OUR TEAM

Peter Shaw

Founder and Managing Director

Peter foundered RuralBrand (as TenMen Strategic Marketing P/L) in 2005 after a twelve years career as Head of Marketing and Communications with Australia's largest pasture seed company. Prior, Peter was a cereals agronomist/advisor based out of Jamestown and Port Lincoln in SA, and later Orange in NSW. Whilst at Port Lincoln, Peter purchased and operated a small grain growing farm and was one of the first to sow Franklin malting barley.

Based in Melbourne and well known within the professional Agricultural community, Peter is one of few with the skill set that straddles agricultural science, marketing, brand creativity and rural communications.

Peter holds a graduate degree in Agricultural Science from the University of Melbourne (1984) and is a certificate graduate of creative disciplines from Swinburn University.

Peter is a practiced agronomist, a Certified Practicing Marketer (CPM) with the Australian Marketing Institute and frequent ghost writer for the Land, the Weekly Times, WA Farm Weekly, QCL and SA Stock Journal newspapers.

Peter is the strategist and back room talent at RuralBrand for over 9 years.

Steve Bettess

Head Creative and Art Director

Steve is a once in a generation creative director emerging from the Heidelberg school era of fine artists. The ones with paint brush, oils and art easel. The guys with the love of beauty and how to interpret it for others. When computers and Adobe got invented, Steve migrated into creative art and design in an agency environment rising to Head creative and Senior art director for the Catalyst Design group. Along the way, Steve has been the creative lead on a myriad of accounts including ExxonMobil, Amcor, Bendigo Bank, Samsonite, Dulux, Sun Ray yachts, Griffith Hack patent attorney. More recent accounts at RuralBrand include: Nufarm, Pacific Seeds, BASF, MLA and the Australian Seed Federation.

Steve's signature is as a design innovator, way ahead of the curve of early adopters, the majority and the laggards. His passion is at the forefront of creative design for all formats. Wave curves are out; angles, color and opacity are in.

If you think Steve's 35 years of creative art knowledge is no match for a design graduate of lesser years - think again. In his lunch breaks, Steve blows the younger likes away on his Hobie skateboard at the local half pipe. As a surfer he knows about adjusting and being responsive to the wave situation - a principal he applies to his design for clients. He's no slouch; on a board or at the design interface.

Lucas Carlson

All things Audio-Visual, Camera Ops and Editing

Lucas is a geek on a mission. During high school lunch breaks, instead of kicking a ball around, Lucas would man up the Audio-Visual department. In his final year, Lucas took everything AV and digital. What college didn't offer, Lucas found in another curriculum at a suburban Tech college. Following, he completed his studies with a Degree in Audio-Visual at RMIT. Now at 21, Lucas has just launched his own gig to cater for his 'selfies'. These include an award winning music video, several school concerts and an electioneering piece for the local federal MP. On the weekends, Lucas is a network cameraman for the Vic Amateur Football League but not before Friday night's performance as resident DJ for Skate World.

Already, Lucas has been marked, with Crown Entertainment and Network Ten pulling him in for special projects. His more recent gig was with Ten working the Formula 1 Grand Prix, where he found himself inside the International broadcast switching room.

Being a bright talent, we had Lucas dream spec his ultimate editing desk - and then we purchased it for him! Now he renders out 1 Gig HD video in no time. It means we can go from film to edit to vimeo stream same day.

Tony Shaw

Principal - AShawThing Advertising and Design

Strategy and Creative Consultant, Psychologist

Tony works in the 'think-tank' at RuralBrand and is an inspiration, mentor and brother to Peter. Tony is creative Director of AShawThing Advertising and Design, which he founded in 1991. In the ensuring 25 years, AShawThing thrived and grew with clients like Heritage Seeds, Australia's leading pastoral seed company. Here, AST maintained the benchmark for creative and technical communications to rural audiences for thirteen consecutive years.

In 2007, Tony embarked on a sabbatical as a mature age student with the Academy of Art and Design in Florence, Italy. It soon became apparent Tony's experience and knowledge base was stratospheric; so the Chancellor appointed Tony as a student lecturer. Only in Italy!

Since then, Tony has moved into Philanthropy and Consulting, while finalizing a degree in clinical Psychology at Melbourne University. When we are at a mind impasse at RuralBrand, Tony presents clear thinking, the motivations and big ideas to go with it.