Joe Qualls
Founder & Creative Director
Joe Qualls is the founder and creative director of Qualls, an independent creative agency in Lake Macquarie, New South Wales. Before Qualls he spent more than a decade in New York advertising, from award-winning campaign work to running his own agency, and brings that same standard to brands across Australia.
Joe leads every Qualls engagement from the first call to launch, working across brand strategy, identity, websites, content and campaigns. The approach is commercial first and craft led: start with the outcome, the buyer and the real pressure inside the brief, then make work distinctive enough to stand out and useful enough to hold up in market.
In a creative field, your mind has to be like a rubber band: stretching far enough to think outside the box, but strong enough to make sure the ideas hold up in the real world.
Before Australia, Joe spent more than a decade in New York. As executive vice president and creative director at The Parkside Group, his work played a part in electing members of Congress, the New York State Senate and Assembly, and New York City Council. In 2011 he co-founded the New York advertising agency QB Advertising, ran it for seven years, then sold his stake and relocated to Australia in 2018 to launch Qualls.
In Australia his work spans the public and enterprise sectors. He has produced advertising campaigns for Sydney Water and managed global FMCG consumer sites and digital advertising for the SunRice Group. Further executions reach across NSW Transport, the NSW Department of Education, NSW Ports, Endeavour Energy, the RACP, National Intermodal, AMGC, Coates Hire, Downer and Transgrid, with creative leadership for TEDx Canberra, AustCyber and Stone & Chalk.
His work has been featured in the New York Times and recognised with Pollie Awards from the American Association of Political Consultants, an ADDY from the American Advertising Federation, a W3 Award for interactive design and several Communicator Awards. In 2010 he was named to the Forty Under Forty list by City Hall News. He studied mass communications and public relations at the University of Central Arkansas, and is a certified Google Agency Partner.
Joe also writes Offbrand, the Qualls journal, with industry views on brand, strategy and craft: why useful beats impressive, why strategy comes first or you pay for it twice, and why distinctive does not mean louder.
Selected work
From the Offbrand journal
Start here