Former Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy and OMD creative leader, Julie Matthews, has launched independent Australian creative studio, DOSE. The studio is underpinned by as Matthews’ thirty years of experience as a global art and creative director, having worked in senior roles at Saatchi & Saatchi London, McCann Shanghai, Grey Melbourne, Ogilvy Singapore, Publicis Auckland and OMD.

DOSE responds to the consolidation of agencies and movement of senior creative talent out of the networks. It delivers expert creative strategy and ideas to brand marketers, and gives media agencies, creative agencies and production companies across metro and regional Australia extra senior creative firepower when a brief needs it.

DOSE brings senior creative leadership together with the people and specialist expertise each brief needs. It finds the problem underneath the brief, the idea that solves it, and builds that idea for every place a customer meets the brand.

The studio specialises in brand strategy, positioning and messaging, creative strategy and advertising campaigns, with creative leadership across film, content, social and design for brands and marketers. It can also provide creative direction and oversight for in-house marketing teams, DOSE provides creative direction and oversight, so the work the team already makes builds the brand and makes the media spend go further. For creative agencies, media agencies and production companies, it provides extra senior creative strategy and ideas when a brief calls for it, helping them win new clients and grow the ones they have.

The independent creative studio is designed to match every client and brief with the “right dose” of people and expertise, led by Matthews as executive creative director. “This elastic, modular model means we can give each client the right measure of creative firepower for the brief, while the senior leadership, the thinking behind the idea, and the accountability for what gets made, stays constant,” Matthews stated.

 At McCann Shanghai, Matthews led creative direction for L’Oreal Paris across Greater China, having previously worked on Procter & Gamble’s Olay account in London, with campaigns spanning Western Europe and Russia. At Ogilvy Singapore, she led work for Unilever’s Pond’s and Dove accounts, and Kimberly-Clark’s Huggies, delivering campaigns globally. 

In Australia, Matthews made the unusual move to OMD to lead its creative offering for clients like Beiersdorf, Estee Lauder, Clinique, Brother, Bacardi-Martini, RACV and Tourism Victoria, growing creative revenue by 30% year-on-year. She also worked client-side at Optus, in its in-house agency, Yes Creative.

“The traditional, infrastructure-heavy, mid-tier full-service agency is hollowing out, and only two kinds of businesses will thrive: the mega-integrated networks that can do everything at scale, and the small, sharp independents that do one thing exceptionally well. Everything in the middle is exposed. That reading, more than any brand idea, is where DOSE began,” Matthews stated.

“Our focus is on combining senior creative leadership with the people and specialist expertise each brief needs. Our perspective is simple – every good brief has a better one hiding inside it; finding it is the job. Clients aren’t short of ideas or suppliers – they just need someone senior enough to identify the real problem. At DOSE, we uncover the challenge beneath the brief, develop the idea that solves it, and bring it to life wherever customers encounter the brand.

“Our aim is to be the studio that brands, in-house teams, media agencies and production companies turn to when the brief matters – to uncover the real problem before budget is spent.”