Meet Lloyd, the British-born creative dynamo who’s made Brisbane his playground. By day, he’s the mastermind behind some awesome brand campaigns and our Creative Director here at Lance Montana; by night, he’s a successful music producer. With a knack for turning heads and turning tables, Lloyd’s approach to branding is a lot like his music—thoughtful, unexpected, and always on point.

Lloyd has 25 years of creative industry experience – from running international marketing campaigns in the music industry to being a successful music producer, brand expert, designer and retoucher – leading to a skillset and portfolio as diverse as his music. More recently, he has lent this creative expertise to numerous projects including the City of Logan “Proud City’ campaign as well as South Bank’s Regional Flavours Festival. So, sit back, relax, and get ready to talk branding, creativity and going against the grain when it comes to crafting a truly remarkable brand.

Tell me a bit about your background in music – how did you get started, and how does this inspire the way in which you approach creative projects?

I started DJing and producing in my teens and turned pro in my early 20s. I co-founded Against The Grain Records with Martin Reeves (Krafty Kuts) and we pioneered the ‘Breaks’ genre in the early 2000s. We had success worldwide, especially in Australia, and I eventually moved here. I’ve released music with notable artists like Freestylers, Stanton Warriors, and Plump DJs, and have maintained creative direction over two decades by staying true to our roots and having fun creating great work. I would say that working in music was also where I cut my teeth in the world of marketing and branding, and inspires my creative approach to pretty much everything I do today.

Creative Inspirations and Approaches

Can you tell me a bit about what you do as Creative Director at Lance Montana? How do you come up with fresh ideas and strategies?

The role of a Creative Director is to oversee all creative outputs of the agency, from design to photography to copywriting and everything in between, ensuring ideas and outputs are on brief and to the best possible standard. As a Creative Director, I am typically involved in the initial concept phase right through to completion.

Strategy is the critical part, ensuring that what we do is built on a solid foundation of ideas and insights, with the client integrated into the process. Every great brand is built on a top-notch strategy as we like to say.

My approach to starting a new project involves allowing myself to be absorbed in the brief, to sit with it, and allow time for ideas to marinate so that when the creative production starts, there is a pool of great ideas to draw from.

What inspires your creative direction when approaching branding projects?

Inspiration can come from anywhere, but I would say allowing yourself time to consider a diverse range of ideas and opportunities and also to consider and test the core idea from a totally different perspective. For example, I was once involved in an album project called Freakshow. The obvious creative direction was to look at vintage circus themes, which provided lots of inspiration, but one of the designers I was working with came back with a simple photo of a call centre: a vast, grey and depressing office space with about 500 people who were sectioned off into tiny cubes to work in isolation. It was incredibly powerful. I thought that was a stroke of genius and I am still inspired by that today.

Branding is a keyword that comes up a lot in your portfolio. Could you shed some light on how you create a branding positioning statement, and how important branding is overall?

For many businesses, branding can be make or break. In today’s market, people don’t want a constant barrage of facts and figures smacking them in the face; they want to be entertained, taken on a journey, and made to feel like the brand understands them. This is what branding does: it’s the personification of a set of insights, ideas, and guidelines that build emotive connections to meet or exceed the client’s objectives.

Your work reveals a knack and love for innovative creative concepts. What’s your formula or process for conceptualisation?

I’m driven by the saying, “you are only as good as your last job”, so I give myself a challenge to always do better, to always keep pushing, to always keep learning. I wouldn’t say I have a formula for developing creative concepts, but I am looking for that eureka moment when you know you have come up with something great. If I were to simplify it, I’d say it’s about establishing 2 or 3 ideas and finding the juxtaposition between them.

What do you find most challenging about being a creative strategist?

Sitting at a computer for so many hours on end!

What, in your personal opinion, constitutes the essence of a really remarkable brand?

A brand is only great if the customer says it is. The best brands are built on great strategy, inspiring creativity, and excellent execution. Some of my favourite brands in recent years have been Jeep and Audi. Jeep’s ‘Ultimate Search Engine’ was so clever, so simple, so effective that I bought one! Even as a marketer who knows the process, their marketing and product just resonated with me quite naturally. Around the same time, Audi launched a campaign with ‘The world doesn’t need any more followers’, again, the killer headline matched with a striking image bowled me over.

In terms of branding and messaging, are there any brands that particularly resonate with? Conversely, are there any brands whose branding efforts you believe have fallen short in recent years?

I’m quite smitten with Polestar, their brand, website and advertising as absolutely immaculate and I can see why Elon Musk is shaking in his boots. I’ve been really impressed with Spotify over the past 12 months, perhaps from more of a comms perspective, they’ve been doing an incredible job with taking artists on a journey to explain how their royalties and systems work, managing a backlash of people who think their royalties are unfair.

What trends / approaches are you excited about or would like to see more of over the next few years?

I tend not to think about trends, unless a client sees an angle to sit within a trend, I generally look for ideas that stand out from the crowd. That said, I would like to be part of the trend which moves users away from having to produce super short content and counteract virtual ADHD which is affecting so many of us. I’m also excited to see how AI will work for positive change.

Lastly, how do you see the future of branding evolving in the digital age, and what role do creative directors play in shaping it?

There’s no doubt AI will influence branding, and in many respects, it is being welcomed. I would point out that a typical Lance Montana brand strategy and brand identity project is about 70% human-led workshops and stakeholder engagement, so it’s not going to replace specialist people, but it will streamline parts of the process. I also think that as the world becomes more AI-integrated, we as social beings will crave more human interactions and authentic experiences, so branding has a big role to play there.

Behind The Scenes Of Key Projects

How did you create a compelling campaign for South Bank that resonated with locals amidst the challenges of Covid lockdowns?

The idea was born from the realisation that when lockdowns were over, every destination brand would come back online at the same time and compete for market position. So, we wanted to ensure our client was not on the backfoot and developed a ‘re-entry’ marketing campaign that was ready to go as soon as government restrictions lifted. The campaign spoke to the fears and hesitations that so many people had and presented a concept that showed immaculate green spaces with room to breathe, where friends and family could reunite.

The video for the City of Logan rebrand is very emotive and powerful. Could you share the inspiration behind the ‘Where Culture Runs Deep’, and tell us how you executed the campaign?

The City of Logan ‘Proud City’ campaign and rebrand is one of my favourite projects I have worked on. First and foremost, I have to pay respect to the marketing team who engaged us; they were focused, engaged, and open to doing something radical from the get-go. That empowered us to work outside of the usual council restraints and focus on what really mattered. It was clear that Logan’s reputational issues were only a concern for people living in Brisbane; Logan residents were happy in their skin and took pride in keeping it real. As a music producer, this resonated with me; the confidence, attitude, and authenticity had all the hallmarks of hip-hop, and their attitude could also be described as a little rock ‘n’ roll. Having faced so much bad press, we decided to start the journey by bringing the city’s pride and cultural diversity to the forefront, showing the world that being a bit edgy was better than being boring!

The Regional Flavours event series was a must-do event on the Brisbane social calendar.
What was your role in designing and developing the event’s creative elements over six years? How did you keep the look and feel of the festival fresh?

I worked with Lyndal Hall, who was a great visionary for the food festival, and we shared a passion for doing things differently, with a desire to stray from the usual food festival creative, which typically comprised a wine glass and a knife and fork. Each year had an overarching theme, but ultimately, I was lucky enough to have carte blanche on most of the creative aspects. I would start with the main marketing campaign creative and ensure we delivered something with a wow factor. Then, the event had 7 sub-brands for the spaces within the event, which we also executed to very high standards. In addition to that, we designed and styled about 20 food trucks. The creative bar was raised when I engaged an illustrator who worked closely with me to develop stunning artwork, resulting in the event being known as the best-looking food festival in Australia.