"Having that iterative mindset and a very structured way of testing, almost like a scientific experiment... that's how brands win with advertising, and MagicBrief helps us do this for our clients at scale” - Jamie Kritharas, Founder @ Defiant Digital

From DJ to Digital Marketing Maverick

Jamie, founder of Defiant Digital, wasn’t always in the business of ad creative—his journey began as a touring DJ backed by some of the world’s biggest names (think Martin Garrix, Calvin Harris and Tiesto). This lead to his initial realisation of the power of social media for self-promotion, where Jamie recognised a gap in the industry to blend the power of creative and performance, and idea that was not popular at the time.

Today, Defiant Digital is a leading creative performance agency, producing over 3000 ads monthly for brands across industries, including Telstra, F45, SkinKandy and Camilla, using data-driven insights and robust creative strategies to powered by MagicBrief.

The Marketing Challenge: High Output, High Quality

Scaling ad production without compromising on quality was a significant challenge as Defiant Digital’s client roster expanded. Early on, Jamie’s team managed with manual methods, piecing together briefs and inspiration from scratch, and running performance analytics on platforms using spreadsheets that were managed by the performance team. But as demands grew, they needed a solution that could keep up with their ambitious output goals and allow greater collaboration between their performance teams and their creative teams. Enter MagicBrief—a platform that helped them turn an overwhelming process into a streamlined, scalable workflow.

3 Key Wins with MagicBrief

1. Seamless Creative Inspiration Tracking

MagicBrief’s brand tracking feature has become central to Defiant’s workflow. By tracking ads from top brands, Jamie’s team builds an organised inspiration library that enables rapid ideation and allows them to “watch a brand” as they execute throughout the year. “Instead of scouring social media for examples, we have categorised boards we can pull from instantly. It’s like Pinterest for ads, but better,” says Jamie.

2. Data-Driven Creative Iteration

Testing and iterating is now part of Defiant’s DNA. Using MagicBrief’s data insights, they can monitor performance and make real-time adjustments across ad variations. “We see which elements work best and combine them for stronger, more engaging ads,” Jamie shares. “We call it the Lego block approach.” Jamie has custom reports built to assess soft metrics like thumbstop rate, holdplay rate and CTR against north-star hard metrics like ROAS and purchases to make informed iterations.

3. Enhanced Collaboration Between Teams

MagicBrief bridges the gap between Defiant’s performance and creative teams. With MagicBrief’s visual reports, even non-data-oriented team members can easily understand what’s working and use metrics to guide creative decision making. “Performance and creative people think completely differently. MagicBrief is the tool in the middle that allows them to come together,” Jamie explains.

Favourite Feature: Brand Tracking

“You can basically watch a brand and watch how they’re moving… how many ads they’re running and what types of ads their running. It’s so helpful to use this as a model of excellence to take learnings and apply them to your own brand and value propositions”

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On the Future of Performance Advertising

Jamie sees the future of performance advertising as a blend of creativity and psychology rather than pure technology. “Platforms will change, but human psychology won’t,” he explains. For Defiant Digital, understanding the audience’s needs and crafting ads that resonate naturally with them is essential. “No matter the platform, if you know your audience’s pain points, you’ll always succeed.”

We teamed up with Jamie to dive deep into the strategic playbook behind Defiant Digital’s incredibly high-performing team. Watch the replay here to see how they leverage MagicBrief to scale creative output and drive unmatched results in performance advertising.

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