Inside job: Why MYOB is building an agency of its own to keep creativity close | Analysis | Campaign Asia

Common business wisdom suggests you can’t be all things to all people. But MYOB is giving it a good go. Not content with expanding into new sectors in search of market domination, the quietly confident Australian software giant wants to both develop its own marketing capability and attract the best of the agency world with its emphasis on ‘collective creativity’.

According to Gab McKenzie, general manager of brand and marketing, it’s managing the tricky balance comfortably – and it’s got the talent to prove it. “We get people coming in to freelance and we’ll often find they’re asking to stay on and work with us,” she says. “We don’t have a retention issue. We create interesting opportunities, focusing not just on the execution but on creating a culture that ex-agency people are used to.”

An in-house model is, in McKenzie’s view, entirely in keeping with the way MYOB operates – independent in spirit and emphasising ownership and strategic alignment right across its product range.

Marketing is responsible not just for the practical aspects of operations but also for maintaining a deep working knowledge of the brand and driving creative excellence. Even the fact that its recent campaigns (see below) have focused on the voices of its customers is, she adds, only possible because its creatives live and breathe the brand every day: “There’s a deep level of design thinking and appreciation that extends not just into product development but the customer experience, comms and support.”

The above June 2025 campaign, ‘We All Agree on MYOB,’ was helmed by MYOB’s in-house creative team. 

Being in-house but outward-facing isn’t the only paradox MYOB embraces.

A 34-year-old business which positions itself as a challenger despite being a veteran in tech terms, it was Australia’s first unicorn and is regularly hailed as its most enduring start-up success story. For years, it has dominated the market for SME accounting, payroll and invoicing software, before in December 2024, its Solo product launch took it into the 1.9 million-strong sole trader sector.

It’s maintained a healthy market share despite the arrival in ANZ of deep-pocketed competitors such as QuickBooks and Oracle-owned NetSuite, maintaining an in-house marketing function in Cremorne – dubbed Melbourne’s answer to Silicon Valley – that covers brand, creative, strategy, social, events and all aspects of planning and operations. Indeed, MYOB’s range is impressive: as well as a formidable, data-led sales operation and an in-house studio responsible for multiple video formats, it produces regular state-of-the-nation, marketing-led reports and content for an SME audience.

An agency village mindset

At the same time, MYOB maintains what it calls an agency village to complement its in-house core.

“When we need some creative thinking, it makes sense for us to get additional expertise,” says Emma Grant, brand and marketing operations lead. “It’s never about handing it over – it’s about a collaboration. What our teams take to the table is a really intimate knowledge of the brand. We live and breathe it every day. We couple that with [external] expertise that sometimes encourages us to think differently, which is really important to make sure we’re delivering the best we can and aren’t being blinkered.”

“The remit in-house is driving creative excellence, not just across the in-house agency but across our external agencies too,” adds McKenzie. “It keeps the agencies accountable, and it also leads to better work.”

Given this apparently harmonious union between brand and agencies, the announcement last year that MYOB would create a bespoke internal agency, dubbed NMBL, in collaboration with M&C Saatchi, appeared to mark a move away from an in-house mindset. But McKenzie insists NMBL, which was formed out of planning for the launch of Solo, is about bringing in greater strategic firepower rather than changing the model of execution. NMBL is an ‘integrated marketing team’ working on a project basis within the brand marketing department that spots opportunities and comprises senior figures from both brand and agency, she adds.

It’s also a recognition that the challenger mindset MYOB is keen to nurture (which it characterises as a ‘feisty sidekick’) needs to be able to ‘stack up’ against rivals with greater international profile. It believes it is best served by an in-house model, which enables it to get products to market more quickly. McKenzie cites Solo, which came out of internal discussions and customer data and was speedily brought to life by MYOB’s product team.

Crucially, she says, the strategic positioning of the product was clear from the outset, which not only informed its design but enabled the team to start thinking early on about brand and tone of voice. An in-house UI team took prototypes to customers, and by the time Solo launched, social messaging and marcomms were all fully aligned behind a common vision. “It’s all about the agility that comes from having different skillsets,” says McKenzie. “It makes us so much more efficient.”

L-R: Gab Mackenzie, Kyle Tickell, Emma Grant, MYOB

Banking on the next chapter

Despite moving quickly, staying on top won’t be straightforward for MYOB, which appointed Dean Chadwick as chief marketing officer in 2023. The business is healthy financially – though it doesn’t report annual earnings, they are believed to have grown consistently post-Covid to reach somewhere approaching AUS$750 million – but has never expanded beyond Australia and New Zealand and may eventually become a target for competitors if its current private equity owners decide it has run out of road.

It all puts pressure on the team to keep attracting the brightest talent. “It takes a certain type of creative person [to work for us],” says creative lead Kyle Tickell. “A year ago, I would have thought we needed a more traditional setup, but actually now it feels as though we need people with more strings to their bow. Somebody who can jump on various different types of projects, from small to big, who can flex. They have to be genuinely curious about the new.” The team are seeing new ‘hybrid’ roles emerge internally, which they believe make in-housing ever more attractive to former agency staff looking to take greater ownership of projects and avoid being siloed in certain disciplines.

Fortunately, MYOB doesn’t have to sell its model to new hires.

Australia is riding a crest of a wave of marketing in-sourcing and by most measures has the highest proportion of in-house agencies in Asia and the biggest in the world outside the US. MYOB’s senior marketers all have considerable agency experience and emphasise that any ‘stigma’ about leaving agency life has long since been removed, thanks to a thriving local ecosystem which has normalised the practice. The business was a founding member of Australia’s In-House Agency Council (IHAC), which shares best practices, encourages networking and advocates for in-house marketers.

That feisty sidekick persona, then, still just about suits a business in the ascendancy. But in July 2025, MYOB leapt to become a banking services provider to its sole proprietor customers, marking perhaps the final stage in its ascendancy to elder statesman of the Australian tech scene. The next stage of its transition may be the most challenging yet.