Inside Emergence Creative with Cathal Mongey: pitches, panels, and new perspectives

Juicebox Account Manager Cathal Mongey dove headfirst into this year’s Emergence Creative Collision, pitching his own venture, Celtic Dog Creative, hosting the Future Drivers panel, and soaking up inspiration along the way. In this Q&A, he shares insights from his experience at the festival.

1. You took part in PitchFest (Emergence Creative’s take on Shark Tank). Can you explain what your company does?
We are Celtic Dog Creative, and we create holistically engaging stories that don’t just end when you close the final page. Our narratives extend from physical books to musical audiobooks, building worlds that educate young minds and forge deeper bonds with the reader.

We’re a team of four – an illustrator, writer, musician, and project manager. By blending physical and digital media, we create rich, multi-sensory worlds for young readers.

Ultimately, we are on a mission to redefine story time, and bring back the magic that has connected readers and little ears for lifetimes.

Our first project is ‘The Adventures of Twigley’. Inspired by a trip to Bluff Knoll, this story tells the tale of a young stick with a burning desire to adventure. His roots and family tree hold him steadfast, until a storm knocks him off and sends his whole world into a spiral. Touching on themes such as family, belonging, loss, grief, self worth and ambition, this story has many lessons for readers young and old.

I wrote the original story, and our talented Art Director Lydia Greaves has brought these illustrations to life. Outside of the physical book, our Musical Director, Marcus Davidson and I are in the process of creating a musical audiobook that takes the reader on an immersive adventure, with songs that help to develop our characters.

With these two products, it means our readers can opt for three different experiences:
• Read the physical book and have a wonderful analogue experience
• Read the physical book and listen to the matching songs in each section to further develop the story and characters
• Follow along to our audiobook as it transports you into the world of Twigley

We’re dreaming big, and our director of operations, Edna Carneiro Sweeney is ensuring we keep grounded and progressing the MVP version of this project. We do however have big plans for a stage adaption, or even an animated feature length, which is always in the back of our mind as we’re creating these songs.

During Emergence Collision, I was invited to pitch to the south west angel investors about Celtic Dog Creative and Twigley. It was pretty daunting being last to pitch after two fantastic businesses, but the response was incredible. This in a way was the launch of our creative house, and I couldn’t have asked for a better audience to pitch to. It’s been incredibly energising using my creativity in this project, and we’re excited to introduce the world to both Twigley and the capabilities of Celtic Dog Creative.

We’re in the process of starting a kickstarter campaign for our first project, which includes different levels of rewards for different investments. It’s a great chance to get some pre-orders in for the book, and also engage some libraries and schools for public performances. We’re thankful to anyone who can spare some dollars to make this crazy dream come true.

2. You also hosted the Future Drivers panel. What key themes or takeaways stood out to you from the discussion?
It was an honour to be asked to host the future drivers panel on the second day of Emergence. I was joined by the 303 Mullenlowe dynamic creative duo of Sarah Cassells (Art Director) and Ellysia Burton (Copywriter), along with Joshua Yates (freelance filmmaker).

The theme was ‘Creative Resilience: Thriving in two worlds (Agency vs Freelance), and we covered topics such as their path into creativity, first setbacks, the business of staying inspired, and a glimpse as to where they’d like to be in five years’ time.

One thing for sure is that there is no one set way to get into these fields, with our panel noting how they’ve worn many hats, from barista to baker and even dabbling in client service. I myself studied as a primary school teacher, before doing a masters in Marketing and blagging my way into an agency role.

3. What were your top three highlights from Emergence Creative Collision, and why? 
There were some really impressive speakers at Emergence, however…

I won’t lie, I was fangirling a little over Beau Miles, only because I had watched him in the depths of my old college house. He made a short 15 minute documentary of him collecting people’s discarded toilet paper on the margaret river coastal trail. He then proceeded to burn this as some sort of ritual. Creativity eh?

I also really enjoyed hearing from Suzanne Rosa, who spoke about taking the risk and moving that bold idea you have into the world.

The conference officially ended proceedings with a barside chat with David Nobay. As an immigrant, I have some defence for not knowing the scale of how impressive this man is, but after hearing about his escapades, I think he’s now my hero? Ultimately, we’re way too risk averse in WA and Australia, and we need to stop smoothing out creative ideas and instead embrace the ugly corners.

4. Did you meet anyone at the festival that you hope to collaborate with in the future?
Plenty! There’s definitely some people who I want to collaborate with in my capacity at Celtic Dog Creative. Adam Oliver of Three first names and Joe Mooney (senior copywriter) have already been a massive help. Further to that, I’ve managed to add a few more agency legends to my contact list. My Juicebox counterparts have also been amazing to lean on for support.

5. What’s your advice to anyone attending next year?
Mat Lewis and the Emergence team did such a wonderful job pulling everything together. I really appreciated how they offered different levels of tickets for different attendees. As I’m part of the youngbloods WA committee, I’d encourage any young person in advertising to grab a half price ticket next year and just dive into how wonderful the whole conference is.

6. If you could describe Emergence Creative in three words, what would they be?
Wholesome good fun.