Press | ONE19

About ONE19

ONE19 is a new kind of advertising agency, built around AIDEN, an AI advertising brain that does every job an agency does, from research and strategy to writing, design and production. Each client works with one senior advertising person, who runs the job with AIDEN from the brief to delivery, makes the bet, writes the line that matters and signs off everything that leaves the building.

A traditional agency puts a team of twenty on that work, and so ONE19 is set up to disrupt the way agencies are built. It’s based in Melbourne and was founded by Tom Hyde, with Chris Maples, Russel Howcroft and Matt Farrugia as partners. It was launched in November 2026 as AIDEN & Partners and is now ONE19.

The name

Written ONE19, in capitals with no space, and said “one nineteen”. It stands for one of us, and the work of nineteen. Last quarter, from 20 July to 20 October 2026, one of us and AIDEN made the work of around nineteen agency people.

The people

Tom Hyde, Founder. Thirty-two years in advertising and technology, including Meta, DDB and Channel 4.
Chris Maples, Partner. Thirty years in media and technology, including Microsoft, Spotify and Channel 4.
Russel Howcroft, Partner. Former Y&R chief executive and Network 10 executive, and a Gruen panellist.
Matt Farrugia, Partner. Co-founder of Mutinex, the marketing measurement company.
AIDEN. The AI on the team, and the nineteen in the name.