ADELAIDE: One of the partners and joint director of Limelight Marketing Communications has walked out the door with half of the ad agency’s staff and nearly half of its clients.
Simon O’Brien, an advertising veteran of 40 years, has formed his own advertising, marketing and design outfit, which he's named Black Sheep.
O’Brien stripped eight of the 15 staff from Limelight, and has taken 40% of the agency’s clients with him, saying the staff were happy to follow him.
O’Brien’s former Limelight partner, Elizabeth Tasker, said O’Brien was out the door less than four weeks after telling her he wanted out.
“I was surprised at the speed of it all, to be honest. Simon is a bit of the old guard and we are a younger, newer team,” Tasker said, happy to add that she has picked up two new clients in the past fortnight. She was, however, unable to name the clients.
O’Brien said he and ex-Limelight creative director Andrew Millar came to realise that it was time to think outside the square.
“As an individual, you sit down and consider how to reinvent yourself from time to time, and where to from here, and that’s exactly what we did,” O’Brien said.
“We simply decided to go our separate ways, which after that long together, it was not unreasonable.”
O’Brien is a former managing director of George Patterson Partners in Adelaide and also worked for Leo Burnett. He began his career more than four decades ago in Adelaide, and also worked in Melbourne for JWT and Singleton Ogilvy & Mather, and for government departments and smaller ad agencies.
Among the clients to follow the Black Sheep are the Adelaide Convention Centre, Brock Real Estate, Brock Urban Projects, Centro Properties Group, Canberra Investment Corporation and Wilderness School.
O’Brien has high hopes for Black Sheep, saying he is actively searching for new business accounts.
“Oh yes, we are out there with all guns blazing, and are looking for a financial institution and FMCG clients in particular.”
O’Brien is aiming to grow revenue by 15% to 20% in the next 24 months and is also searching for clients outside South Australia, saying international growth is on the cards if all goes well.
He has created a space for his agency in Adelaide’s Rundle Street without a reception area, which he says allows clients to walk straight into the creative heart of the business.
“We believe clients have a lot of good ideas themselves, and we are trying to create an environment that will break down those barriers and allow clients to become involved in the creative process,” he said.
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