A trio of changes
Sandra Law, Arron Smith, Drew DeSantis
NZME’s commercial creative hub CreateMe and the agency sales team have added new team members to key leadership roles.
Sandra Law has moved out of the agency team and into the newly created position general manager of CreateMe Commercial. Law will drive commercial thinking from the brief to the final product, across all CreateMe projects.
Previously a member of the agency sales team, Law has worked on integrated solutions with blue-chip companies and has been with NZME for almost 20 years.
Arron Smith, who has previously worked for the NZME Christchurch team, rejoins NZME from his role as the creative director of Chalk at MediaWorks. He will move into the new position of general manager of CreateMe commercial strategy, commencing on 1 December.
Smith has a creative background and the ability to blend creative thinking with commercial strategy. Smith will work alongside Law from brief to presentation on all CreateMe Projects.
Deidre Bailey, NZME head of commercial content and CreateMe, says this team is where all the spokes of the NZME wheel meet when finding solutions for clients.
“Our intention is to make CreateMe the first point for our commercial teams and customers to start the NZME journey for better storytelling, audience engagement and cross-platform solutions,” Bailey says.
“Sandra and Arron will challenge the status quo to provide top-tier strategic thinking for clients. We have created a hub of experts across branded content, brand engagement and experiential, NZME Vision, commercial content, group creative and strategy and planning, to deliver the best audience offerings to clients.”
Finally, the Agency team has appointed Drew DeSantis as head of audience and strategy. DeSantis comes from heading up Dynamo Media for the past four years and has over 18 years of media agency experience in both New Zealand and America.
Paul Hancox, acting head of agency, enterprise, strategy and planning is excited to have DeSantis joining the agency team.
“Drew’s industry knowledge and will be a tremendous asset for the team; he has a deep understanding of our customers and the environment they operate in. Our team has a great mix of people from a variety of backgrounds; Drew’s skills will complement our existing talent and he will be a great mentor.”
DeSantis will begin his new role in the coming weeks.
Two arrive
iProspect New Zealand has made two key senior hires, welcoming Nicola Yates as head of paid media and Falk Werner as digital performance director.
Nicola Yates (left), Falk Werner (middle)
The hires support the continued growth of the digital performance agency following recent new business success.
Yates joins iProspect to lead the paid media team across the agency’s growing roster of performance clients spanning search, social, programmatic and affiliates. Yates has extensive global industry experience having worked in the UK, Australia and Hong Kong in digital-focused roles for McCann, Zenith, Amnesia Razorfish and Mindshare.
Werner joins to lead a key client after a successful pitch process (the client has not yet been announced). He is an e-commerce and omni-channel retail specialist, and most recently held the role of associate digital director at FCB New Zealand. Prior to that, he worked in his native Germany, heading up digital marketing for Westwing Home & Living.
Speaking of the appointments, Alex Radford, general manager of digital media at Dentsu Aegis Network New Zealand, said, “We are fortunate and really proud to be able to attract such brilliant and experienced talent as Falk and Nicola. They have already hit the ground running and have had an incredibly positive effect across team and clients.”
Going freelance
Angela Barnett has left her role as the chief of propaganda at Karma Cola to work on freelance projects.
This brings an end to her three-and-half-year tenure at the drinks company, which stretches back to 2014.
Before this role, she worked as a storyteller in the TVNZ production unit, researching and writing stories for television.
She has also written for Stuff, NZ Herald, Viva, Fabric, Buzzfeed, Sunday, Backpackers News, Next and NZ Marketing, on an array of issues that stretch from moustaches and digital kids to women behind bars and smashing stereotypes.
In addition to writing for these publications, Barnett has also maintained a blog, where she writes about personal experiences and observations.
Plus one in the ledger
Corporate communications firm One Plus One has added NIB to its roster of clients, having been awarded the work after a competitive pitch process.
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Kelly Bennett, founder and managing director of the agency, says the win is significant given the standing and reputation NIB enjoys as New Zealand’s second-largest health insurer.
“As a general rule we prefer not to pitch for work, so having made the decision to participate and put our best foot forward, we’re really proud to have picked this one up,” he says.
“Broadly speaking, our mandate is to work with NIB to champion their new positioning of ‘Healthcare – How it should be’ and to help bring that to life in a range of exciting and innovative ways, which NIB will be rolling out over the next few months,” he adds.
NIB continues to work with Boag Allan SvG as its corporate communications partner.
Mango wins Wella
Global professional haircare and styling company Wella has appointed Mango Sydney and Mango New Zealand as its public relations agency partner across Australia and New Zealand after a competitive pitch held in July.
Mango will deliver a variety of marcomms services including communications planning, creative, public relations, experiential, sponsorship and digital for all brands within the Wella portfolio.
“The Wella brand is synonymous with making people feel good,” says Mango managing director for New Zealand Claudia Macdonald.
“Working together presents our team with an opportunity to demonstrate not only Wella’s market-leading strengths in colour, care and styling but ultimately about how it makes people feel. This is a significant new partnership for our business and we warmly welcome Wella to Mango.”
Wella brand manager Emma Wright says that the company needed a partner that could deliver across a range of disciplines in both markets.
“Our new partner needed to be able to deliver PR services including media and influencer engagement, work with our stylists and ambassadors, leverage existing and new partnerships, and above all, be the right fit for Wella, reflecting our core beliefs and values,” Wright says.
“We are thrilled to have found everything we need in one trans-Tasman agency, and we look forward to working collaboratively with Mango on our upcoming plans.”
