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Movings/Shakings: 31 March

Joining the change agency

FCB last week announced that Matt Barnes will be joining its Auckland office as a digital creative director and will lead the agency’s team of digital producers and designers from 8 April. 

Barnes arrives at FCB with experience in digital design and physical interactive projects, having previously worked in New Zealand, Australia and London. 

Barnes began his career in Wellington, co-founding Boygirlboy (precursor to Resn) before moving to the UK for eight years. During his time there, he worked across a wide range of global brands such as Nike, Nokia, Sky and Sony as well as British
institutions, the BBC and Tate Modern.

Barnes then spent two years in Sydney at Host and BMF, before making the voyage home, firstly working at Shine on projects such as the Beck’s Edison Bottle and Hyundai’s Family Time Project, and more recently as digital creative director at Touchcast where he led the digital creative on Spark’s Boroughs Project.

In his new position at FCB, Barnes will work alongside digital creative director Greg Wood, forming a partnership that James Mok, the agency’s Asia Pacific exectuvie director, believes will benefit the entire agency. 

“Matt has the digital expertise and creativity to evolve our digital offering, as client needs for omni-platform thinking grow,” says Mok. “Matt and Greg … should make an excellent team.”  

Switching sides

TVNZ has confirmed the appointment of Rebecca Wright as a senior reporter at One News. 

“[She] had her her first day at TVNZ on Monday,” says TVNZ’s head of current affairs John Gillespie. “Wright has as history of exclusive reporting both in Auckland and from the political gallery in Wellington. She’s covered three general elections, worked for CNN in Hong Kong and has a strong reputation for securing exclusive interviews.  One News are very pleased to have her.”

Most recently, Wright worked at MediaWorks on the Paul Henry Show last year when it still had the evening slot. While at MediaWorks she also showcased her reporting tenacity covering some challenging stories for Campbell Live.

According to the Herald, Wright will be replacing Erin Conroy who is shifting across to Seven Sharp.    

Two departures

There have also been some other changes at MediaWorks, with two reporters moving on to new roles.

Jane Luscombe (left) and Kim Grade (right) have both gone their separate ways to pursue new opportunities.

MediaWorks Group head of corporate comms Rachel Lorimer confirmed to StopPress that Morton would be shifting across to the Beehive to become a press secretary for Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce.

Morton has until now been working as 3 News reporter in Wellington. She joined the team in 2007 after working as a radio journalist for three years. She has worked in both Wellington and Auckland and has covered a range of stories including the Pike River Royal Commission, the grounding of the Rena and the Christchurch earthquakes. She was also the Australia Correspondent based in Sydney for two years.

Lorimer has also confirmed that Grade would heading to the United Kingdom with her husband.

According to the 3 News website, Grade has served most recently as a freelance reporter and producer working out of the Auckland newsroom. She was the 3 News Europe Correspondent from 2009 to 2011 and before that she covered court stories. She has worked as journalist for over a decade.

MediaWorks has not yet announced replacements for the pair. 

Expanding the empire

Data analysis company RadiumOne is expanding into Melbourne and New Zealand and has announced the appointment of former TubeMogul sales director Shaun Warry as the latest new hire for the automated marketing company.

According to a spokesperson Ebony Beaton, RadiumOne collects and interprets data on consumer preference and intent by analysing what they’re sharing online, and then provides advertisers with the ability to act on this knowledge in real-time.

The company entered the Asia Pacific market 14 months ago and is now servicing 70 brands across the region. 

Warry will be based out of Melbourne and will lead the push into the Victorian and Kiwi markets for RadiumOne. 

Commercial director Patrick Darcy said RadiumOne was proud to be enticing sought-after industry talent.

“Shaun is a great get for us,” said Patrick. “He has a solid reputation in the Melbourne and New Zealand markets and strong programmatic experience. He’s an excellent operator and exactly the respected talent we’re excited to be attracting to RadiumOne.” 

Warry said the opportunity to move into a growing business with the ability to activate social data programmatically was the attraction.

“Advertisers are not only realising the potential of programmatic, they also want to unlock the value of sharing. The chance to move into a business that’s modelling real time social interest and intent signals was one I jumped at.”

Moving up

Brand activations and shopper marketing agency ApolloNation has announced the promotion of Jason Kennedy to the position of group account director of the Auckland agency, where he will oversee the account service teams across all clients.

Kennedy’s 15 years’ experience gives him marketing expertise across the activations, experiential, shopper and trade marketing disciplines.

This experience, particularly within the FMCG sector, ranges from relationship management, project execution, business generation and leadership and has made him an integral member of ApolloNation since he joined the agency in 2012.

In his time at the agency he has worked across a number of campaigns, and recently played a role in the Tui ‘Catch-A-million’ campaign.  

Bríd Drohan-Stewart, general manager of activations for Dentsu Aegis Network, New Zealand said that Kennedy was promoted due to the consistency of his performance over the last three years.

“Jason has consistently proven his ability to execute memorable and meaningful campaigns from initial ideation, through to strategy, execution and measurement,” said Drohan-Stewart. “He has become an invaluable member of our tribe; always demonstrating the values of our organisation in everything he does with enthusiasm, energy and bravery.”

Speaking of his appointment, Kennedy said: “It’s a very exciting time to be stepping up into a senior leadership role at ApolloNation – the agency has been gaining huge momentum over the last few years and has been making a real impact in the New Zealand market. I’m backed by a fantastic team and we’ve already got some ground-breaking projects underway for 2015 which will see our agency experience another incredible year.”

On the Raydar

Shopper Activation agency Raydar has announced the appointment of Paul Dobbin as creative strategist. 

“This newly created position is the result of strong agency growth and the evolving needs of our clients in the Shopper space,” said Raydar managing director Darryl McClay. “Paul’s appointment strengthens our ability to drive innovation and maximise opportunity for our clients.” 

Dobbin was most recently executive creative director at ApolloNation across New Zealand and Australia and has spent the past six years developing creative solutions and shopper strategies for some of New Zealand’s biggest FMCG brands.

“He’ll work closely with our creative director Aaron Taylor to spearhead our creative offering and to increase our focus on insight-led solutions,” Says McClay.

Raydar enjoyed a strong year of growth in 2014 with new accounts Mondelez New Zealand, BIC and Bayer adding to their well established client base that includes Frucor Beverages, Pizza Hut, Cool Charm, Lion, Cerebos Gregg’s, Mercedes-Benz and Laminex New Zealand among others.

The agency celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

A super sub 

Digital sales house Ad2one has announced the appointment of former OMD digital director Michael Te Young to its senior management team.

Te Young in conjunction with Johanna Cotter will be leading the New Zealand team during the maternity leave of five-year incumbent New Zealand managing director Lisa Ison.

“His [Te Young’s] experience across agency, brand and consultancy will ensure that ad2one New Zealand remains the number one destination for advertisers looking to access premium vertical brands to connect with their target audience,” said Ison in a release.

Most recently an independent consultant, Te Young spent seven years as digital director at OMD following a two-year stint as country manager at Facilitate Digital (now Adslot) where he was responsible for launching the brand in New Zealand. Previously, he was a digital account manager at APN News & Media.

“As a veteran of the New Zealand digital sector, the strength of ad2one’s premium publishing portfolio impressed me and I’m looking forward to working with the team to further accelerate the company’s national portfolio, advertiser reach and business performance,” said Te Young.

The company has also hired Candice Hsu as an agency account manager to extend and deepen relationships across the New Zealand ecosystem. Hsu joins Ad2one from Exponential where she spent three years as senior account manager. Previously she was a client services executive at Yahoo! New Zealand and began her career as a Trafficker at TVNZ.

Wider conversations

Australian publisher Conversant Media has signed an exclusive advertising sales partner agreement with Snakk Media’s division Represent Media to fill the mobile ad inventory on Conversant’s premium publishing titles.

Conversant is best known for The Roar, Australia’s leading sports opinion site; Lost At E Minor a global pop culture site; and Techly a consumer-tech lifestyle site. The independent digital publisher boasts audiences of over two million unique monthly visitors, who generate over 80,000 comments and contribute more than 1000 articles each month.

More than 60 percent of Conversant’s readers visit its titles from smartphones and tablets, and managing director Zac Zavos says he expects this number will continue to grow. 

“Our readers spend a lot of time on their mobile devices and have always had very high expectations of what they can see and do on our unique sites,” Zavos says. “We selected the Represent-Snakk Media combination as our mobile advertising partner because we see real opportunities in Snakk’s portfolio of audience-targeting, geo-location and native advertising technologies. We feel that together we’ll have a strong proposition in the market.”

Represent Media general manager Jamie Hollebone says independent digital publishers like Conversant are enormously important to Represent Media, as they tend to seek out innovation more quickly than larger publishers. 

“Conversant’s digital-savvy audiences and the popular categories their sites focus on allow us to offer a very rounded and complete media buy to mobile advertisers,” says Mr Hollebone. “We’re looking forward to accelerating mobile advertising revenue for them.”

Snakk Group chief executive Mark Ryan says that Represent Media’s momentum with publishers is growing, with the company signing publishing giant CBSi earlier this month, to be their sole mobile ad partner in 12 Asian countries: “The growth of mobile media consumption is still rising significantly faster than mobile ad spend. We’re working hard with publishers and advertisers to step up the quality and quantity of campaigns. The Represent-Snakk Media offering is making a strong impact in market, with an exciting year ahead.”

Better coffee breaks

Muffin Break NZ has appointed Auckland-based independent public relations firm Pead PR to manage its public relations effective immediately.

Pead PR won the account in a competitive pitch involving two unnamed agencies.

The New Zealand activity for Muffin Break focuses on brand building PR, new product innovations, franchise initiatives and ongoing press office activity.

The account is under the management of Pead PR group account director Becky Erwood 

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