The Elephant Room Partners with DO.Agency’s Creative Micro-Network

Above (L-R): Dan Saxby, Tom Ormes, Nina Taylor, Shannie Mears & Andrew Dowling

In a strategic move to better serve ambitious brands looking for international reach without the bloat of a holding company, London creative agency The Elephant Room has joined forces with the global independent micro-network, DO.Agency.

The partnership is a key step in both agencies' ambitions, giving TER access to a global footprint and international talent, and providing DO. with an established, strong, and growing agency in the UK's influential creative market. This alliance is a direct response to a market where clients are increasingly looking for independent partners who can offer a creative solution on a global scale.

The move also marks a reunion of familiar faces. The Elephant Room’s founder and MD, Dan Saxby, and DO. founders Andrew Dowling and Tom Ormes previously worked together to launch and grow iris Worldwide across Asia between 2006 and 2011.

“We're working with global clients and we've got an informal network around the world to help deliver when it is a global client base,” said Dan Saxby, CEO of The Elephant Room. “But we always wanted to make that clearer and more formal, so that, as an indie, there's no compromise whatsoever being able to deliver for global clients.”

The Elephant Room’s leadership were looking for a partner that is ambitious, doing exceptional work and that the team trusted and soon began talks with DO. founders Andrew and Tom.

“Andrew and the guys were already on that path,” added Dan. The plan soon emerged for The Elephant Room to form a formal relationship with the DO. micro-network, which already is established in AUNZ and Asia, to bring the agency’s proposition to London. “And also take all the good things that The Elephant Room have grown over the years and globalise that,” said Dan. “It's an amazing kind of value exchange – a brilliant proposition for clients that want a slightly more formal way.

“There's lots of crowdsourced indies out there at the moment, but you know that that's sort of fraught with risk and control to have something where we can take to clients and deliver that – with people that you genuinely trust and know and understand how they work – was an opportunity that was too good to miss.”

The markets that DO. operate in were a good fit for TER too. Dan referenced one of the agency’s clients, The Botanist, whose key markets are the US and Australia, with Japan as a growth market.”You want to be able to bring that intelligence, local market nuance and cultural insight there on the global work,” he said. Equally, DO. has several clients who want to find that cultural relevance in the UK.

Commenting on the broad movements of the creative agency market internationally, Dan welcomed how things seem to be changing. “The market has come to indies. Indies are on the up,” he said.

Andrew, DO. group CEO, echoed that. “Both Dan and I have worked with big multinational clients across the world in multiple markets. And the market is running towards us – they're running towards independents at speed. So to be able to behave and operate as an independent on a multinational scale, is becoming increasingly attractive to clients. We believe in the micro-network that we want to build, we want to fill this mid-market area. Local independents struggle to operate across clients that work across multiple markets because of geography, because of their limited capacity to scale. Yet they also don't want to run towards the traditional global network.

“I think the sweet spot is finding clients that are looking for something beyond what a local independent can offer, but isn't coming with the expense, the lack of speed, the issues that surround a traditional network or a consultancy.”

Dan describes two recent campaigns , for Vodafone and Macmillan Cancer Research, as examples of work built with audiences rather than for them. He says clients and intermediaries consistently respond to the depth and meaning in this approach, which feels fresh in a market where global networks are increasingly focused on commoditization, scale and AI-driven personalisation that strips away human feeling.

Dan explained that The Elephant Room’s ambition is to take its audience-led, community-built creativity to a global level. Having shown it in smaller bursts with brands like The Botanist, he sees huge opportunity as marketing shifts toward work developed by teams close to real communities.

International expansion is a key focus, both for ambition with clients and he mentioned excitement across APAC teams and a belief that this way of working is already embedded in the teams’ thinking.

From London, he outlined two talent platforms. The first is One Month Mentors, a year-round initiative that pairs people from minority communities with C-suite leaders. The second is The Guestlist, a community created in 2020 that now includes over 3,000 people, around 85% of whom are ethnically diverse and span writing, production and other creative roles. The Elephant Room has plans to turn this into a real-world community with events, masterclasses and clinics. He sees potential to place The Guestlist into creative hubs around the world – cities like Bangkok – and integrate it into the wider proposition.

Andrew noted that the DO. network operates on an owner-operated model, with each international office owned and run domestically by experienced local leaders. When expanding into new markets, including the UK, the group had originally considered hiring individuals from major networks, but a longstanding relationship with Dan led them to a different solution.

Each market’s principals hold a stake in their own growth, he added, while he and CCO Tom oversee network-wide performance and support. “Frankly, we're not the experts when it comes to UK viewers or marketplaces,” said Andrew. “My clients want experts. They want people who understand the nuance of the local market, who understand the local audiences. When clients want to further expand into that marketplace, they go knocking on our door. We facilitate those relationships and they work in a very similar fashion to the rest of our businesses, who are also operated by us.”

As global CCO, Tom expressed his enthusiasm. “This is an exciting step for DO. as we grow our creative footprint into London,” he said. “The Elephant Room team have the same hunger and ambition that drive us, and on top of that, they’re just genuinely great people. Together we’re excited to create work that makes an impact on a bigger stage.”