April 1, 2025
threesixfive is a creative content agency developing creative and innovative projects right out of their Halifax studio. In this Q&A, we talk with Founder and CEO, Dave Culligan who discusses the story behind threesixfive, the content production process for global brands, and changing consumption habits.
DNS: What’s the story behind the name threesixfive?
Dave: When I was in my fourth year of university, I was still playing football at Saint Mary’s and I had become more and more frustrated and suppressed in that environment. I made the difficult decision to leave the team, to quit football, and to let go of that identity that I’d built and figure out what else was out there for me.
I ended up building a website with these coding skills that I had picked up, and tried my hand at blogging for a bit — I had some fun with that. At one point my brother sent me a video by this kind of renegade filmmaker, a high school dropout in New York City named Casey Neistat, who was sort of pioneering the daily vlog at the time. I decided as an impetus to create more videos, to get out there and meet people, and to challenge myself in a new way, to create a video every day for a year. So, I launched in June of 2016, and it was the best year of my life! I met so many amazing people and really ingrained myself within the Halifax small business community.
DNS: threesixfive has collaborated with numerous notable brands like Oakley, Amazon, and Nova Scotia Power to name a few. How do you tailor your content to meet the specific needs and expectations of such diverse clients?
Dave: Something that we’ve learned and developed, and really leaned into in the past few years, is understanding that it’s our way of thinking and our process that drives the consistency and the strength of our results. We earn the space and time with our positioning to be trusted by these organizations as a partner, and as experts rather than someone that they just kind of dictate instructions to.
We take the time to really listen: to understand their organization; to pinpoint their vision and their goals; and then combine that with our expertise and our own research. This helps us to create a kind of collective blueprint for how we’re going to approach each project. It’s this way of thinking — along with the thousands of hours that we’ve spent honing our craft through creative research, studying psychology, culture, and business— that allows us to understand consumers, and understand what elicits emotions — whether that’s a smile, curiosity, intrigue, or otherwise.
DNS: You have a team that comprises creators, designers, and strategists. How do these roles collaborate to ensure the success of a project from inception to delivery?
Dave: Over the years, the structure of our team has adapted to the changing content landscape, our business growth, and our ability to work on bigger and more involved projects. On a given project, you need operational and organizational thinkers: the people who can coordinate everything, make sure that things happen on time, and make sure everything’s accounted for. You need the people with the vision and the dreams that are going to bring new creative ideas, influence the aesthetic, think about music, color, design, animation, and all those fun things. Then you need your “people people.” The people who are going to make everyone feel comfortable on set and throughout the process, who are going to be able to direct our talent to get the performance that we need out of them.
I’ve learned over the years that you can’t do great things without great teams and it’s always a work in progress. I continue to learn how to get out of my own way and out of others’ ways and to bring in the right people for the right projects, and to let them work their magic.
DNS: Can you share an example of a project where you implemented cutting edge technology or a technique to help your content, that set your content apart from the rest of the market?
Dave: So we recently shot a global campaign for Oakley in our in-house studio here in Halifax, which is the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada! It gives us a space to be able to create world class work that would traditionally be done in New York, Toronto, or London. Some of the interesting technological components of that project were, first and foremost, leveraging generative AI to develop our creative concept, and to put moodboards and storyboards in front of our clients to land on a final vision.
We wanted to showcase different personas and different sets within a sort of half cube sandbox, and we used generative AI to expand the frame. We shot what was actually there and then we were able to extend that outside. Zen, a 3D modeling artist, used a 3D printer to print plastic holsters to model the glasses which we hung up with fishing line in various positions and shot that in the real world. After that, we used editing technology to mask those pieces of fishing line that you could barely see, resulting in a really cool floating effect.
DNS: What do you find the most rewarding about your work?
Dave: It’s the human moments and the human connection. I feel extremely fortunate that over the past seven and a half years of running this business, I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of people. Many of them are extremely talented, bright, creative, and caring, and that’s just our customers. It’s such an honour to see someone’s excitement when we can bring to life the story of their baby (their business) told in a beautiful way that they’re proud of. Most importantly, it’s extremely rewarding to be able to provide meaningful employment opportunities for the people that work with us. I’ve come to learn that one of my favorite parts about the business is building strong teams with a strong culture.
DNS: With changing audience consumption habits. How do you create content that still remains engaging?
Dave: Now that there are tools that have democratized the creative process, video production and creative industries have become a trendy thing to get into. It’s becoming more challenging when there’s just so much content out there that you’re competing with; whether that’s memes, reels, or other content depicting beautiful people leading seemingly perfect lives. However, I firmly believe that as AI continues to take hold and to develop, making nice looking things is going to become very commoditized. This is already happening, but people already do and will continue to crave more human touch and human perspective in the content they consume. My approach to try and buffer against that is by continuing to develop our AI toolkit and technological expertise, as well a unique human perspective, so that we can leverage these tools, not to replace human thinking, but to enable and empower it.
DNS: According to your website, threesixfive values: hunger, accountability, professional discipline and creativity. How do you feel that these values impact the outcomes of your projects?
Dave: Our values are the core of everything that we do. It’s how we curate our team and deliver performance reviews. We’re not trying to quantify how creative they’ve been, but when you run a company that’s producing anywhere from 80 to 100 different pieces of content a year, clients expect things to be done right, at a high level of quality, and to meet their desired outcomes. Our process to produce high-quality deliverables cannot be implemented without these core values. For example, if we are not disciplined, like not showing up on time, then we’re not in the best position to do our jobs well. If we’re not honest and respectful with one another, it’s going to erode trust and damage relationships. All of these pieces are equally important, but there’s a reason why we put creativity last on the list: we believe that creativity is best enabled when all of those other ducks are in a row.
DNS: Any upcoming news for threesixfive?
Dave: Now that we have created world class work for brands like Oakley, Sherwood Hackey, and eBay in our Halifax studio, we feel well positioned right now to bring the world to us. My business partner, Gavin, and I would say that all of our team truly love this province and feel connected to Nova Scotia, but we also take pride in having a global disposition. We could and would love to live in New York, or Berlin, or London, but we want to live here. First and foremost, we want to build up this community, but we’re also excited to continue to travel and access new markets and build our national and international profile.
To check out threesixfive’s work with the Halifax Chamber of Commerce, click HERE.