Name Ben Lilley
Company McCann Australia
Position Chairman & CEO
HQ Melbourne, Australia
Employees ~170EXECUTIVE INTERVIEWCreating success
Chairman and CEO Ben Lilley reveals what makes
McCann Australia the most awarded creative agency in
the world. Spoiler alert: It’s creativity.IMAGES ELIZABETH BULLS
ince Ben Lilley took the reins as Chairman and CEO at McCann
Australia, the agency has received tremendous acclaim. In 2013,
McCann Australia was named the ‘World’s Most Awarded Agency’.
Today, according to the World Advertising Research Centre’s annual
report, McCann is the top ranked agency in Australia for advertising
effectiveness, and it ranks sixth globally. Ben has been appointed McCann’s Asia
Pacific Creative Leadership Chair, and is now tasked with driving the network’s
creative effectiveness across the APAC region.Beginning his career in advertising as a copywriter, Ben’s desire to find the most
creative and effective ways to connect clients with their customers is still what
drives him today. At the dawn of the internet age, and the beginnings of digital
marketing and advertising, Ben recognised exciting opportunities that others
hadn’t yet appreciated. At the time, traditional agencies were slow to embrace
new technological advancements, so Ben decided to get the jump on them and
launch his own digital-savvy creative agency. Ben teamed up with Paul Findlay
who was running design agency SMART, and relaunched it as a full-service
agency in 2000. Growth was swift for SMART and by 2010 it was Australia’s
largest independent Trans-Tasman agency, with big-name companies like
Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Unilever on its client list.