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Paul Manning trades Ogilvy for .99—UPDATED

After six years as the executive director at Ogilvy & Mather NZ, Paul Manning has resigned from his post to take up the managing director role at .99.

“We thank Paul for his many years of contribution to the business and wish him all the best for the future,” said Ogilvy managing director Greg Partington.

Last night, Ogilvy staff were notified of Manning’s resignation through an email sent out to staff.

Upon finding out this news, StopPress contacted Manning but he would not comment on the changes.

This shift is somewhat unexpected given the long tenure Manning has served at the agency. He initially joined Ogilvy in 2009 following the agency’s acquisition of MetroMedia, an independent agency Manning founded in 1999 at the age of 22.

Under Manning’s leadership between 1999 and 2006, Metromedia grew into one of the nation’s largest independent agencies, employing over 40 staff and attracting grunty clients like BMW and Auckland Council.

In 2007, the STW holding group acquired Manning’s agency and it was eventually merged into Ogilvy & Mather and Manning transitioned into his role as executive director.

With Manning at the helm, Ogilvy has become one of the strongest agencies in the retail space through its work for major clients Countdown and Briscoe Group.

This retail pedigree certainly seems a strong fit for .99, which has traditionally also been a strong performer in this space.

But Manning will also hope to bring more to the table, having worked across the entire Ogilvy & Mather Group, which, in addition to the Ogilvy’s comms business, also includes shopper marketing arm Geometry Global, behavioural science department Ogilvy Change, digitally focused Social@Ogilvy and Neo@Ogilvy, the PR department and the Flim360 content arm.

Over the last 12 months, Ogilvy has added the Sealord and Number One Shoes accounts to its roster, but the agency has also had a few more challenging moments having lost Holden and the Auckland Council accounts.

Auckland Council appointed a trio of agencies (DDB, Alt Group and Goodfolk), while Holden went across to Special Group

After winning the Holden, Special Group recruited ex-Ogilvy employees creative director Angus Hennah and business director Sandra Daniel to work on the account among others (Ogilvy has since filled that gap left by Hennah by employing Regan Grafton as executive creative director).   

It’s thought that Manning has been placed on gardening leave following his resignation and that he will only start is new role in a couple of months.

StopPress understands that the arrival of Manning at .99 will see current managing director Ben Goodale shift across to take on a more central role in the JustOne business*.

Goodale and Clemenger chief executive Jim Moser could not be reached for comment.

UPDATE:

Clemenger Group New Zealand announced, via a release, today that JustOne will become the Trans-Tasman lead on loyalty programmes across the group from 1 January 2016.  

To enable this initiative, current Managing Director of .99 and JustOne, Ben Goodale, will move back into a justONE role as managing director and lead the Trans-Tasman initiative. Goodale has been in his dual role of managing director of retail specialist .99 and JustOne for more than two years. In that time, .99 has strengthened its retail/production capability, particularly in content production, and justONE has become the pre-eminent loyalty agency with data and direct at its core. 

“We see a growing opportunity in the data/direct/loyalty space in both Australia and New Zealand,” says Clemenger chief executive Jim Moser. “justONE is our group’s strongest agency in the ‘loyalty’ space and we would like to leverage this capability further across the entire group.”Says Ben Goodale, “we’re shifting into our next stage of growth as a new age agency allowing us to better utilise our strengths across a wider canvas. justONE has been my ‘baby’ for almost a decade and I’m excited to see it continue to develop and grow.” 

*Correction: this story previously incorrectly stated that Manning and Goodale would be working together across .99 and JustOne.  

 

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