Agency Land

Jye Smith

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The lessons nobody teaches you in agency life. Host Jye Smith talks to strategists, creative directors, founders, and the people who've survived the trenches of advertising, PR and communications about what the work actually costs, what it teaches you, and what you carry with you after. New episodes weekly. Produced by You're Good, Get Better and DOUBLESTAR CO.

3d ago

Oliver Weidlich - UX & Empathy at Scale

Oliver Weidlich has spent decades years inside every major shift in how humans and computers talk to each other, from triple-tap Nokia keypads to Palm Pilots, from the iPhone moment that finally made UX matter, to spatial computing years before Apple Vision Pro existed. He built Contxtual (formerly Mobile Experience) not to scale into an agency of hundreds, but as what he calls a “lifestyle company,” small, specialist, and deliberately built around the work he wants to do rather than the work that pays. In this episode, Oliver traces his path from psychology undergrad to UX pioneer, explains why empathy is a teachable skill rather than an innate gift, and gets candid about the hard, unglamorous grind of building an independent practice with no big brand behind him. He also lays out where spatial computing is headed, and the very real ethical dangers, from pupil-dilation tracking to advertiser access to biometric data, that come with computers that finally understand the physical world around us. Thanks to Carla Martin, Jarra Vreman-Naughton and DOUBLESTAR CO. Special thanks to PhaseOne and Fat Cat Music Group for the use of their song, “Crash & Burn” ft. Northlane.
Aug 10

Strategy Hotline - What are we calling this thing?

Stop Asking Your Client To Do Your Job For You! Strategy Hotline is back. Sophia Brockman returns with real questions sent in from agency people, brand side, freelancers, and consultants around the world, and Jye answers them live, no prep, no mercy. This one covers building in public (and when not to), whether to take the podcast ad partnership, what to do when a client hands you a brief for "everyone 25 plus," and a new closing segment where Jye puts Sophia on the spot with zero warning. Her answer might come back to haunt her. Thanks to PhaseOne Fat Cat Music — "Crash & Burn feat. Northlane"
Aug 3

12. Jayden Garcia - Get Out And Do It

Jayden Garcia did agency land backwards. Studied finance and law, worked at Westpac, then started a run club with his two best mates called Runday. The content took off, so they quit their jobs, started a production company, picked a name so safe it meant nothing, then rebranded to Pool Party. Now they run a creative studio and music venue out of Erskineville and never asked anyone's permission to do it. This one's about looking good as a strategy, friendship as the foundation and the liability, and why you should get out and do it before you talk yourself out of it. Hosted by Jye Smith Special thanks to PhaseOne Fat Cat Music — "Crash & Burn feat. Northlane"
Jul 14

11. Alex Adams - By Night I Was Ms Darlinghurst

Alex Adams was a brand manager at Red Bull, did a year in PR she hated, then built a career most agency people only talk about. Ms Darlinghurst, then the food blog Eat Drink Play, grew to over 100,000 newsletter subscribers. Secret Foodies, running secret location dinners across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. A partnership with Diageo. And now Darling Crackles, a specialty hospitality marketing agency. She got married and divorced in the same month last December, married to her husband, divorced from her business partner. She talks about why Secret Foodies matters more now than ever in a loneliness epidemic, why she'd never tell her younger self to change a thing, staff cost ratios, scope creep, and the handwritten note that's guided every business she's built: make it clear to avoid awkwardness later. Follow Alex: @msdarlinghurst Secret Foodies: @secretfoodies Eat Drink Play: @eatdrinkplaysyd Darling Crackles: @darlingcrackles Got a question, topic or guest suggestion? yggb@jye.co or visit youregoodgetbetter.com — Special thanks to DOUBLESTAR.CO and thanks to PhaseOne and Fat Cat Music for the use of their track Crash & Burn feat. Northlane
Jun 30

10. Gary Bertwistle - Why Marketing Is Broken

Gary Bertwistle has never run an agency, never held an agency title, never sat on an org chart. He's still spent more time in agency rooms than most agency people ever will. This is the episode about the gap between the career you're supposed to build and the one you're actually for. Gary takes Jye from his Austereo days running promotions in the rock and roll era of radio, to the keynote speaker who walked out of a senior corporate role with no fallback plan, to the founder of the Ideas Vault who sold it to his own barista, to the operator who built a ten person agency and then shut the whole thing down to become just himself. Along the way: why creativity needs a deadline and a repository, why marketing breaks when you chase the medium instead of the message, the two questions every room is silently asking you, and the four questions every leader should put to their team. He's the rare guest who has seen agency life from the outside in. It might be the most useful seat in the house. Gary's website Gary's LinkedIn Listen to The Mojo Sessions Got a question, topic or guest suggestion? yggb@jye.co or visit youregoodgetbetter.com -- Special thanks to DOUBLESTAR.CO and thanks to PhaseOne and Fat Cat Music for the use of their track Crash & Burn feat. Northlane.
Jun 23

Sara Servan - Anyone Can Design A Logo.

Anyone can design a logo. Strategy decides if it works. That's Sara Servan's whole philosophy, and it's the thread running through this entire conversation. Sara crossed three continents before she ever ran her own studio. Northern Spain to Rome to Hong Kong to Sydney, picking up languages and global brand work along the way, until she landed on the thing most designers never get told out loud: the craft was never the hard part. In this one we get into design as an actual language, her first night in Hong Kong standing in a supermarket trying to read packaging she couldn't read. What it really feels like to work on Amazon and GoPro and Unilever as a number in a system. And why she walked away from all of it to build brands for founders who cry when they see their logo for the first time. The heart of it is her process. She'll make a hundred logos and only ever show you the one, because choosing the right one is her job, not yours. She refuses the five concepts that agencies and big clients still ask for, because trendy colours mean nothing if they don't serve the brand. Strategy is what tells you the difference, and strategy is what she now builds everything on top of. If you've got designers on your team, or you're a designer wondering whether strategy is your business to touch, this one's for you. Sara's studio: https://www.saraservan.com/ Sara on LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/sara-servan-007157107 Sara on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sara_servan/ Got a question, topic or guest suggestion? yggb@jye.co or visit youregoodgetbetter.com -- Special thanks to DOUBLESTAR.CO and thanks to PhaseOne and Fat Cat Music for the use of their track Crash & Burn feat. Northlane.
Jun 4

Ashton Bishop - You Don't Need To Outrun The Lion

Ashton Bishop has been running Step Change for 17 years. He started it mid-GFC with no clients, no money, and no plan — as a protest vote after finding a coup being plotted against a friend dying of cancer. That friend was Gav Larkin, and that friendship was the genesis of R U OK? Day. In this episode, Ashton talks to Jye about the real cost of ambition: 23 courses of antibiotics in a year, the hedonistic treadmill that burned through his health in his 20s and 30s, and what he learned when COVID wiped out his entire business model overnight. They get into the agency questions that don't have clean answers: how to trust people again after they've let you down. How to stay ahead of your clients in a world where AI is moving faster than the work. Why going fast alone and going far together aren't actually opposites — and why the real discipline isn't strategy, it's knowing when to be humble. Ashton also coined the term "predatory marketer." He ran away with the circus. He won Gruen. He holds a patent for colour-changing footwear. This one covers a lot of ground. Got a question, topic or guest suggestion? yggb@jye.co or visit youregoodgetbetter.com — Special thanks to DOUBLESTAR.CO and thanks to PhaseOne and Fat Cat Music for the use of their track Crash & Burn feat. Northlane.
May 27

Gavin Heaton: Ideas Are Cheap

Gavin Heaton has had more career chapters than most people have jobs. From accounting dropout to IBM champion to agency creative to redundancy survivor to founder of Disruptors Co, he's broken things at every stop, including his own role, more than once. In this conversation, Gavin talks about what IBM really teaches you when you're willing to run servers under your desk, what "relevance deprivation" feels like when you go from 300 people on your floor to 30, and why getting made redundant at the top of your game turned out to be more political than personal. He explains why ideas are cheap but shepherding them through is the real work, how to know when you're addicted to agency chaos versus actually having impact, and why the side projects that make you feel whole aren't optional. Plus the origin story of "Servant of Chaos," which might be the most honest job title in the industry. Got a question, topic or guest suggestion? yggb@jye.co or visit youregoodgetbetter.com -- Special thanks to DOUBLESTAR.CO and thanks to PhaseOne and Fat Cat Music for the use of their track Crash & Burn feat. Northlane.

The lessons nobody teaches you in agency life. Host Jye Smith talks to strategists, creative directors, founders, and the people who've survived the trenches of advertising, PR and communications about what the work actually costs, what it teaches you, and what you carry with you after. New episodes weekly. Produced by You're Good, Get Better and DOUBLESTAR CO.

Creator

Jye Smith
Years Active

2026
Episodes

14
Rating

Explicit
Copyright

© 2026 Jye Smith