The ex-M&C Saatchi chief is betting that discomfort breeds creativity. Inside Hibernian House — the graffiti-strewn, artist-filled building that is home to his new venture, Today the Brave.
Jaimes Leggett didn’t want his new advertising agency to be like everyone else’s. “Think gritty dark corners, and bad decisions,” he told the crisp-collared real estate agents in trying to sum up the desired vibe. “Think New York’s Meatpacking District or London’s Soho when they were rough.”
And indeed, as he guides Forbes Australia, along graffiti strewn corridors into the clunky old lift, it does evoke the putrescence of New York dive bar urinals in the 1990s [without the odours].
“I want people to go down a dark alleyway to get to our agency and to really question whether this is the right place to be,” Leggett says. “Then I want them to walk into the coolest office they’ve ever seen.” He’s describing this as multiple police sirens whir by. “I want them to feel something. I want them to arrive in one state and leave in another.”
The real estate agents didn’t understand what he wanted. Back in 2022 when he founded Today the Brave with creative partners, Vince Osmond and Jade Manning, they’d walked the streets and found a dilapidated former chocolate factory in Sydney’s Chinatown which they transformed. But they outgrew that and were once again on the lookout for a new office with the same edgy vibe.
And that’s when Leggett’s mind went to Hibernian House on Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills. “I knew the building as this notorious squat. I’d been to sort of illegal rave parties in here over the years, and I’m personally obsessed with street art, and there’s amazing art in this building. It’s changing all the time, great local artists, but also touring artists who would come and do work.”
Osmond and Manning knew the building too. The last time they were in there had been to get matching tattoos after winning B&Ts Emerging Agency of the Year 2023 award.
The building has apparently housed artists, misfits and musos since the 1920s. Hibernian stories are more folklore than historical fact. The scene of numerous parties, it is said to have hosted one where pre-mega-stardom Ed Sheeran played. There’s talk of something between Kylie Minogue and Nick Cave on the roof in the 90s. Rock group The Preatures were based there for years.
It’s a district that’s been on the rise for decades. Canva HQ is 50 metres away. News Ltd HQ is 60 metres away. The Salvos and Missionbeat doss houses are long gone.
Leggett – a New Zealander who’d been managing director of Ogilvy & Mather in London and who had come to Sydney to run M&C Saatchi in 2013 – got to know Hibernian House’s owners and he broached his thought bubble. “I’ve got this terrible idea, but it’s so bad that it could, like, maybe, be the best idea ever. What could bringing an ad agency into an environment like this look like? We’d want to take the whole top floor,” Leggett recounts to Forbes Australia.
“And the owners are like, ‘That’s crazy. Why would you do that?’” And they certainly weren’t going to pay for it. But they let Today the Brave pay for a wholesale renovation then get a cheap rent on a long-term lease.”
He was tired of ad agencies talking about creative culture. As if it’s something that can be created in a board room. It was a product of interesting people doing what they loved. “And I was like, we want to be close to culture.
“We are a creative business. We need to be around amazing, interesting, creative people. An environment like this, it just oozes it. You walk in and you can feel it. And because it’s changing all the time, it’s quite stimulating.”
They didn’t employ interior designers but instead let the two creative partners loose on it.
“Jay and Vince are passionate about it. I mean, if Today the Brave is manifesting creatively in every way, we should be doing this … All agency people are creative, but they just get funnelled down very particular paths. We’re trying to do the opposite of that. We’re trying to liberate that creativity because you don’t know where it’s gonna go. So this space is a reflection of us.”
So how does it go when the bring corporate big wigs in?
“It’s worked better than we had hoped. We always meet them downstairs to chaperone them on that journey … When you get in the lift, there’s so much graffiti you can’t see the buttons. And every single person we brought in has just said the same thing, that this is the most amazing environment and just the coolest agency space that they’ve been in … They all leave pumped and energetic. That serotonin, those endorphins. On the way down people are smiling and laughing. It changes the way you think.”
There goes the Neighbourhood
Leggett says they’ve met with positive responses from the building’s other residences. It’s not like they forced anyone out. “The building is full of empty spaces.”
He’s already planning expansion into other floors. And this Wednesday night [October 8], they’re opening Gallery Brave in the Elizabeth Street shopfront with original pieces from artist Shepard Fairey and more.
“An ad agency that has a retail environment is interesting because we need to be experts at selling things, so why don’t we sell our own things?” asks Leggett. Why don’t we sell chocolates? Why don’t we sell merch? Why don’t we sell books and records? Why don’t we sell art, art that we create, art that people in this building and this community create.
“The ability to flex our creative muscle is really stimulating and exciting for us.”
Today the Brave has taken equity positions in various start-ups in exchange for services and cash. These include Sesion tequila, the brand fronted by co-owner Jennifer Hawkins which Leggett had also backed at M&C Saatchi, as well as Cronulla Beer and ag-tech startup FarmBoss.
It also bought independent creative agency The Zoo Republic in September.
But Leggett says it’s not about the building or the corporate growth.
“Our ambition as an agency is simply to be the best place we’ve ever worked. There’s four component parts to that. One is you’ve got to have the best people. Then you’ve got to create the best environment. You’ve got to work with the best clients, and do the best work. If we do those four things, if we’re dogmatically focused on those four things, we’ll be in the best place we’ve ever worked. And if we’re in the best place we’ve ever worked, we’re going to grow, we’re going to make money, and we’re going to do all those other things.”
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