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Movings/Shakings: 18 November—UPDATED

Special hires

Teresa Harris has joined Special Group as director of strategy. She spent over four years with Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Miami, which was named the Advertising Age Agency of the Decade, both as VP, group director, planning, and associate planning director, cultural and business insights. 

Before that she spent two years as a planner with Saatchi & Saatchi between 2008 and 2010 and has worked at Proximity London and Tequila. 

Amy Phillips has also joined as business director from CHI in Melbourne, where she was leading some of the agency’s biggest and most complex pieces of business. Before that, she spent almost five years with Clemenger BBDO/Proximity as new business director/senior account director. 

And, rounding out the new additions, Kevin Bachtiar and Sasha Arandelovic have also recently joined the creative team. They started off at DDB and recently won the $10,000 Newspaper Ad of the Year for their VW ad. As they had moved to Special Group, this led to some back and forth over who should get to keep the cash and, in the end, they split it down the middle. 

Up the chain

Nick Garrett, previously managing director of Colenso BBDO, has been promoted to the newly created role of chief executive of Colenso BBDO and Proximity. 

This news follows the announcement last month that Clemenger Group chief executive Jim Moser will take on the additional responsibility as chairman of Clemenger BBDO Melbourne, a dual role where he will continue to head up the New Zealand operation, with the additional Australian-based responsibility.

As a result, Garrett will take on some of Moser’s responsibilities with regard to Colenso BBDO and Proximity in Auckland.

“Nick Garrett is one of the most accomplished leaders in the advertising industry and renowned for his relentless pursuit in finding creative solutions that drive clients’ business,” says Moser. “Under Nick’s leadership, in close partnership with Nick Worthington, Colenso BBDO’s track record has evolved dramatically. Over the past five years Colenso has doubled in size, been ranked the number one creative agency in the world and is the only agency to be ranked in the top five for three consecutive years by The Big Won Report. It is also Asia’s number one strategic agency, as voted by the Effies. Then last month Colenso was ranked the number one smartest advertising agency in the world by WARC, a global intelligence service for marketers that ranks the world’s smartest agency networks.”

Garrett, 40, joined Colenso BBDO as managing director in March 2010 from BMF in Sydney. 

“I’m pretty humbled by my new role to be honest,” says Garrett. “It’s a privilege to work with such an inspiring team that is so committed to always making the work better for our clients. We are also very fortunate to have a very strong bench in the likes of Scott Coldham (recently appointed general manager), Maggie Christie (general manager of Proximity), Angela Watson (head of account management) and Paul Courtney our operations director. Plus let’s face it, I get the chance to partner with Wortho who makes us all look good.”

Great Scot

In other Colenso BBDO news, the agency has appointed Ahmad Salim to the new role of group business director.

A native of Scotland, Ahmad cut his teeth at The Leith Agency on Grolsch, Sol and, the pride of Scotland, IRN-BRU. Since then he has worked on high profile regional and international brands at TBWALondon and RKCRY&R London including Vodafone, PlayStation EMEA, the BBC, Absolut, Jameson and John Smith’s. 

“Colenso’s reputation for consistently delivering world class work year after year is known globally and the opportunity to move to New Zealand and be part of the team was a no brainer,” says Salim. 

Angela Watson, head of account management at Colenso, said: “We’ve had a fantastic run of new business and creative success over the last year so it’s great to add some fresh thinking and a new perspective to the great team we’ve got at College Hill. Ahmad will be responsible for looking after Samsung, Burger King, Mars and Sky City and taking the work that we’ve done already to the next level.” 

Very contented 

PHDIQ, the digital division of PHD Group, has created a new role of head of online content to meet clients’ changing needs amid the ongoing digital revolution and Mike Harland, previously a digital director at PHDIQ, has got it. 

Jane Stanley, managing director of PHDIQ and group strategy sirector, says the new role acknowledges the fundamental importance of digital expertise in almost every client campaign and recognises Harland’s incredible contribution since joining the team in 2011.

“In positioning ourselves as the ‘agency of the future’, it is vital we provide second-to-none online solutions,” she says. “More and more, the world is becoming digitised, socialised and connected. We’ve always had a strong paid digital media arm to the business—one of the largest in New Zealand—but increasingly our clients were asking us to deliver the content strategy that sits behind that media placement. We’ve successfully been doing this for a few years within our current structure, but we’ve now decided to formalise this and build it into the future.”

Harland, who worked at Mindshare in the UK for seven years before returning home to New Zealand, says this is a great opportunity to offer clients digital content that is “truly insight based, creative and results driven”. 

“Any agency can step into the online content space, but unless you really understand it in-depth, a client could end up with an expensive piece of content and 100 views on YouTube. The expertise our team offers ensures this doesn’t happen. We offer everything from high-level content strategy through to the development and project management of the content itself.” 

Since being established in 2007, PHDIQ has grown to 21 team members. 

Musical chairs

Internet radio service Pandora has appointed two new executives to its Australia and New Zealand management team and created a new role for an existing staffer. 

Taly Yaniv joins the business as advertising operations director and Nicole McInnes assumes the role of marketing director. In addition, Hazel Savage, who has served as marketing manager in ANZ since 2013, will now assume the role of industry relations manager to spearhead strategic collaborations with music industry stakeholders.  

Yaniv joins the team from Pandora New York where she drove the end-­to-end strategy and crafted a new vision for Pandora’s advertising operations while growing media sales on the East Coast. Prior to joining Pandora in 2012, she built and led the advertising operations team at Recyclebank, a green loyalty programme, and was a member of the business development and partnership marketing teams at American Express.   

McInnes brings 20 years of experience leading strong strategy and analytical marketing campaigns to her new role. Previously CMO at Adshel, where she delivered a full re-­brand, launched a new digital outdoor network and created industry-­first viral campaigns, McInnes will bring her passion for integrated global networks and a drive to deliver high impact, creative campaigns  to the Pandora team. Prior to Adshel McInnes held regional and local roles at American Express and Dell, and this year won the B&T Women in Media award for marketing.

“I am incredibly excited to be joining the Pandora team in the new year. I can’t wait to engage and deliver new products to Pandora’s passionate listeners and tell the story of the brand to a broader audience  across the ANZ region as we continue to grow the business,” says  McInnes. “The innate humanity of Pandora combined with its constant innovation and genuine love of music and artists, give it all the elements to make it a natural extension of Australian and New Zealanders’ lives.” 

Yaniv and McInnes bring the multinational company’s expanding local operation to more than 30 employees across Sydney, Melbourne and Auckland, just two years after launching in the region. Savage, McInnes and Yaniv will all be based at Pandora ANZ Sydney head office. 

“The Pandora business in Australia and New Zealand is growing at an exceptionally fast rate. Our business partnership portfolio  continues to expand, particularly in areas of auto and consumer electronic devices, and our registered listener base now exceeds  two million across ANZ,” says Pandora managing director for ANZ, Jane Huxley. “We are building out our team to optimise our current offering and capitalise on new opportunities. The broad range of experience Taly and Nicole bring to the table along with Hazel’s experience in the industry will help us do that for our business partners, listeners and music stakeholders.” 

Waving goodbye

After a very enjoyable year-and-a-half at String Theory, senior writer Glenn Wood has returned to the world of freelance “to spend more time with his surfboard”. 

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