Julie Matthews launches independent creative studio DOSE

Former Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy and OMD creative leader Julie Matthews has launched DOSE, an independent creative studio offering brand strategy, campaigns and senior creative support to marketers and agencies across Australia.

Matthews will lead the business as executive creative director, drawing on a core group of senior strategists, writers, designers, directors, producers and specialists assembled around each brief.

The studio will work directly with brands and in-house marketing teams, while also providing creative strategy and ideas to creative agencies, media agencies and production companies across metropolitan and regional Australia.

A model built around the brief

Matthews said the business responded to agency consolidation and the movement of senior creative talent out of networks.

“The traditional, infrastructure-heavy, mid-tier full-service agency is hollowing out, and only two kinds of businesses will thrive: the mega-integrated networks that can do everything at scale, and the small, sharp independents that do one thing exceptionally well. Everything in the middle is exposed. That reading, more than any brand idea, is where DOSE began,” Matthews said.

DOSE’s services include brand positioning and messaging, creative strategy, advertising campaigns and creative leadership across film, content, social and design.

For in-house teams, the studio will provide creative direction and oversight. Its agency offering will focus on additional senior creative support for client briefs and new business.

“Our perspective is simple - every good brief has a better one hiding inside it; finding it is the job. Clients aren’t short of ideas or suppliers - they just need someone senior enough to identify the real problem. At DOSE, we uncover the challenge beneath the brief, develop the idea that solves it, and bring it to life wherever customers encounter the brand.”

Experience across agencies and client-side

Matthews brings nearly 30 years’ experience to the studio, including senior roles at Saatchi & Saatchi London, McCann Shanghai, Grey Melbourne, Ogilvy Singapore, Publicis Auckland and OMD.

At McCann Shanghai, she led creative direction for L’Oreal Paris across Greater China. Her international work also included Procter & Gamble’s Olay account in London and Unilever’s Pond’s and Dove accounts at Ogilvy Singapore.

In Australia, Matthews led OMD’s creative offering for clients including Beiersdorf, Estee Lauder, Clinique, Brother, Bacardi-Martini, RACV and Tourism Victoria. She also worked at Optus’ in-house agency, Yes Creative.

Matthews said DOSE’s structure would let the mix of specialists shift between projects while keeping consistent senior oversight.

“This elastic, modular model means we can give each client the right measure of creative firepower for the brief, while the senior leadership, the thinking behind the idea, and the accountability for what gets made, stays constant,” Matthews said.

The studio’s commercial focus, she added, would be on the results its work delivers.

“As we continue to grow our client stable and our offering, we want to be known for one thing: work that changes what people think and feel about a brand and is measured by whether the business number moved.”

DOSE has not named its launch clients.