Why Sinead Roarty Is Seeing the Opportunity in Smaller Markets

There was once a time when those looking to work in the creative industries knew they had to move to the big city to make their fortune. Global metropolises like London and New York remain important hubs, but now creatives from these traditional bigger markets are seeing the opportunity in smaller, less obvious places.

Australian native Sinead Roarty began her advertising career in the cosmopolitan city of Sydney, working at Ogilvy and JWT. Perhaps her most famous work at the latter was ‘I Touch Myself’ with Serena Williams for Berlei, which reached over a billion people with the message to check themselves for signs of breast cancer. JWT was merged by WPP with digital agency Wunderman in 2018 to form Wunderman Thompson. Encouraged by JWT’s chief creative officer Matt Eastwood, Sinead was able to work with teams across multiple continents.

“There was a real opportunity for talent to move through different regions and globally on different accounts. And so my creative partner and I had the great fortune of working in the UK, in New York, in Brazil, in São Paulo”, she tells LBB. “Then I did work in Singapore and in Jakarta, working on projects as part of the Australian team that was being taken into those markets to work on global campaigns. I had an incredible breadth of experience and really for me that sowed the seed of wanting to be able to work in different markets on big brands, take their brand platforms and do work that is very culturally specific and work with teams in those different regions.”

Sinead moved to New York in 2022 following the covid-19 pandemic, working with McCann Worldgroup and MRM, with whom she made ‘Down to Duck’ for Durex. She may consider NYC the “greatest city on the planet” but Sinead also highlights how covid’s unprecedented working conditions lead to creativity blooming all across the globe. “When you’re at the supposed centre, what was really interesting for me was because of covid, because of other decisions that had been happening in terms of the holding companies and because of political shifts that were happening, a lot of the work was outsourced”, she explains. “A lot of the teams that I was working with, the creative teams in particular were based all around America, but also the UK, also Madrid, also Manila, also Australia, also Cape Town, and also Toronto. What's happened now is that to do work that's meaningful no longer means you have to be anchored in London or New York. You can do work that is ambitious and nuanced anywhere.”

World events over the last decade have been seismic, from Brexit to Trump’s two terms in office and serious conflicts breaking out in Ukraine and the Middle East. This culmination of events and recent shifts in the workplace brought on by the pandemic has caused many brands and agencies to move their headquarters away from the traditional hubs.

Sinead says of this decentralisation, “They might keep their key people in say London, but certainly their hubs, the centres of excellence - if we're talking about in the European context there are places like Prague and Warsaw and Budapest.If you put your people there, if you have your suppliers, your production hubs, your tech hubs happening in those places then you want your leadership to be in those places as well. The thing is with creatives you want to go where the action is happening. And it always felt like it was happening in New York and London, but in actuality it's happening everywhere.”

While there are practical reasons for this relocation, such as the cost of living situation making life in major cities increasingly tight, the chance to explore creative possibilities somewhere totally different is understandably exciting. “It's easier to be able to step slightly sideways and do things that are really interesting, that really punch above your weight”, says Sinead. “And I think coming from a market like Australia, where Australia and New Zealand have done this work that's quite exceptional and unexpected, I think there's a lot of that that I'm seeing happening in Europe as well.”

​For Sinead the draw of Prague was twofold. Working with fellow Aussie and VML Czechia’s chief creative officer Jake Barrow was undeniably an important factor, especially in light of the agency’s Grand Prix win at Cannes last year forKitKat’s ‘Phone Break’ campaign. But the city of Prague itself has a certain appeal. “I did a paper at a social media conference here [in Prague] 10 years ago and I fell in love with it. The golems and the gargoyles and the Gothic architecture suits me totally and I'm an old goth from way back. It is a total delight to be here in this sort of dark fairyland. And I think the way that they are working here and the work that they're producing is really exciting to me.”

The population of Prague may be less than 1.5 million, but at the VML Czechia offices 32 different nationalities are represented. Sinead says of this cultural immersion, “I am enjoying being based at a global hub here in Prague. Everyday I work with people in London, Berlin, Warsaw - that’s really invigorating to me.”