Byron Baes creator shaking things up at Sunday Gravy

Julian Morgans went from studying film to creating Netflix series Byron Baes, exploring influencer culture. 

His creativity and ambition now takes the helm of Sunday Gravy’s editorial department.

The former Vice editor will be stepping into the role of editorial director at the creative agency and he plans on shaking things up. 

“I studied film a million years ago and after that I joined Vice as a staff writer, then worked my way up as editor for seven years,” he told AdNews. 

“I made a lot of videos - this was always part of my job. If I had to approve it, or come up with it, it was my job to figure out what was going to be good and what was going to strike a chord with us."

Morgans said it was a visit to the coastal town that inspired the reality series documenting the influencer and social media culture so prominent in Byron Bay. 

“I had the idea for Byron Baes after I visited Byron a couple of years ago during the pandemic. I was like, ‘Wow, this place is full of influencers and assholes’... let's make a show about that,” he said. 

“So I pitched that in and by some miracle they picked it up. I've been running my own business since then, and have been working with Jack (White) from Sunday Gravy on and off for several years."

For the new editorial director, it’s all about understanding and knowing what people respond to and how he can bring that to life. 

“What I bring is an innate sense of what people are going to respond to. That's essentially been my career; knowing what people want to click on,” said Morgans. 

“That's what I'm going to bring to Sunday Gravy, helping brands to build out content that people actually click on.” 

Morgans prime goal is breaking the shackles of agencies being pigeonholed into purely broadcast media. He’ll be understanding what content matters for a brand and developing something worthwhile from there. 

“You usually don't want to be in a situation where you're spending part of your budget on boosting, for example, social media amplification, because the content sucks and you need to spend money to get clicks,” he said. 

“That is the worst outcome. So my role is to just make sure that never happens.” 

For Morgans, editorial is all about telling stories and building brand messaging that is cultural and lives organically in people's lives.

“Something you might get out of a publication, as opposed to something you might get out of a campaign, there’s a slight nuance,” he said. 

“Really good branded content - that's what I'm bringing.” 

The issue of content right now, according to Morgans, is that there’s a lot of it, which naturally demands a challenge to do something real with it so people respond to it.  

“It's really easy for people to bash content, but I think there's always been a lot of great content out there,” said Morgans. 

“It's just there's always been good content and there's always been bad content - it's about attaching brand messages to something that's real.  

“That's how we're going to do this differently. Sunday Gravy has this notion of ideas that last; we're looking for longevity through our creative ideas. That's a thesis that I’ll be incorporating into the work I'll be doing here as well.” 

Specifically in his new role, Morgans will be involved in Sunday Gravy’s creative team as much as his own department.  

Coming from a very hands-on background as an editor and creator, Morgans will be just as instrumental working on briefs from clients, meeting their content and editorial needs.  

“With the briefs we’re getting, it's about trying to work out how we can do really fun executions, do social media extensions, and how we can build out content that lives next to the billboards and next to the TV series,” said Morgans.  

“Essentially, that's going to be my job - figuring out what the content version of the campaign looks like.” 

Morgans hire will see Sunday Gravy emerge with new ideas for brands and clients.  

“If anyone is looking for fresh ideas come and talk to us about it.”