Matt Lawson and Adrian Mills get set to launch ATime&Place
Deloitte Digital creative partners Matt Lawson and Adrian Mills are set to launch their own independent advertising agency – ATime&Place – with Deloitte on board as the firm’s first client.
Fresh from their instrumental role in creating Deloitte’s global ‘The First Effect’ campaign for the Paris Olympics, the pair will now embark on their new challenge from September, with both currently based in Melbourne.
Having now worked together for more than a decade, Lawson and Mills joined Deloitte from McCann in 2017, with the former currently serving as Asia Pacific chief creative officer and the latter as a creative, brand, & media partner.
Drafted in to lift Deloitte’s creative profile, the pair are credited with having established the Big Four firm’s creative, brand and advertising division, which has since won multiple Cannes Lions and Agency of the Year awards. According to the press spiel, ATime&Place will continue to deliver high impact advertising work for top-tier brands, including Deloitte as the agency’s first client.
“We’ve been proud partners of Deloitte and we look forward to proudly partnering with Deloitte in the future: it’s a brilliant business doing important work,” said Mills, with Lawson adding; “We’re also thrilled to continue working with our incredible clients and wonderful team. To be shaping a brand new agency with so much experience is a rare opportunity that we embrace wholeheartedly.”
Lawson also joked that he had wanted to call the new agency ‘The Adventures of Matt and Mills’ – but was outvoted two to none. Still, the new outfit doesn’t officially launch until the middle of next month, so the extent of which Deloitte’s current advertising team will cross to ATime&Place remains unclear. Deloitte Digital will meanwhile focus more closely on its core solutions.
“We are so proud of the impact that Adrian, Matt and the team have had, and they have been integral to infusing a culture of creativity throughout the practice,” said Deloitte Digital head Leon Doyle. “Creativity will always remain part of the DNA of Deloitte and we’re focused on continuing to push creativity to play a bigger role in the business transformation needs of our clients.”
Both highly-decorated within the advertising industry and responsible for some of Australia’s most memorable campaigns, Lawson served as McCann executive creative director prior to joining Deloitte, while Mills was the global giant’s managing director for Melbourne. Both also spent five years at George Patterson Y&R early on, respectively as senior copywriter and account director.
