Australia & New Zealand Special: Cam Blackley

Having ruled out architect and fighter pilot, a childhood of crafting and a flair for creative problem solving (plus a dad in the biz) led Cam Blackley to his advertising career destiny. After years spent grafting to go from ‘horrible’ to gold Lion-winning work, BMF Sydney’s ECD tells Carine Buncsi how he’s learnt to let go… by shooting at his employees

“I wake up with a stretch aligning my chakras. Three short, sharp breaths and I’m suddenly planted firmly in the present. A steaming mug of builder’s tea awakens a further dimension in my consciousness which feels remarkably like fear…”

Midway through describing his morning routine – seemingly inspired by much-derided Hollywood juice bar founder, Amanda Chantal Bacon (she of the ‘pretentious hippy diet’) – Cam Blackley, ECD at BMF Sydney, breaks off and chuckles. “No, every day is blissfully different – minus the chakras. I’m surprised by an idea.

Inspired by a meme. There’s always play injected into a day which can sometimes end at 5pm or 3am. I try not to meddle too much. I’m genuinely interested in what stage an idea or execution is at and the wellbeing of my team… And then I shoot them with Nerf guns.”

As his offbeat sense of humour and rampant imagination reveals, something creative was on the cards for Blackley from an early stage. “I sucked at math, which ruled out being an architect or fighter pilot… But I could draw. I didn’t mind being alone for extended periods as a youngster, which was critical in creating an extraordinary amount of shit kids craft, at scale. And no, I never thought about advertising, even though my father [former Clemenger BBDO chairman David Blackley] was in the business, which will make some people groan.”

It was a trick of fate that first got Blackley into advertising: while pursuing a fine arts and graphic design degree, he entered a local newspaper copywriting competition. The prize? Writing catalogues for three years – but also getting a crack at some Transport Accident Commission [TAC] briefs at Grey Melbourne. “It was the work on old pneumatic [tyres] that led to Mecca, aka London,” he remembers. “The rest is a whole other story.”

For Blackley, advertising satisfied every problem-solving and creative urge he had, though it took a while to hone his craft. Of his early days as a junior creative in London, working at AMV BBDO then Publicis, he recalls: “It was both challenging and exciting – and I was horrible at it! Horrible at getting it so right like my advertising heroes did, and that just drove me to work even harder.” The long hours paid off. In 2004, he got a call from Droga5 to join its six-month-old New York office. It was a real ‘pinch yourself’ moment – and the interview process was no less surreal: “It consisted of building IKEA shelves. Traumatic.”

Three years later, he was transferred to Droga5’s Sydney office and charged with reversing the eight-year decline in fortunes of a key client, local beer brand Victoria Bitter.

The resulting campaign, 2009’s The Regulars – featuring comical archetypal Aussie men from ‘manscapers’ to ‘guys who claim to have punched a shark’ – did just that, and picked up a gold Lion to boot. “We wrote the absolute shit out of it,” remembers Blackley. “Without exaggeration, Matty [Burton, his then-creative partner] and I rewrote the script about 100 times and wrestled with it.

The walls of our office looked like A Beautiful Mind on crack. The creative crew built so many layers into it, including sound bites that were picked up by the morning show and radio presenters. The story changed entirely in the edit.” Changing the 1960s tagline ‘A hard-earned thirst’ to ‘VB – The Drinking Beer’ was key. Blackley adds: “We trod on a few toes to get there, however I’m still immensely proud of [that tagline]. It was a character building, defining moment bringing it to life.”

A hands-off, they-can-do attitude

Since taking the creative reins at BMF in 2014, Blackley has continued to work with some big names, not least Hollywood funnyman Owen Wilson in last year’s trilogy, The Conspicuous Awakening Of Owen Wilson, for P&O Cruises.

However, Blackley seems proudest of recent work for a far less glamorous client, budget supermarket Aldi, based on a very simple insight: “Aldi’s fresh food is mainly locally produced, but this wasn’t common knowledge and we had to build some credibility in this space,” he explains. “When I finally understood what the team wanted to do, that it nailed the Aldi tone and humour, I just let them get on with it.”

This hands-off attitude characterises Blackley’s approach to creative directing, although he’s not sure he’s perfected the art: “I hire people not just because they’re more talented than me, but for cultural fit – then add a liberal smattering of opportunity and autonomy. We grow from helping each other. [The process] is in beta at the moment, but seems to be paying off.”

Ultimately, as with all good creatives, it’s healthy paranoia (along with tea and chakra alignment) that drives Blackley: “We live in constant self-doubt… then get to pleasantly surprise ourselves now and again.”