Marcus Willis of Kill Boring Dead: We're Designed to Repel 99% of Clients
With the recent appointment of Nel Wolf as GM, Marcus Willis of Australian indie agency Kill Boring Dead sat down with Mission Media to talk conviction, scale, and what it actually takes to protect creative culture.
Marcus Willis founded Australia-based Kill Boring Dead (KBD) after a decade of what he calls polite business. The result is an indie agency with an unambiguous brief: kill boring creative, fire boring clients, and build the kind of work that earns attention instead of interrupting it.
With the recent appointment of Nel Wolf as the firm's General Manager, Willis sat down with Mission Media to talk conviction, scale, and what it actually takes to protect a creative culture.
KBD's positioning is built around work that earns attention rather than interrupts it. Where did that conviction come from, and has it ever cost you a client?
It took me ten years of running a polite business to realize that polite doesn't work. Kill Boring Dead can't be the first business you start. It has to come from a place of pain, mediocrity, polite client nods, and work by committee, to help you understand your own worldview.
Kill Boring Dead can't be the first business you start. It has to come from a place of pain, mediocrity, polite client nods and work by committee.
My view on marketing is that we're moving away from the interruption world. The old-school 80/20 media-creative split is fading. Brands are seeing significantly less engagement right now, and we're here to fix that.
Yes, working with boring or even worse, rude people affects the number one thing that I know is going to help make Kill Boring Dead famous, and that’s our energy. We’re designed to repel 99% of clients.
We've fired clients for being rude or boring, or sometimes both. But my number one priority is growing the careers of everyone who works here. If we lose a client along the way but keep our worldview and conviction, that's a pretty good deal. It's actually much easier for me to get a new client than to hire someone incredible. So I've always prioritized my team above my clients.
Leighton Cosseboom
The decision to hire a GM signals a particular moment in an agency's growth. What was the trigger for KBD?
The honest trigger was that I found myself switching between operations, finance, and creative every 45 minutes. I was pushing myself and the team to the limit, waking up at 3 am, stressed and ruminating. It gave me shingles.
Shingles is a great reason to hire a GM.
I knew I wanted someone with the same energy and conviction as the rest of the company. The work I'd seen Nel doing, standing up against companies she'd worked for to protect her team, signalled she was exactly the right fit. That kind of brand alignment is what makes coming to work fun.
You've described Nel as someone who sharpens, challenges, and makes things better. What does that kind of leadership add to a founder-led agency?
Within the third hour of Nel starting, she had disagreed with me on something. I loved that. She came in with passion, confidence, and conviction and started making decisions immediately.
As a leader, I love making fewer decisions. I'm acutely aware that I am the bottleneck in almost every part of the business. Stepping out of the way is a privilege.
As KBD takes on larger, more complex global clients, how do you protect the creative culture from the pressures that come with scale?
I want brands to be so aware of what we stand for that it actively repels or attracts them before we ever get on a call. Part of why so many big brands produce beige content is exactly this problem: the brief gets safer at every step.
Part of what Kill Boring Dead does isn't just creative work. It's running bravery workshops, challenging clients at every step, so we can push the work forward. When feedback comes back saying "love it, but can we make it safer?" we remind them they hired an agency called Kill Boring Dead.
When feedback comes back saying 'love it but can we make it safer?' we remind them they hired an agency called Kill Boring Dead.
We recently had a project get pushed safer and safer until it resembled nothing we were proud of. Instead of holding onto that frustration, we bought a vase for everyone in the office to smash. Our company's energy is our product. We might fire that client, or buy more vases.
Social-first creative has evolved a lot. What does it mean to KBD in 2026 that it didn't five years ago?
Gone are the days of interrupting people with perfectly polished ads that the brand manager loves and the brand book approves. We're creating organic-first content. If a piece doesn't work organically, why would you think adding $80,000 in ad spend is going to fix it?
We lead with emotion, the number one trigger that makes anyone remember anything. We want the people who see our content to actually feel something.
Leighton Cosseboom
KBD has worked with global brands across tech, gaming, and beyond. What do the best client relationships have in common?
Bravery, conviction, trust.
The indie agency model is having a moment. What's the honest case for choosing an independent over a holding group shop?
We move faster, and we're more cost-effective. I'm constantly looking at the proportion of people inside the business who actually make the work better. I'm not interested in growing the percentage in accounts or middle management. I want to grow the proportion of people who help us kill boring dead.
We're also fully integrated. Anyone at KBD can suggest ideas, including our accountant, who comes to brainstorming sessions. We believe creativity can come from anyone, and we build a culture that works cohesively rather than in silos.
What does KBD want to be known for in three years that it isn't known for today?
One of our brand values is world domination. We want a global presence. Ultimately, we want to make a Super Bowl commercial.
But most importantly, we want to be known as the place creative people come to do the best work of their careers.
Kill Boring Dead is an independent social-first creative agency based in Australia. Learn more at killboringdead.com.
Want to reach thousands of marketing and comms professionals across Asia?
Get your brand in front of industry decision-makers.
Partner with Mission Media →
