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Movings/Shakings: 2 August

Jumping the fence

Nielsen has appointed Carin Hercock, currently APN’s ​general manager business development & NPD, to the role of executive director, consumer insights.

In her role she will be responsible for driving Nielsen’s survey-based research, which spans multiple methodologies including CATI, CASI, online and mobile. She will also lead the Nielsen qualitative team and be part of the Nielsen New Zealand executive committee, reporting to Rob Clark, Nielsen’s managing director.

“As a strategic marketer, Hercock has a unique combination of analytical, insights and leadership skills developed across a broad range of leading media and FMCG organisations, including Cerebos Gregg’s and Tip Top,” says a release. “She is a perfect fit with Nielsen’s vision of providing clients with the most complete view of their consumers, in particular what they watch/read, and ultimately what they buy.”

She will be joining the team in September.

Red Bull by the horns

Published in New Zealand since January 2010, The Red Bulletin is one of the largest magazines in the world, with 2.5 million copies printed every issue in 11 countries and four languages. 

In New Zealand, the magazine was previously distributed free with the New Zealand Herald, but it’s now selling subscriptions (12 months for $31 via the website). It’s also expanding its local coverage from September, with the aim to have a 60:40 split between international and local stories.  

As part of this new approach, it’s also looking for more local advertisers and has out-sourced sales to Miles Gandy from Cooper Street Media. 

Gandy set up the company around one year ago and he works with a range of finance, business, lifestyle and special interest publications, including New Zealand Geographic, Pro Photographer, FMCG, and Sky Sport – The Magazine

Sim and Simon 

“Technology editor extraordinaire” Sim Ahmed has left his post at StopPress and Idealog for smaller and lesser things. 

Ahmed is taking up the community manager role at Vend, a cloud software startup based in Auckland and exporting to multiple markets. He’ll be looking after Vend’s fledgling small business community on social media and marketing a Kiwi success story around the globe.

“He’s dead to us and he’ll never work in this town again,” says bitter editor Ben Fahy. 

Vend’s HR team has been keeping busy, also bringing on board modern-day marketing renaissance man Simon Pound as its manager of content and public relations. 

The former Media 7 and Ad Show producer and reporter will tackle the role in a part-time capacity, continuing his work at Ingrid Starnes fashion and Satin and Lace productions. 

Sweet Shat

The Sweet Shop has added Damien Shatford to its roster for global representation and management.

As the spiel says: “Shatford brings with him a rich and varied body of work that is bold in both scope and vision while retaining a style distinctly his own. He strives for purity in his work that has brilliant humour and light-heartedness injected into it. As a teenager, he started making music videos before getting a degree in broadcasting communications from the New Zealand Broadcasting School. Shortly thereafter, he went to Switzerland to direct five music videos in just 28 days for music label Voodoo Rhythm. The result was a series of clever, low-budget masterpieces that absorbed the circumstances and surroundings instead of trying to control them, amplifying hidden truths instead of doctoring them. His video for The Monsters’ single ‘More You Talk, Less I Hear You’ is a stunning example of his ability to balance both simplicity and power.”

Shatford and The Sweet Shop have already worked together on a number of notable pieces, one of which was the award-winning women’s breast cancer campaign ‘Save Seven’ for Colenso BBDO. More recently he was selected as a finalist at the Cannes Young Director Awards for his spot ‘Meet Lloyd’ for Sky TV and DDB and he also shot the videos for TBWA’s recent Effies lie detection campaign

“Honestly, most of the time I feel like a messy child,” he says. “I am flattered to be taken under the wing of such a forward thinking and dynamic production company. I’m pleased to be a part of The Sweet Shop where my chaos can be turned into craft”.

Executive producer Fiona King says it was a natural progression for him to join The Sweet Shop roster and one we are really excited about. 

“His ideas and understanding of creative are fresh and very well thought out. Damien is part of the young new breed of director.”

Protect and serve

After a successful 12-year partnership with Wesfarmers-owned NZ Safety, Freemans Bay indie Republik has strengthened its relationship across the ditch.

Republik Sydney will work with Protector Alsafe to handle its safety equipment and training business in Australia. The agency will provide strategic planning, creative and production services across all media channels.

“This is a terrific result for our Sydney office and we’re excited to be working with such strong marketing teams on both sides of the Tasman,” says Republik director Paul McNamara. “As an agency we have gained a lot of industry knowledge and experience over the years, so it’s now great to be able to apply it across the Tasman as well as locally here in New Zealand.”

Thinking Big 

Increasing advertiser demand for premium mobile advertising solutions across the Asia-Pacific region has led mobile advertising business Big Mobile to partner with MetService NZ. And it’s also added to a number of senior staff to capitalise on increasing mobile ad revenue. 

The most recent figures from the IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers show that spending on mobile advertising in New Zealand rose by 196 percent in the first quarter of 2013 compared to the same time last year, although that’s from a very low base. 

“As the pre-eminent weather information provider in New Zealand, the MetService’s ambition is to be a leading marketing destination for brands on mobile,” says MetService interactive manager Craig Delaney. “Big Mobile enjoys a great reputation, with innovative products and a proven premium publisher model, and we’re looking forward to partnering with them.”

MetService gets three million impressions monthly. 

As for the new hires, Rachel Blair has come on board as marketing communications manager, Andrew O’Shea has joined as head of audience and partnerships from Vodafone, and Dr John Hawkins is establishing the data team as ‘head alchemist’ after a period of consulting. 

“We have growth in every facet of our business,” said Big Mobile’s group commercial director Graham Christie. “This progress and our differentiated model, means we’re best placed to take advantage of maturing mobile markets across the APAC region.”

Big Mobile has offices in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Jakarta and Auckland. It recently opened a new office in Singapore that will be led by Dave Nicholls, previously regional sales manager at Ad2One. 

A Rose by any other channel

Following on from TVNZ’s decision to switch off its youth-focused channel U and replace it with TV2+1, U Live host and Billy T award winner Rose Matafeo has jumped ship to MediaWorks and will be working on the Jono and Ben at Ten show from September.

Her partner, Guy Williams, also works on the show. 

Creative Korn  

Wellington-based incubator Creative HQ has brought on board entrepreneur and investor Stefan Korn to lead its startup mission. 

He takes over from acting chief executive Tui Te Hau, who’ll be returning to her programme manager role within the organisation.

Korn cut his teeth in the technology scene as a developer for Oracle and HP during the ’90s. More recently he’s founded the WebFund incubator and worked with several New Zealand startups. He’s also a founding investor in Lightning Lab.

He says he’s arriving at Creative HQ during a moment of incredible interest and energy inside of New Zealand’s startup sector.

“Over the last decade the team at Creative HQ have built a strong foundation for successfully incubating and accelerating Kiwi startups. We are now at a tipping point with the startup community and ecosystem that allows us to attract more overseas investment and bring in global experts to further strengthen the skills transfer and mentoring for our local entrepreneurs,” says Korn.

Korn will continue his directorships of WebFund-invested companies.

On Broadway

APN Outdoor has secured Broadway’s only spectacular-sized roadside billboard. 

Located in Newmarket, the site presides over the designer street strip of exclusive clothing boutiques. Broadway is a main transport hub in Auckland with over 20,000 vehicles per day travelling along it. 

“Our new Broadway Spectacular billboard gives our clients reach into the trend set of Newmarket,” says Phil Clemas, APN Outdoor’s New Zealand general manager.  

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