Soaperheroes and tribe vibes: A fireside chat with Isobar’s new ECD, Brad Eldridge
After an early online design forum brought Brad Eldridge together with Soap Creative co-founder and SMG Studio Head Ash Ringrose, Soap grew to achieve recognition as ‘AdNews Digital Agency of the Year’ four times, and various accolades at the Cannes Lions, MIXX and Spikes awards.
Fourteen years later, Brad has brought his much-respected creative talents and the Soap team with him to Isobar.
An AWARD school graduate with a B.A. in graphic design, Brad is all about balancing effective communications and innovation in his work.
We chat with Brad about building Soap Creative, and his passion for creating a ‘tribe vibe’ team culture.
Hey Brad, tell us about how you came to establish Soap Creative?
I was a moderator for an online design forum called Australian Infront back in the early noughties. I met a guy called Mr Truffle on the forum. He was making these cool interactive experiments and mini games in Flash. I complimented him on how much I liked his style — turned out he was Ashley Ringrose. We stayed in touch and ended up working on a game together for Mars.
Soap was in its primordial state when Ash asked me to have lunch with him one day. There were three guys in a little shared corner of a warehouse in Surry Hills, above Billy Hyde in Commonwealth Street. Ash asked if I’d come on board as Creative Director and I was stoked. Pretty soon after that we picked up some major clients. We built a website for 20th Century Fox to promote three big disaster movie releases. We also made a crazy exploratory website for Mambo that ended up getting displayed in the Powerhouse Museum. We doubled in size within a year and moved to Ultimo where we continued to grow to a team of 50 over the next decade.
What’s with the name? Why did you call it Soap?
This was Ash’s brilliant idea. The story goes he wanted a name that was unlike all the other ridiculous names interactive agencies had at the turn of the 21st century… like Visual Jazz :)
He also wanted a name that was really simple. So, when we answered the phone “Hello Soap” people would easily understand it. As it turned out Soap was really hard to understand on the phone. Soup? So? Sup? We also got a lot of people calling and emailing us trying to purchase bath soap!
Soap recently became part of the Isobar Group, what does this mean to you?
This is really exciting, both for me and for the team at Soap. We’ve just gained 263 new super talented friends and colleagues. We also get to move into a new office with harbour views in Walsh Bay and we combine forces to become the biggest digital agency in Sydney. There are new opportunities to do amazing work for everyone as we combine our clients and skillsets.
You are one of the most highly awarded digital creatives in Australia — how important do you think industry awards are? Which award means the most to you?
Awards are expensive to enter, but I guess they are a necessary evil. They crush your dreams when you don’t win. But they bring work in the door and are an acknowledgement of success for clients and the team who make the work. They look impressive in your foyer as well. The most cherished award I ever won was Employer of The Year.
How do you establish and maintain a creative culture?
Nice segue from the following question! You maintain a healthy culture by creating an environment that’s inclusive. We did that by creating a tribementality. By having a set of common values and shared interests.
We created a tribe vibe with our Soaperhero characters. Everyone at Soap got to choose a superhero alter ego which was illustrated and featured on our business cards. The characters were a great way to position the agency as a playful place and worked wonderfully as ice breakers when meeting new clients.
When it came to values, we had a strict “no d!ckhead policy” and a “63% less bullshit” rule. And, we always aspired to “make kick ass work and have fun doing it”. The Isobar values are closely aligned with Soap’s values — they are just articulated a little more eloquently.
As we grew as an agency, we developed a lot of shared interests. Many of us became young parents and we helped each other through it with tips and stories, we also had a Soap Christmas Party for our kids every year with Santa delivering presents! We all had interests in creativity, photography, fitness and sports and we created regular events and challenges to nurture and foster our extracurricular activities to build a special bond. The team that plays together stays together.
What has been your favourite project you’ve worked on and why?
I really enjoyed working on the “Cars That Feel” Project we developed for Toyota Prius. There were a lot of technical unknowns we had to overcome and it got the whole agency working together. It was also pretty special to have an installation accepted into the VIVID festival of light.
What are you doing this weekend?
This weekend I’m going to be recovering on Saturday. We are celebrating 16 years of Soap this Friday night. We’ve invited everyone who ever worked at Soap back to our local, the Aussie Youth Hotel for one last hurrah! On Sunday I’m going for a picnic and a hike in the Royal National Park.
