Harvey steps up at Aegis
Robert Harvey has been promoted to the newly created role of CEO of Aegis Media New Zealand, providing leadership to Aegis Media’s eight agencies and more than 80 staff in New Zealand. Rob will continue to report to Aegis Media ANZ CEO Luke Littlefield.
Whilst maintaining his current duties as managing directoror of Carat New Zealand, as the national CEO for the Aegis group, Harvey will also provide executive support to the existing management and operations for ApolloNation, Synergy, Haystac, Vizeum, Mitchell & Partners, iProspect and Catch! Media in New Zealand.
Luke Littlefield, CEO of Aegis Media Australia and New Zealand said: “Rob is a strong leader known for his creative and strategic solutions, inclusive style and ability to relate to staff and clients across all levels. He has the great ability to combine his business acumen with a creative and strategic approach to communications. The integrated offering of Aegis is quite unique in the New Zealand market and we look forward to Rob taking greater leadership along with our local agency heads in driving this forward for our current and prospective clients.”
Harvey joined Aegis in 2011 after working with ZenithOptimedia and PublicisMojo as Group Managing Director across both brands.
Trio in Union
Auckland digital agency Union has appointed three new staff. Digital creative Leon Williams has worked at agencies, both freelance and full time, in London, Melbourne and Auckland, including JWT, Y&R, Colenso BBDO, Clinic, Saatchi & Saatchi, and Skull and Bones. A recent addition to the Art Directors Club, New York, he has 11 years’ experience across many brands and projects, a couple of 2013 Bronze Cannes Lions via Y&R and MetService.
Digital account manager Emma Mearns has an extensive background in digital and media. She joins Trio from Spitfire, and prior to that had a multi-channel media background in New Zealand and Australia, working for OMD and PHD.
Senior developer Stuart Falconer joins Union from Ogilvy Interactive. Prior to that he was with Born Digital. He has held roles in New Zealand, Australia and the UK with over 11 years experience as a developer.
CEO Geoff Devereux says, “We’re delighted with this result – we’ve worked long and hard over the past few months to find the best talent for these roles and Leon, Stu and Emma all bring amazing skills to the agency, representing another leap forward in capability. Under Leon’s leadership of design and creative, we are committing to grow our existing team definitively extending our capability to service our clients brands – his strategic ability and background in crafting beautiful, innovative digital experiences, also generating very high quality content makes him a perfect fit to lead the creative team we are building here.”
Fraser travels to Tourism NZ
Andrew Fraser is the newest addition to Tourism New Zealand’s senior leadership, as director of marketing. He has previously held senior marketing and executive roles with Frucor Beverages/Danone and Kraft/Cadbury. He has 20 years’ experience in marketing.
“Andrew joined the organisation as a marketing contractor in May and has proven himself invaluable in leading the international marketing communications team during a period of significant growth,” says chief executive Kevin Bowler.
He’ll start his permanent role on 21 October. The other members of the core leadership are Justin Watson, director of trade, PR and major events; corporate affairs GM Chris Roberts, general manager, people, Rose Tua and finance and IT GM Sue Parcell.
Golden chance for Golden Hour
A Kiwi documentary, The Golden Hour, about the Arthur Lydiard-inspired gold medal winning races of Peter Snell and Murray Halberg at the 1960 Rome Olympics, has been nominated for an International Emmy Award.
The Golden Hour, which aired on TV ONE in July last year, has secured a Best Documentary nomination. The 90 minute doco was directed by Justin Pemberton and written and produced by Steven O’Meagher for Desert Road Television, and made with the support of NZ on Air’s Platinum Fund.
Winners will be announced at a ceremony held in New York on 25 November. New Zealand previously won an International Digital Emmy with the TVNZ Ondemand series Reservoir Hill taking the prize for Digital Program: Children and Young People in 2010.
Sky’s the limit for Wallace
Cam Wallace has been appointed chief sales and commercial officer for Air New Zealand, replacing Norm Thompson on 1 January 2014.
Chief executive officer Christopher Luxon says Wallace, who is currently group general manager New Zealand and Pacific Islands, has been selected for the role after an international search. “Mr Wallace is a world class sales leader and I am delighted that an Air New Zealander was able to beat strong global competition for this position on my executive management team.”
Wallace will have accountability for more than $4 billion in passenger and cargo revenue, predominantly driven through sales in New Zealand, Australia, United States, United Kingdom, Europe, China and Japan. He has held sales leadership roles for more than 10 years on both sides of the Tasman with Air New Zealand. He currently has responsibility for generating more than $2 billion in revenue annually through leading a sales and market development team of over 650 people. Prior to joining Air New Zealand he held roles within two other airlines.
Birkby crosses Tasman to Colenso
Richard Birkby has recently joined Colenso BBDO as group account director on Fonterra. A new arrival to the Auckland scene from Australia, Birkby was previously head of client service at Host Sydney, where he spent five years working with clients including Bankwest, Tourism WA and Vodafone.
“Work from New Zealand is always held in high regard in Australia and so coming to New Zealand is a really exciting move for me. Colenso is right at the front of the vanguard of Kiwi creativity and I’ve seen some really inspiring work from this company. Consequently I’m especially pleased to be joining the team here and to be working on some really iconic brands” Birkby said.
Scott Coldham, head of account management, said, “the addition of someone of Richard’s calibre to the department is exciting for the team, our clients and the department in general. Fonterra is a complex business with opportunity a plenty and Rich brings experience and fresh perspective – I’m excited to have him as part of the team.”
AdSchool graduates to Italian qualification
Media Design School’s AdSchool is going global with the introduction of its creative advertising qualification at The Domus Academy in Milan. The Italian qualification provides opportunities for simultaneous briefings and critiquing between the two courses. “If new and emerging media is teaching us anything, it is that you can’t be insular, you can’t just benchmark students against the previous year’s offering or against other national institutions – you have to benchmark them against students on a global platform,” says programme leader Kate Humphries. “A crucial challenge facing all industry training institutions is that we are training students for a world in which they are going to have up to three careers in their working life. So whatever we teach them, we also make sure that it has relevance beyond the walls of a single industry… an industry that is also undergoing constant change.”
The AdSchool – now in its 13th year – is currently ranked the fourth most creative school in the world by Young Guns International and number two for social media marketing by The San Francisco Bees Awards. It has won the Newspaper Works Student Ad Challenge in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013.
“Barely two months into the course we take on the Northern Hemisphere schools in the International Crowbar Awards run out of Singapore and for the fifth year in a row, we’ve taken out the top copy prize as well as winning silver and bronzes in several other categories. It is a challenge, but it has to be done because we are training people to compete on a global platform,” says Humphries.
Studio Alexander gets gongs
Studio Alexander has added four new international awards, from the design publication Graphis. Following on from their GOLD win in the Graphis 2012 Design Annual competition for the Williams Warn visual identity, Studio Alexander has achieved four SILVER awards in the 2014 Design Annual, for brands Connells Bay, Second Nature, Biotelliga and Eagle. Director Grant Alexander says, “The international recognition of design work by Studio Alexander’s design team is a terrific achievement. Our team work very hard to ensure each brand is as very different as the businesses that they represent.”
Bauer revs up Motorcycle Trader
Grant Roff will be swapping his overalls for corporate attire to head up a new team at Motorcycle Trader, which will draw on Bauer’s international resources. Motorcycle Trader’s existing editor, Shane Solomon, will become editor-at-large, allowing him the time to compile news, review bikes and create product features
According to Terry Williams King, group sales manager of Bauer Trader NZ, the bigger magazine will be a shot in the arm for the New Zealand motorcycle industry. “All of Motorcycle Trader’s current commercial advantages will remain but will be complemented by more editorial and better buy/sell opportunities,” he said. “We look forward to this new era and assure you of our continued commitment to our local motorcycle industry and to maintaining our position as market leader.”
The January 2014 issue of Motorcycle Trader (on sale 23/12/2013) will launch the new format.
Digital Draft
DraftFCB has announced the appointment of Haydn Thomsen as its new head of digital production. He joins DraftFCB after significant success in creating effective, award winning work throughout his 17-year career. “Haydn understands the benefit of a multi–disciplinary integrated approach, which combined with his talent for pushing the boundaries of established digital technologies and exploring new possibilities, makes him absolutely the right person for this role,” says Bryan Crawford, DraftFCB Auckland Group CEO.
His experience spans across a variety of software development firms, IT services, digital agencies, retail, government and corporate organisations, with his most recent role being digital production director at Saatchi & Saatchi. In his new role at DraftFCB, he is managing a team of digital specialists, working across a range of digital and interactive channels to plan, create and implement digital strategy that achieves substantial business success for clients. He began his new role at DraftFCB on October 7.
And … action
Actor promotion and temp agency ActionActors is set to launch in Australia after two years in New Zealand. ActionActors has more than 300 professional actors on its books. Having launched the company at the time of the Rugby World Cup, ActionActors enjoyed a kickstart to the business and this year is on track for 35 percent growth in revenue over the same period last year.
“The billings increase is reflective of our ability to develop repeat business – our clients are very quick to appreciate the added value the actors deliver,” says co-founder Anthony Hurst in reference to the business growth.
Fellow co-founder Bruce Hopkins says like the New Zealand experience, expectations are the workforce will be an attractive option for Australian businesses seeking talented temp workers or skilled promoters. Hopkins has been a performer for more than 30 years with a career spanning Limbs Dance Company and acting a lead support role in two of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. “What’s unique about our database is that it is comprised solely of professional actors with excellent communication and role play skills. We can offer services for promotional activity or onsite demos, corporate training and role play, telesales marketing and retail like no other agency,” he says. “Because so many actors need to take on other work to pay their bills, our personnel can also cover a broad range of work – from gardening to management.”
ActionActors has personnel throughout the main cities in New Zealand and anticipates most of their Australian personnel will be based in Sydney and Melbourne.
