Nunn Media Sydney
Nunn Media opened its Sydney office in July 2014. This followed many years of consistent growth in Victoria and a growing interest in the agency’s offering from clients in NSW. Chris Walton joined the agency to lead this office. Chris and Matt Nunn had known each other for several years prior to partnering on this venture and so knew they not only got along well but had a very similar view on how a media agency should operate and how this would change in a world increasingly dominated by data and technology.
We did have to give specific thought about how the agency should position itself in Sydney. We were launching into a much bigger market in a very different environment but wanted to target small and mid-sized advertisers. These factors had an impact on where we have put our focus.
Whilst it is true that data and technology are becoming more important, what is also important is that these developments are wonderfully democratising for our industry. The challenge is therefore equipping ourselves to leverage these developments for our clients’ benefit which led us to focus on three key operating principles:
- Experience – we had to employ highly experienced people who are not only thought leaders in media but have also experienced first-hand many different types of market scenarios – growth, recession, global shocks (GFC, Asian Financial Crisis, Dotcom boom and bust etc). We recognised that most clients yearn to work with agencies that have experienced staff who can genuinely offer advice and guidance in challenging situations;
- Collaboration – media planning and buying is not an end in itself and neither do media agencies work in isolation. Not only do we need to work well with our clients but also work well with their creative agencies, PR agencies, the media, and various data and technology providers. In essence a media agency is an enabler, connecting our clients to their customers. It is therefore vital that we are effective at collaborating. Otherwise we will not achieve the best outcome for our clients. Collaboration is an oft-mentioned but little understood ‘skill’ as it impacts significantly not only on agency structure but also culture and of course recruitment. Being good at collaborating was a high priority of ours from the day we opened our doors;
- Transparency – whilst this term is often wrapped up with ‘Trust’ we believe there are several reasons why we need to be transparent in how we operate. For sure our clients need to know how we make money and we always make sure this is the case. However Transparency goes beyond this. We go to great lengths to help our clients understand who we are working with and as well as making sure all of the media and other partners we work with to implement campaigns are clear what our client’s (and therefore our) KPIs are. If everyone understands what the objectives are, results tend to be much better.
After more than 3 years of operation we are delighted how staying true to these principles has allowed us to grow much faster than we ever dared dream. The average age of our staff in Sydney is 41 which is amazing for our industry. We have on average almost 19 years experience each. When you bring all this experience to bear on our client’s challenges it is easy for them to be reassured they are in good hands.
All of our guys are very good collaborators. Interestingly we felt that not entering industry awards enhances this ability to collaborate as there is not pressure to ‘own’ success so we have not gone down the award path. Not only have we now got a bagful of testimonials saying how good we have been to work with but for the last 3 years we have been voted as Sydney’s Happiest Media Agency (ok this is an award as such but it isn’t one we enter – it is something we simply got named!). Happy people tend to work better with others.
Finally, it is safe to say our clients trust us implicitly and feel we are very open and transparent with them. This makes us good business partners. For sure this is an intangible and hard to quantify but it is something we track as part of our bi-annual client surveys and we consistently score very highly on it. We remain very aware that as an independent agency that only exists in Australia our reputation here is everything and so the need to be always open and transparent remains a top priority.
Our outlook has not changed from day one – we are here to help small and mid-sized clients generate the very best returns from their media budgets. Whilst the world is changing around us we remain relentlessly focused on this and feel this will allow us to help our clients succeed for many years to come.
Nunn Media Sydney
Level 2, 107 Mount Street,
North Sydney NSW 2060
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