Ben Smith
- Creative Director
- Australia
- Member since 2013
As a kid I always dreamt of being a left winger for Liverpool, but seeing as my football career never progressed beyond playing for the reserves of Sunday league outfit - Whimple FC in the UK, these days I dream up ideas as a creative guy in advertising.
My career began at the Surry Institute of Art and Design in the UK where I studied Graphic Design, then with my degree rolled up in my backpack I left home to travel and ended up, as you do, at Ad school in Sydney. Before moving to New York, Colorado and back 'home' to Sydney.
I’ve worked at agencies including Lowe, Droga5 (I was employee number six in their Sydney office), R/GA New York and Crispin Porter & Bogusky, Boulder. While in New York I also taught a bunch of enthusiastic kids at Miami Ad School for six months and helped them build their portfolios to get jobs in the industry.
Now I’m at Clemenger BBDO in Sydney working as a Creative Director on the Mars brands, which include Whiskas, MasterFoods, Dolmio, Dine and Wrigley’s.
I like making ads that don’t look or smell like ads such as The Dolmio Pepper Hacker, a pepper cracker that hijacks WiFi or getting Vanilla Ice to say “Sorry” for Virgin Mobile. The work I’ve helped create has resulted in winning shiny pencils, spikey things and metal animals at D&AD, Cannes, One Show, Webbys, Spikes, Clios, Adfest, LIA, New York Festivals, YoungGuns and AWARD (Australia).
Now back to the football.
Contact Ben.
