Wil Maxey and Elliott White on Finding Their Way to Droga5

Wil Maxey and Elliott White are the type of creative partnership that is remembered. One is a Brit [Maxey], one is Australian [White], giving them an extended world view. One is an art director and the other a copywriter who’ve spent the last decade turning big briefs into culturally sticky, award‑stacking work for client including Rustler’s and Amazon

Teamed in 2017 at Havas London, they quickly found their rhythm with campaigns like ‘Every Lesson Shapes a Life’ for the Department of Education and Gaviscon’s ‘Go On’. Individually, they’d already cut their teeth at JWT Sydney, Colenso BBDO, DDB New Zealand, MullenLowe and DDB London, shaping work for brands from Burger King and Mountain Dew to Kellogg’s, Rexona and McDonald’s.

In 2019 they joined BBH London, where their output only got sharper: ‘Whopperspiracy’, Samsung’s ‘Playtime Is Over’, Netflix’s ‘A Slice of the Upside Down’, Tesco’s ‘Become More Christmas’ and Barclays’ ‘Kid City’. By the time they arrived at Droga5 in 2024, they’d built a reputation for ideas with wit, craft and cultural bite. Within their first year they added ‘Oh My Rustlers’ and Amazon’s ‘Bring a Book to Life’ to the list.

Across their careers they’ve collected more than 70 awards, including D&AD, One Show, Spikes, British Arrows Gold, Cannes Lions, a Clio Grand Prix and an effectiveness Grand Prix — plus a seven‑year streak of winning something every single year. They dislike taking things too seriously and anything that should’ve been an email; they do, however, share a fondness for complicated salads, industrial techno and once spent two weeks in Ibiza as a “getting to know you” exercise.

Now senior CDs at Droga5, they reflect on the work that shaped them, the partnership that drives them, and what comes next.

Creative Salon: How did you get started in your careers? 

Maxey: I studied at Lincoln University, before it was cool, and after a few agency visits and book crits, made the move to London. A few months in I landed my first job with my then partner at DLKW Lowe. Which for anyone under 30, was an advertising agency. 

White: Being Australian, I did AWARD school in Sydney, coming top 10, which is almost non-negotiable there, and was hired as a junior copywriter at JWT Sydney on parallel things like diarrhoea medication and roadside assist.  

What does creativity mean to you?

Maxey: Our first thought would be, it means we aren’t stacking shelves anymore.

I’m sure some people would announce creativity meaning human expression or something cool like that. But to us it’s the thing that’s gotten us out of lives that have surely been replaced by an automaton somewhere. 

But in the broader sense, creativity is still the best way to convince humans about something. Whatever you're selling, be it a can of soup, regime change or four more years, if you present it as a creative idea, it gets stuck in people’s brains.   

What role did creative play in growing up?

Maxey: Growing up in a tiny village, creativity wasn’t ever called creativity, it was just what you did when there was absolutely nothing else to do. It usually started with making something, filming something, or attempting an unnecessary project for no real reason. 

I did then go on to spend a lot of time in school skipping lessons to learn photoshop, so that got me into design from a relatively early age. 

White: Both my parents saw the arts as a fast track to starvation. So, creativity came in the form of a video store, drama class, mad magazine fold-ins and WWE storylines. Ultimately, we don't think a creative childhood necessarily makes a creative life.  It’s more often that restriction makes better art than freedom. A bored kid stuck in his room with nothing but an imagination is the most creative thing on the planet. 

Were there any particularly inspirational people, or a particular moment that helped shape your path or way of thinking?

Maxey: It was a short stint at DDB London. After a few internships we arrived at DDB and that place was clearly operating on another level. Every office had a star team in it, most of whom are ECDs and CCOs around town now. So just being in that office, at that time filled you with inspiration and a passion for the craft.

White: I got an internship at a startup agency in my hometown started by an ECD named Adam Lance. The dress code was strictly board shorts. We were forbidden from taking anything seriously. He made me do 100 headlines for a paint shop. I reviewed them next to me on megaspeaker. 

How did you form and develop your creative partnership?

White: Wil had been at Havas London a few years and had a partner. I was hired as a solo floating writer, and on his first day was put on a pitch with Wil. That partner of Wil then quit and in an act of genius management efficiency, Ben Mooge made us partners on that pitch. That was for the Department for Education, which we went on to win and receive a few awards so proof/pudding. 

How do you see working within the culture of Droga5 helped you develop creatively? 

White: Droga5 always tries to maintain a startup energy when it comes to work. Less layers, less politics, less internal meetings to get to a presentation. So hopefully the work is less over-thought, and the creatives (as much as they legally can be) happier. 

How do you go about pitching in eye catching ideas that are distinctive for the brand but perhaps also a little bit risky too? Why is that perhaps more important than ever? 

Maxey: If we’re talking about pitching to a client, that comes down to the relationship we have. Is there love and trust. It doesn't matter how amazing the idea is, or even how boring and safe it is, if the client doesn’t trust you nothing’s getting made. There are so many amazing creatives around the world who go into pressos carrying world famous metal dripping ideas, to just be hit by a marketing director blank wall of a face. That’s up to the agencies to cultivate, either with baby steps of work that builds trust or smarter client selection. With Amazon Books, that relationship was built before we arrived, and we take great care growing it further, with what we would say are the best clients Wil and I have ever had. 

How did you both go about developing the ideas for the ‘Bring a Book to Life’ campaign? What was the initial brief behind it? 

White: The brief was about books being seen as boring when compared to other forms of entertainment like streaming. But the thing that books give you is a feeling of creation, of power. Without you, nothing happens. I think we originally wrote: in the world inside a book, a reader is god. The visual of everyone asleep, in scenes like a battlefield, until someone turns a page, this was simple and exciting enough that after one slide, everyone was in. Then it was about collaborating to make it great.

Working on such a huge brand on a seemingly open campaign brief - how challenging or liberating can that be? 

Maxey: There’s an old advertising saying of, give me the freedom of a tight brief. The strategy team at Droga5 London are world-class. They made it so the only challenge a creative can have is not being interesting enough. 

As the use of AI grows within the creative sector - how do you see it being used to help deliver creative excellence? 

White: AI definitely has a role in helping people see what’s in your head. It’s more often that an idea is misunderstood, than actually disliked. So, from within the agency to the client presentation, anything that can help us not have moments of people standing around a scamp scratching chins, should be embraced. 

What do you see as being the craft of using AI as a creative? 

Maxey: AI has a place along the journey, but we don't feel like there's any place for AI when it comes to the final creative product.

Photography, illustration, design, animation, direction, production and VFX from talented humans are always going to top AI’s interpretation. The process of collaboration between agency creatives and great craft partners can be the difference between work going in the bin, or the book.

What excites you about the industry? 

Maxey: Every year, someone comes along and says that this will be the last year of creative advertising, that some new program will replace us, some new structure, new way of working, no big ideas, no comedy, no shoots, only social posts, never on TV. And then the Super Bowl comes round with a huge, great, funny idea made by a creative team and everyone looks stupid. 

If advertising was suddenly banned, what would you do?

White: Probably find the closest dictatorship that still allows it with giant billboards of the dictator holding a falcon wrapped in a flag or something and LinkedIn DM them.