Welcome to an audio-led edition of Unmade.
Today’s edition of The Unmakers features adland royalty Justin Drape and Michael Canning, co-founders of travel platform Exceptional Alien. This month, they stepped back into the marketing space with the brand-focused Exceptional Alien Studio.
Today’s edition also features news of a better day on The Unmade Index.
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From Monkeys to Aliens: How Justin Drape and Michael Canning came back to brand creativity
Welcome to the latest episode of The Unmakers, Unmade’s podcast series where we talk to the people remaking the media and marketing world.
Today’s interview features Justin Drape and Michael Canning.
In business terms, Drape has been one of the most accomplished creatives Australia has seen in recent years. He was was co-founder of creative agency The Monkeys, arguably Australia’s most successful creative agency startup of the last two decades. It was sold to Accenture for a $63m back in 2017.
Meanwhile, Canning has held a string of creative leadership roles at some of the best known agency networks, including M&C Saatchi in Australia, along with Leo Burnett and 72&Sunny in the US.
Two years ago, the duo swapped the agency world for publishing when they launched Exceptional Alien as a series of app-first local travel guides, fronted by celebrated creators.
The new Exceptional Agency Studio will see Drape and Canning offer their talents to marketers, not just creating content for brands on the Exceptional Alien platform, but helping with bigger brand challenges. Essentially, they’re back in the agency business.
Exceptional Alien is already building. “I think that we’re scaling, and I think success for Exceptional Alien will be an international audience that we’re already growing. That’s what we’re aiming for. We have team members in LA and New York. We have a lot of interest in partnerships that will be announced soon,” Drape says.
If you're an Unmaker with a story to tell about how you're changing the media and marketing world, we’d love to hear from you on letters@unmade.media.
Today's episode of The Unmakers was edited by Abe's audio and produced by Seja Al Zaidi.
An upswing on the Unmade Index
After a rough start to the week, the Unmade Index, our measurement of the performance of ASX-listed media and marketing stocks, soared 2.44% yesterday. This outperformed the ASX All Ords which rose by 1.15% on the back of a slightly better than expected headline inflation number. The Index landed at 624.7 points yesterday.
Almost every stock on the Index saw a rise in its share price. The biggest winner of the day amongst the large stocks was Ooh Media, which saw a 5.24% climb in its share price, while communications agency holding group Enero rose 6.91%.
Seven West Media lifted by 2.67%, Southern Cross Media rose 2.45% and printing and marketing firm IVE Group climbed 2.27%.
The only stock to drop yesterday was the smallest on the Index, out of home company Motio, which saw a 2.63% fall.
Time to leave you to your Thursday.
Audio production was courtesy of Abe’s Audio, the people to talk to about voiceovers, sound design and podcast production.
Message us: letters@unmade.media
The Unmakers: An adland return for Justin Drape and Michael Canning, with Exceptional Alien Studio