Ange Collins established Adllins Media in December 2016 in Cairns, following ten years with Fairfax’s commercial team in Victoria and five years with News Corp in Fair North Queensland.
Collins left the industry to welcome her child to her family but returned after a few months, ready to focus on her career. After almost eight months, she decided to take the plunge out of her corporate job to set up her agency.
Collins, the managing director of the independent agency, spoke to Mediaweek about Adllins’ growth and success over the years, the importance of supporting regional clients, navigating the pandemic and being part of the IMAA.
Collins started Adllins Media with herself, followed by her administrator six months into the agency’s set-up. The team has since expanded to a team of 18 with an additional presence in regional Victoria.
Being at the helm of Adllins Media
With a background in sales and the commercial sector, pitches and P&L reports are second nature to Collins.
Collins replaced herself three months ago and appointed a new account manager to help pick up the volume of clients she was taking care of. At that point, she was taking care of businesses across the retail, fishing, and agriculture industries, as well as law firms and accounting firms.
Collins said the appointment of an account manager empowers her: “to focus on overarching strategy, business efficiencies, work with the leadership team and operational staff.”
“We’ve also moved more into the event sector. We are running our key turn solutions for TAFE Queensland’s Open Day events in Cairns and Townsville, which is a huge feather in our cap. That’s something that we believe is an opportunity for growth for Adllins Media,” she added.
Full-service offering for its clients
Adllins Media is a full-service marketing agency that works across strategy to media buying – from radio, television, digital marketing, and event management. It is also one of just 514 Google agency partners in Australia.
Adllins Media has kept most of its foundational clients and continues to service them. Among them are Islands of Cairns, Turners Home Appliances, and Cairns-based boat dealership, Bills Marine
In recent client wins, Collins shared that for the past 12 months, Adllins Media has been working with UPC Oz, a competitor to the likes of Ladbrokes and Bet365.
“UPC Oz we’ve worked with from inception in terms of logo design, style guide, the rollout of assets, marketing and supported them in their infancy,” she said.
Navigating the pandemic from a regional perspective
The pandemic significantly impacted Adllins Media when it hit in March 2020. Collins explained that at the time, she and her team were running a social media growth summit for businesses with 320 directors and administrative staffers registered to attend.
While Collins believed the turnout would be 100 guests at the most after a flood of apology emails from people unable to attend due to the lockdown restrictions, 273 guests turned up to the event.
But in a cruel twist, the following week, Collins lost 69% of her business and was forced to stand down four of her eight staff members because of the pandemic.
“That lasted here in Queensland for about seven weeks, where we worked from home before we ventured back. Then when the power went back on, and I bought back all of the team on board at that seven-week mark, we were double the capacity within about six months,” she recalled of the bounce back.
With an eventual return to business, Collins said that clients wanted to ensure they were operational, could sell products online, and remain a viable business even without a physical shop.
The agency had also just opened a presence in regional Victoria in March 2020, led by a newly appointed account manager. Collins noted that he was subject to Victoria’s harsh lockdown rules over the two years of the pandemic. She said: “Credit to him, he had it tough for two years, and it was a mental drain.”
Collins explained as the agency’s leader, she ensured her staff stayed healthy and in the right mindset to deliver work. She also did her best to keep them feeling included and working collaboratively.
Collins was proud to launch the Adllins office in regional Victoria in April officially. She noted that the launch “set a whole new tone” for her account manager as he supports their clients, council and regional shires based in the area.
“We’re proud of what we’re doing down there, and that’s what we’re hoping to mirror over the coming years into other regional centres,” she revealed.
Championing regional clients
Collins’ passion for championing the regional markets and clients is rooted in her upbringing in Victoria’s Grampians, where her parents owned and operated a butcher shop.
Their challenge was engaging with the community to support mum-and-dad businesses over the national clients and the supermarket chains. Unfortunately, her family’s business closed its doors in 2009 due to the Global Financial Crisis.
“I remember thinking to myself what could have been an opportunity to grow, should they have had the skill sets to do so, would have been to tell like it was almost like the world’s best secret,” she said.
Collins noted that this was where her passion for marketing and championing regional communities and local businesses derived.
“We make up 80% of the country in business, small to medium enterprises. It’s important to me to see those people being able to have a holiday or a significant cash flow to empower them and their operations,” she added.
Collins said the agency and her team classify themselves as more than just account managers to its clients.
“We’ve connected them in business with other businesses to do business, for a greater profit or better efficiencies, or to engage themselves in the business community that supports them,” she added.
The outlook for Adllins Media
Collins had earlier noted plans to broaden the agency to other areas of regional Australia. She said: “One of the key positions that we’re taking for our medium and long-term plan at the moment is to broaden out into the regional centres of Australia.
“We’ve got plans to roll those out about one per year, starting next year in 2023, and to continue the growth into regional Australia, which I’m passionate about,” she added.
In addition to further regional expansion, Collins said she believes Adllins Media is just scratching the surface of what it can do on a global scale.
Collins noted over the next two years, the agency will focus on events and supporting clients’ marketing capacity in a key turn solution, like their work with TAFE Queensland’s open days.
Another passion Collins is keen on working on in the year ahead is supporting the Indigenous sector. She explained that she hopes to help improve connections between Indigenous operations and to support them.
“We’ve got some clients in that space already that we work with, but we’re looking to expand and broaden our reach to connect those businesses and support them,” she added.
The benefits of being part of the IMAA
Adllins Media joined the IMAA in June after Collins revealed CEO Sam Buchanan reached out to the agency about what the industry body offers members.
Collins noted that the agency would take advantage of the offerings after experiencing a significant stage of growth, its biggest quarter since the company’s launch six years ago.
“One of the biggest things about to be rolled out that we will take full advantage of is the online training. This is outside of the advocacy that they do for the IMAA.
Collins also noted the potential of implementing an awards programme at Adllins, in which the IMAA can connect with an agency in another country and have a member of her team temporarily join that agency.
“There are lots of pilot programmes like that that we are hungry to tap into through the IMAA, and there’s definitely lots of connections there to be made,” she added of the industry body’s networking opportunities.
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Top image: Ange Collins
