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Movings/Shakings: 8 August

From the capital to the Super City

Digital agency Springload has announced its plan to expand beyond its Wellington-base by opening an office in Auckland. This follows the recent appointment of Ben Glazewski as the agency’s new account director.

Springload co-founder Bron Thomson says that he is looking forward to taking on Auckland-based clients and believes that Glazewski is the right person for the job.  

“Being able to produce innovative digital designs for businesses outside Wellington is something we have wanted to do for some time, he says. “Having offices in both Wellington and Auckland will mean we can offer our current clients an even greater level of service.” 

Glazewski previously served as account director at Gladeye following a number of years as a director at Fox & Scissors and many more as a solicitor in both Australia and London.

“Ben’s experience in developing insight-led digital strategies, building brands, and his passion for growing business by delivering continuous and measurable improvement is the perfect fit,” says Thomson. “He believes, like we do, that delivering genuine value to both clients and end-users is critical, and that it comes down to strong relationships and good honest communication. It’s something we are passionate about”.

Springload, which started in 2000 and has grown to a team of 25 in Wellington, has recently developed websites and apps for Kiwibank, NZ on Air, Red Cross and the NZ Festival, winning awards for its design along the way.

Two in, one out

Strategic design agency Designworks has made two new appointments in response to a period of business growth in the Christchurch market.  

Nicola Davis joins agency as the head of client service and Andy Bell as an account manager. Both appointments are effective immediately and follow the recent appointment of Kerry Argus as design director. 

The duo of new recruits extends the office’s capabilities in account service, and adds new depths of expertise to the agency.

Designworks Christchurch managing director Michael Prentice said the new additions to the team form part of a larger strategy to hire only best-in-class practitioners.

“Diversifying our skill base across different facets of design is key to our strategy,” said Prentice in a release. “We transform brands using design as the core driver to shape customer experience, said Prentice in a release. “Nicola and Andy bring breadth and depth at multiple levels to our business as well as being the kind of people we want on our team.”

Davis has two decades of experience on both agency and client side, having previously held marketing roles for JK Kids, Postie+, Mike Pero Mortgages and Eagle Boys Pizza. Her client-side experience is complemented by over 15 years in the advertising industry, working for several agencies, including Y&R. 

“My expertise across both marketing and business management, together with the creative expertise within the agency ensures we will drive real business results for our clients,” said Davis. “I am looking forward to playing a pivotal role in the agency’s ongoing success.”

Bell also brings substantial experience to the table, having worked with some of the country’s leading tourism and travel brands, during stints which included launching multiple social media campaigns and new website developments.

He also has nearly a decade of marketing management experience in the fashion industry working with many New Zealand and international brands, including Kate Sylvester, Adidas and Marc Jacobs.

 “I am very excited to be joining the Designworks team at a time of accelerated growth and diversity,” said Bell. “Design can shape the customer story and ultimately influence their behaviours and my focus will be to work with the team and bring this service to our clients.”

DesignWorks also recently waved goodbye to the group head of interactive Russell Douglas, who has left the company to take a sabbatical in North America and Australia in an effort to “further his professional development and connect with business leaders, start-ups and futurists to explore new ways of developing design-led thinking for the New Zealand market.”

During his stint at the company between 2010 and 2014, Douglas was responsible for leading the interactive offering and team at Designworks. He formalised the offering taking it from a team of two to a 20-strong group of digital specialists across the Auckland and Wellington offices.

And during this period of growth, he worked on a range of projects with some of the New Zealand’s biggest brands, and he says that leaves feeling proud of what has been achieved. 

“Alongside my team we created a diverse range of exciting digital projects from the Best Award winning Unitec YouFinder app and Telecom Airport Wall to next generation in-flight entertainment experiences for the likes of Air New Zealand, Cathay Pacific and IDAIR as well as an authentic New Zealand story-telling platform for The New Zealand Story Group,” he said in an email to StopPress. “Several exciting new projects, that I was responsible for converting and leading, will also be going live in the next few weeks.” 

Back to publishing

Mark Hobday has joined the NBR as a senior advertising manager, bringing an end to a two-and-half-year stint as the director of Qbus Direct. 

Having previously spent eight years as the advertising director and publisher at Fitness Life Magazine between 2002 and 2010, Hobday brings significant industry-based experience to his new role.   

In addition to this long stint in the the fitness magazine world, Hobday also worked as an advertising director at Taxi Impact for about a year and as an advertising director at IT Media between 1997 and 2002.

Print to radio

MediaWorks Radio has announced the addition of Sarah Ferbrache to the national sales division. From 11 August, she will work as the product and trade marketing manager for MediaWorks Radio, covering the maternity leave of Jessica Knox, before shifting into a permanent trade marketing manager role in the New Year.

“Sarah has over a decade’s experience in consumer and trade marketing for New Zealand’s top publishing businesses, most recently as marketing manager for News Works,” said a release from MediaWorks. “[She] brings with her a wealth of strategic experience and commercial understanding of the media industry in general, and marketing for multi-platform brands.”

All about the muesli

In June, StopPress reported on Jono Sorensen’s new venture called The Muesli Hub, an online platform that allows customers to build their own muesli and then have it delivered to their homes.

At the time he was sharing his time between the new venture and Diverse Media, working at the agency three days a week. But now that the business has gained sufficient traction, he has decided to dedicate all his time to growing it further. 

“As you know for the past few months I have split my time between media and muesli,” he said in an email to StopPress. “Both businesses are now at a point which require a fill time role in order to service the workload and drive forward. Given this, I have made the hard decision to dedicate 100 percent of my time to The Muesli Hub, which means I will be parting ways with Diverse Media to properly take over the world of breakfast. This is very exciting for me as we have spent the last six months building The Muesli Hub, and it is now in a position to take the next step in market.”

He said the decision wasn’t an easy one to make and was complimentary of the work produced by Diverse Media during his tenure at the company.
 
“In the last few months Diverse Media have launched some amazing products into market which are firsts in New Zealand, and returning great results for brands across the board – especially through content re-targeting, cross device pre-roll and in-view banners,” he said. “Further to this, last week saw the launch of Diverse Media’s location based mobile offering with AdNear – this technology is remarkable and the next step in mobile location targeting.”

Marketing entreprenuer

James Kemp has left his position as the marketing director at GrabOne, bringing an end to his two-year stint at the company. 

He first joined GrabOne as a senior product manager in 2012, but quickly moved up the ranks, being promoted to marketing manager five months later and then to marketing director nine months after that. 

During his tenure at the company, GrabOne grew to become New Zealand’s third largest online retailer, with sales over $100 million. And Kemp was also part of the team that collected the Best Overall Website at the 2013 NetGuide Awards.

He is now focusing his attention on expanding Growth HQ, a company he founded in 2012.

A spokesperson from GrabOne says that Kemp is still providing consulting services to the online company, and that Keeley Sander has stepped into the role of marketing director.

Sander joins the company from DesignWorks, where she worked as head of client services for five months. Prior to that, she served at .99 as a group account director for over five years, working on the BP, Wild Bean, Carters, Mazda, Super Liquor, Rinnai, Ziera, Reach Media accounts.     

A Kiwi trifecta

The Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity has announced the final names that will form the branded content and entertainment; craft; digital and mobile; direct, promo and activation; healthcare; innovation; and integrated juries for the 2014 awards.

Three Kiwis have been included in the final list, with Flying Fish managing director James Moore sitting on the craft jury, Previously Unavailable principal an founder James Hurman on the newly formed innovation jury and Copper Brand Experiences founder and managing director Megan Clark on the direct, promo and activation jury.

Commenting on the juries in a release, Terry Savage, chair of Lions Festivals, said: “This completes an exceptional line-up of talent, all of whom are passionate, forward-thinkers within their fields. Collectively they will be responsible for selecting the most creative and ground-breaking work to come out of the region and we are delighted that such an esteemed group will be awarding the Spikes trophies.”

Spikes Asia is accepting entries until Friday 8 August. The Festival takes place from 23-26 September in Singapore and culminates in the much-anticipated Awards Ceremony where the 2014 winners are revealed and celebrated.

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