A toast to purpose
Marina Vasilieva is a Creative Director at Koala. In the aftermath of the devastating bushfires, in 2020 she co-created The Lost Vintage - a limited-edition wine in partnership with one of Australia’s smallest wineries, made entirely out of their grapes that had been tainted by smoke. With the first run selling out within days, 20% of all proceeds went back to the Royal Fire Services, and the rest was donated to efforts helping local vineyard recover from the devastation.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
I kicked my creative career off in Perth in 2015 as an Art Director, moved around a few top agencies in Sydney shortly thereafter, picked up some paperweights, and landed at Koala as a Global Creative Director. Still pinching myself.
What would you say your ‘creative purpose’ is? Where do you cultivate your purpose – is this something fulfilled within your 9-5 job, or something you pursue outside of work? Or a bit of both?
Simply put, my creative purpose is to make the world better through my work. I’m not going to change the world one brief at a time - that’s some unrealistic, super-lofty bullshit. If I can make something that’ll make someone’s life that little bit easier, or their day a little bit brighter, I’ve done my job.
Lived experiences have helped me discover my creative purpose, and shared experiences continue to cultivate and develop it.
Walk us through ‘The Lost Vintage.’ Where did the idea come from? How long did it take from idea to launch, and what was the process like in bringing the project to life?
The idea came about from a chat with my creative partner after he’d come back from a winery one weekend. It was a couple of months after the 2019/20 bushfires. When going through the usual spiel, the sommelier mentioned that the years’ vintage could be completely taken out due to the smoke taint from the bushfires, resulting in a huge loss for wineries all over the East Coast. “There’s an idea in that” was the first thing that came out of my mouth, and after a whirlwind conversation, The Lost Vintage was born. While it didn’t get much love at the agency we were at, we both had faith in it and knew it was something we needed to do, so we did it anyway.
The process began with reaching out to independent wineries in the region. Luckily, I had a well-connected contact who put us in contact with a husband-and-wife operated winery called Mira Wines. We got in touch and presented our proposal to them which featured info on revenue, packaging design / overall art direction, social strategy, website design and a domain name we'd already bought - pretty much everything they needed to get started.
It was all such a special experience: there was a lot of trust and faith between ourselves and Mira and a good amount of money raised for the local RFS as a result. The opportunity to create work that actually made a tangible impact in the world was an extraordinary one, and one I'm glad Tay and I pressed on with and brought to life.
What was the most rewarding moment of the project?
Receiving the bottle of wine in the mail and actually holding it in my hands, seeing the details of the design in a way that you'd never capture in a mockup, and looking at it all in person. For me, being able to actually see the physical manifestation of many months of work was a great feeling.
If you could pick one thing, what did this project teach you? About yourself, your process, the power of creativity, etc?
It taught me about the weight of ownership and accountability. From sourcing new business through to directly handling production and PR, we were directly responsible for everything from start to finish. That's something that creatives aren’t often exposed to as part of the agency process, which was both exciting and overwhelming at times. But all in all extremely gratifying.
What are the upsides - and challenges - of running your own side project independently of an agency?
Both an upside and challenge: you are responsible for everything. If you score a home run, you’re great. If you fumble, the only one you have to blame is yourself.
What advice do you have for people who want to pursue a purposeful side project, but don’t know where to begin?
Begin with knowing yourself and your values: they’ll be your guiding light for anything purpose-driven in life, whether it’s how to solve a problem creatively or how to navigate a tricky situation in your personal life. When you’re trying to find purpose without knowing what you stand for, you’re stabbing in the dark.
