All kinds. You’ve seen some pretty big clients choosing indies of late, and that was essentially the last frontier. Now the floodgates have opened, and indies are often invited to to pitch are massive clients, even multinationals.
6. What’s next – growth, staying lean, or something else?
One of the founding principles of jnr. was to get back closer to the work and I don’t think we as a leadership team will ever move away from that, in fact it’s what we enjoy the most!
Over the past two years, we have made a conscious and considerate effort not to grow for growth sakes. It was important when we scaled to ensure we didn’t break the operating system, the team, the clients and more importantly the work we had on the table.
However, we’ve just brought on our first non-billable resource in HR and operations to implement a new tech stack across Finance, Project Management, Time Management, Creative Resourcing, HR, and Operations, which is helping us build the agency not for today, or tomorrow, but for what it looks like in three years.
Pictured top (L-R): John Marshall Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Hāua, Ngāti Maniapoto, Managing Director & Founder; Jenny Mak, Executive Creative Director & Partner; Ryan O’Connell, Chief Strategy Officer & Founder)
Check out the other New Wave Q&As below:
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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