At the end of February this year, Simon Lee announced his departure from The Hallway, the start-up agency that he and Jules Hall had sculpted into a indie force as CCO and CEO. At the beginning of March, he joined Enigma as CCO and partner, bringing his remarkable creativity to its fired-up ambitions.
Simon Lee joins Micah Walker, founder of Bear Meets Eagle on Fire; Vince Lagana, co-founder of It’s Friday; Greg Hahn, co-founded of Mischief @ No Fixed Address; Ant Melder, co-founder of Cocogun; and Jessica Walsh, founder of &Walsh in the series, I Did It My Way, that explores what it takes to make a start-up indie roar…and he features as the CCO about to do it all again – for an established indie.
The Stable: Let’s start with the thrills and challenges of a start-up from the birth of The Hallway to adulthood? And what was your motivation for moving to Enigma?
Simon Lee: My Hallway journey was an incredible one, and I’ll always be grateful for the 14 years I spent as joint owner and creative leader of the agency. When I joined The Hallway, 3 years after Jules (Hall) founded it, they already had some good runs on the board, but the creative product and department was still very much in its infancy, so there was a lot of work to be done. In this foundation stage, you become aware of just how much you take for granted when you’re part of a more established agency – but this can be as exhilarating as it is nerve-wracking. You realise that the buck 100% stops with you, there’s absolutely no safety net, and somehow this translates to a powerful energy that drives you forward.
We had a great run and made some work that I’m really proud of. In the early days, the launch of my documentary feature, Dream Racer, gave us strong credibility in the branded entertainment space which opened the doors to us making successful web series for brands like Qantas (The Mane Event), Frucor (ZoneLab), and Servcorp (Sebastien International). For the latter, one of the first projects I worked on at The Hallway, I flew round the world in 12 days with a run-and-gun film crew, capturing the journey of a young entrepreneur building the world’s smallest multinational company. This project epitomised our attitude at that time – literally flying by the seat of our pants and doing whatever it takes to make it happen.
Fun though all this was, our “all or nothing” approach sometimes made it harder than it needed to be. I remember a brand TVC we made for the Whitsundays for example. The client requested a montage of beautiful destination footage cut to music, but oh no, that would have been far too easy. Instead, we decided that to validate the destination’s new tagline, “Every Shade of Perfect”, we’d fly to the Whitsundays on a shoestring budget and shoot an ad on an iPhone, with no post production. Genuinely #nofilter. It seemed like a great idea in the comfort of our offices in Glebe, and it would probably have been fine if a huge storm hadn’t hit the Whitsundays just as we arrived. Cut to the creative team and I, our producer, a model and a terrified DOP on a small boat battling huge swell in the dark as we headed out to film the sunrise. “You sure you wanna do this?!” the skipper had asked before we set off. We’d committed to the client to get it done, so as far as I was concerned “not doing this” was a non-option. Once we got out to sea, I had to pretty much drag the DOP up on deck with his iPhone on a steady rig, and the clouds mercifully parted for just long enough to get the shot. Our luck ran out later that day though and we had a very strange evening sheltering from brutal winds on an island resort that felt like we we’d stepped into a 1970s time warp. I remember thinking on the plane home that sometimes, just sometimes stock footage and a banging soundtrack might be an acceptable way to go.
Our “never say die” different-shaped attitude to briefs allowed us to fairly rapidly build profile in the industry, but somewhat ironically, we attracted prospective clients who liked our approach but needed more proof of our ability to make good old fashioned “ads” and build brand platforms. So as we grew, this became more of a priority and led us to create work for a host of great brands including Google, Binge, ANZ, Dexus, Suncorp Bank, Boody and GWM.
It would be fair to say that my last 3-4 years at The Hallway were my most creatively rewarding. I genuinely loved (and still love) the team of people that I surrounded myself with, and we had 100% shared clarity about the quality and kind of work that we were committed to making. In November 2021 we launched Boys do Cry which proved to be a seminal campaign for us, and that was followed by a string of projects over the next few years that were a genuine expression of the extent of the team’s talent and ambition and that garnered significant recognition both here and overseas.
It’s only since I’ve stepped away from The Hallway that I’ve realised quite how much the journey taught me and how much I’ve grown, professionally but also personally. I embarked on the adventure as a “40 under 40” creative contender with a fierce energy and a burning point to prove and have emerged with a deeper respect for our craft, a confidence in my commercial acumen and a commitment to doing what I can to ensure future generations of creative misfits can continue to find gainful employment in this industry.
And now I have the great privilege of being CCO & partner at Enigma as the agency embarks on an ambitious new chapter of its 30+ year history.
The Stable: What are your ambitions for Enigma? What is its history? What did you join to solve…or do?
Simon Lee: In a nutshell, we’re building a world class creative and media agency founded in Newcastle Australia.
The Stable: Enigma has been on a hiring roll. Growth spurt? Growth spurt ambitions? Expanding expertise? More to come?
Simon Lee: It’s been a super exciting first few months, and one of the highlights has definitely been the quality of talent that we’ve already been able to attract. Our mission is clearly one that is motivating to people. I think the considerable shifts in the broader agency landscape have a part to play in this. We’re seeing a changing of the guard, with big multinational agency brands losing their decades long dominance and small hot shops popping up all over the place. In the midst of all this, for the right people, the opportunity to join a long established, regionally founded agency with the grit, ambition and means to compete at the highest level is a compelling one.
The Stable: What gets you out of bed in the morning?
ISimon Lee: ’m hugely motivated by our mission, but now more than ever, the thing I love the most about this job and this industry is riffing in a room with great creative and strategic people. There’s an alchemy that occurs when everyone is open to giving and receiving with equal generosity, and the result feels like magic. I don’t think I’ll ever tire of this.
The Stable: What do you think it takes to be a great CCO – especially in a difficult period for advertising creativity?
Simon Lee: My head says that being a great CCO means balancing creative talent, commercial nous, presence, resilience and emotional intelligence. My heart tells me that all of these are nothing but empty words in a LinkedIn profile if they’re not underpinned by LOVE. In this challenging time for the industry, it’s creative leaders with true love for our work and true love for our people that will see us through.
