David Droga, is the founder and Creative Chairman of Droga5. Growing up in a resort town in Australia, David couldn’t imagine anything better than being a ski instructor traveling the world. Ironically it was his imagination that took him overseas, not his limited skiing ability.
David launched his career by winning Top Student Honors at the Australian Writers and Art Directors School.
At 22 he became a partner and General Creative Director of OMON Sydney. Over the next five years, OMON won “Australian Agency of the Year” twice and “Ad of the Year” four times.
In 1996, David sold the agency and moved to Singapore to become Chief Creative Officer of Saatchi Singapore and Regional Creative Director of Saatchi Asia.
By 1998, Saatchi was the most successful network in the region and Saatchi Singapore was at the epicenter of this transformation, Media Marketing named Saatchi the “Regional Network of the Year” and Advertising Age named the Singapore office the “International Agency of the Year.”
Then, Saatchi headquarters called him. At 29, David was promoted to Chief Creative Officer of Saatchi/Saatchi London.
In 2002 Saatchi/Saatchi London won the “Agency of the Year” award at the Cannes International Advertising Festival. Later that year, both AdAge and Adweek named Saatchi the “Agency of the Year”.
In 2003, another challenge came knocking on his door and David packed his bags again. This time he headed to New York City, as the first Worldwide Chief Creative Officer for the Publicis Network. In less than two years, Publicis enjoyed a very public creative and new business renaissance around the world.
Along the way, David has also received countless personal accolades. To date, he is the single most awarded creative at the Cannes International Advertising Festival, with 48 Lions and 3 Grand Prix.
He has been inducted into the American Advertising Federation Hall of Achievement and was the first recipient of Boards Magazine’s “Lifetime Achievement Award”.
While in London, he was named Best Creative Director in the UK, the “Best of the Best Award” and named “World’s Best Creative Director” by Advertising Age.
From his time in Asia, David was inducted into the Media Marketing “Hall of Fame” and was honored with the “Lifetime Achievement Award” for the Asia Brief Campaign.
In 2003 and 2004, David was included in Details Magazine’s annual list of the “50 Most Influential Men in America under 38; this year, he served as a fellow at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland”.
Meanwhile, in Australia, Creative Magazine has named him the “Australian Creative Person of the Decade”.
This year, Creative Magazine included David in its list of the “50 Most Influential Creative People of the Last Two Decades”.
While David places great emphasis on leadership and success, he values pleasure, loyalty and sincerity even more.
For all of his international travels and experiences, David is very proud of the diversity and scope of work he has helped create over the years.
These include the English Army, Pampers, Toyota, Club HP 18-30,TBS,Heineken,UBS,Sony,Johnson Johnson, NSPCC and Ecko Unltd.
David lives with his wife and three children in Manhattan. Beyond his family and building a new adventure, David’s favorite subjects are anything Australian, art and the environment.
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This is David Droga’s story published on the droga5.com site. Admirable career, extraordinary collection of awards, impressive record of successes… and less than 40 years old. It was precisely Droga from whom I once read that “the key to success is massive rejections”.
If he says so with so much success, it must be because David has also accumulated a much larger collection of failures. Don’t you think? It is clear that success in the Dope dimension is possible with a gigantic ability to overcome everyday frustrations.
I have invited David to come to Costa Rica in November, on behalf of ASCAP. He has not yet responded to me, although we have the support of his wife, who is very eager to come to Costa Rica. I have told him about the volcanoes of Costa Rica and our Volcano, and also about our Pellizco. I hope it happens.
In the meantime, today I wanted to tell you the story of the most awarded Creative Director in the history of Cannes.
