The New Wave ~ We Are Different
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 Stuart Terry, Founder and Director, We Are Different.
1. Give us the elevator pitch – who are you and what do you do?
Different is an earned-first creative company built around a simple belief: The most powerful attention isn’t bought. It’s earned. And to earn it, brands need to do things differently.Media, creators, social, AI and real-world experiences increasingly shape what people discover, trust, recommend and ultimately choose. So we bring PR, social, influencer and experience together with strategy, creative and production to create ideas designed to travel through that ecosystem.
In simple terms: we help brands become worthy of attention through the power of different.
2. Are indies still challengers, or have they become the norm?
For us, the more interesting thing to challenge is how the industry thinks about brand relevance and growth.
Much of modern marketing was built around a world where brands could buy attention at scale. But today, people discover brands through creators, communities and culture. They validate them through reviews, media, search and AI.
We’re challenging the traditional model of paid exposure as the starting point. And within this, we think communications deserves a much bigger seat at the marketing table because the ability to earn attention, influence and recommendation is increasingly critical to brand growth.
3. What’s your unfair advantage over the networks today?
Our unfair advantage isn’t that we’re independent. It’s that we help brands start in a different place and earn relevance in a different way.
Our research shows audiences increasingly look beyond traditional advertising to discover, trust and choose brands. So instead of asking what advertising we should make, we ask: what would make someone care enough to talk about this, or make it valuable enough for people – and increasingly AI – to recommend it?
Our systems embed earned thinking into the creative process from day one, our people are trained to think beyond traditional channel boundaries, and our proprietary tools and products bring rigour, scale and commercial accountability to that thinking.
It means earned isn’t an amplification layer we bolt onto a campaign at the end. It’s the creative operating system from the beginning.
That’s difficult to retrofit into an agency model built around paid exposure, and it’s by far our biggest competitive advantage.
4. How are you using AI to compete above your weight?
We’re less interested in how AI changes agencies than how AI changes influence.
Consumers are increasingly asking AI questions they once asked Google, journalists, friends or Reddit. That means the next frontier of attention isn’t just what people say about your brand, but what machines understand about your brand from what people say.
We’re investing in understanding that new influence ecosystem – including how earned signals shape what AI knows, trusts and recommends, and what that means for brands.
AI can absolutely help a 30-person agency behave like a much bigger one. But we’re more excited about helping brands understand how AI is changing the way people discover, evaluate and ultimately choose them.
5. What kind of clients are choosing indies right now – and why?
We feel pretty privileged to partner with some of the world’s most relevant brands. But when I look at our client list – brands like FUJIFILM, Jack Daniel’s, Spotify and Hinge – they’re not necessarily looking for an indie agency. They’re looking for an agency built for where influence is heading.
We’re attracting ambitious brands that see communications – be it PR, Social or Influencer – not just as an amplification function, but as a brand growth lever. We’re working with clients who want ideas that can move between media, creators, social, culture and real-world experiences to earn influence and trust at scale.
We’re proud of our independence and it’s definitely a strength. But ultimately clients are choosing us because our offering better reflects how influence and brand growth works today.
6. What’s next – growth, staying lean, or something else?
Something else!
We’re ambitious about growth, but headcount or revenue isn’t the most interesting measure of that.
For us, the next phase is about continuing to invest in the people, products and capabilities that can push earned into new places – from deeper creative and production capabilities, to new influencer offerings and new ways of understanding and measuring influence in an AI-shaped world.
We want to prove that earned-first thinking can solve bigger brand and business problems, and in doing so, grow the role communications plays in marketing.
So the next chapter isn’t just about making Different bigger. It’s about making earned bigger.
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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