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Swarm of new appointments devours all in its path…

…as Total Media names its managing director (and Omnicom Media Group announces its new big cheese for Australia/NZ); 2degrees finds a multi-lingual comms manager; a marketing guru joins the academic ranks at Massey University; The Sweet Shop and CAANZ choose New Zealand’s reps for the Young Lotus competition at Adfest; Naked outgrows its villa and heads for K’Rd; Tribal Fusion launches in New Zealand with Brendan Muller at the helm; Crossmark restructures its management and is on the hunt for a managing director in New Zealand; and Cutting Edge promotes a veteran to top dog.

Like, Totally

After losing the Flight Centre business to Ogilvy last year, Total Media, which is part of the Omnicom Media Group, had a bit of a management shake up and decided there was no room for an Auckland general manager position, which had been held by Jason Rutherford since the start of the year.

At the time, strategy director Lyndsey Francis, who has been with the company since July 2008, was enlisted to lead the Auckland office, reporting directly to OMD chief executive Kath Watson. Now that position has been firmed up with the announcement that she has been appointed as the Auckland office’s new managing director.

“Lyndsey has demonstrated strong leadership skills and commercial acumen,” says Watson. “I am confident that we will see Total Media grow and deliver exceptional results for our clients.”

Things are already looking up in that regard: the agency has recently been appointed on the Palmers business after a competitive pitch against the incumbent Performance Media.

And in other Omincom-related executive appointment news, Leigh Terry has been promoted to chief executive officer of Omnicom Media Group, Australia and New Zealand, moving up from joint managing director, OMD Australia.

In his new role, Terry will be charged with the leadership of all Omnicom Media Group assets in Australia and New Zealand, including the management of 11 offices across the brands OMD, PHD, M2M and Total Media.

“The ANZ market represents a huge opportunity for us, where we will not only maintain our number one position but aggressively strengthen our brand presence,” says Barry Cupples, chief executive Omnicom Media Group APAC. “Leigh has established himself not just in the digital space internationally, but as a respected agency leader in Australia and he is perfectly placed to take OMG ANZ to even greater heights.”

A media veteran of 15 years, Terry joined OMD UK in 2001 as head of digital and strengthened the company’s offering in that space. In 2005 he migrated to Australia, and joined OMD to replicate the success of UK’s digital value-proposition. Proving his talent and leadership qualities, he quickly went on to assume the post of managing partner, OMD Australia (2006).

Phone home

2degrees mobile has named Michael Bouliane as its communications manager.

Bouliane arrives at the fast-growing telco upstart after four years managing public relations for MTS Allstream, a Canadian telecommunications provider of fixed, mobile, broadband and TV services. He has also held communications management roles with Sears Canada, and has managed international PR for companies such as Nike, Delta Air Lines, DHL and Four Seasons.

He can also speak English, French and Spanish and has delivered campaigns in each language, which will be handy when all those French and Spanish journalists call asking for info about Rhys Darby.

He will be the company’s main media contact and is available on (022) 237 7489 or [email protected].

Mass Communication

Professor Malcolm Wright has been named as the newly-appointed head of Massey University’s School of Communication, Journalism and Marketing.

Wright has developed numerous marketing models through his academic projects and consultancy with industry, as well as a microeconomics theorem for getting the best from advertising budgets.

Mobile phone call use, blood donation behaviour and bank defection rates have all be subjects of modelling projects by Professor Wright and his colleagues. And he has also conducted research that successfully forecast the victors in the United States presidential elections.

His specialisations are in brand loyalty and new product development, looking at consumer take-up rates and forecasting sales. He has held senior positions in business and also advised many agri-food companies, including the Livestock Improvement Corporation, Kraft Foods, Mars/Masterfoods and Meat and Livestock Australia. He recently helped the Simplot frozen food company in Australia to redesign its forecasting system that predicts required stock levels based on anticipated customer take-up.

His research has been published in international journals and he is an associate editor of the European Journal of Marketing. He has just been appointed chair of the advisory board at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for Marketing Science, a not-for-profit marketing research institute based at the University of South Australia. He has also co-written a book Consumer Behaviour, Applications in Marketing, which was published in 2008.

Arriving this month from the University of South Australia where he was head of the school of marketing and acting head of the International Graduate School of Business, the Wellington-born academic says he is excited to be back at Massey. He previously lectured on the Manawatu campus from 1992-97 and from 2000-04.

“I am back to try to make a difference, and I very much agree with the vision of Massey as the university that distinctively contributes to the key value-adding areas of the New Zealand economy: agribusiness, innovation and creativity,” he says.

Professor Wright won a Massey University College of Business Sustained Excellence in Teaching Award in 2002 and says he will continue to “make a contribution to the classroom” despite being head of school. “I like to be involved; to host a few lectures and run some courses, but also to make a big input into the curriculum, particularly in marketing.”

Little Lotuses

Kia Heinnen, art director, and Zoë Hawkins, copywriter from Colenso BBDO, have been announced by CAANZ Axis as the representatives for New Zealand in the ADFEST 2011 Young Lotus competition, with the generous folks from The Sweet Shop sponsoring their trip.

The decision was based on the number of Axis finalists each under-30 team achieved and the spread of that work across different categories.

“There are some very good under-30 teams across a number of agencies at the moment, so it was a close thing,” says Axis convenor of judges, Special Group’s Tony Bradbourne. “I hope Kia and Zoë fly the New Zealand flag well in Thailand. No pressure.”

The ADFEST Young Lotus Workshop is open to young creatives under 30 years old and is considered the most prestigious career-launching platform in the Asia Pacific. This is the first time a creative team from Auckland has been sent over.

“Adfest is one of the regions premiere award shows. It’s important New Zealand creativity is represented there and we are pleased to be able to support that,”says George Mackenzie, managing director of The Sweet Shop.

The Young Lotus Workshop takes place from 14 – 16 March 2011 and the top three teams then compete for the Young Lotus title on Thursday 19 March.

Tribal uprising

Brendan Muller has been announced as the sales director for Tribal Fusion, which has just launched in New Zealand, and he will be directly responsible for the strategic direction of New Zealand operations and sales growth.

Muller joins the company, which represents over 2,000 websites around the world, operates in 19 countries and claims to have a reach of more than 250 million users, with around six years of experience in sales across various industries. Prior to this role he worked with Yahoo!Xtra as head of direct sales.

“Kiwi businesses are rapidly trending toward more results based marketing. Tribal Fusion is positioned to offer exceptional campaign outcomes and take advantage of this trend,” he says.

John McKoy, general manager, Tribal Fusion Australia & New Zealand, says with a foundation of 1.5 million New Zealander’s already on our network it made sense to have a local presence.

“Tribal Fusion has also launched an online video ‘cost per engagement’ offering via Firefly Video and that combined with our consumer targeting will have a unique offering in New Zealand.”

Naked in K’Rd

Amid all the human movings, an office relocation. After adding a few more to its staff roster, Naked was in need of some more space, so it’s moved from the ‘comfortable’ villa in Grey Lynn to Suite 602 in the IronBank building on 150 K’Rd. The phone numbers and email address are still the same.

In the crosshairs

Australia’s largest retail marketing services company Crossmark has announced a new structure for its executive team, with the addition of two managing directors for Australia and New Zealand.

Crossmark’s current director of client service – retail marketing, Polly Yule has been appointed to the newly-created position of managing director in Australia and the search is currently on for a New Zealand managing director.

“Crossmark experienced strong growth globally and within ANZ in 2009 and 2010,” says Asia Pacific chief executive Kevin Moore. “As a result we made the decision to provide retailer and manufacturer clients with a structure that ensures a two way flow of retail marketing best practice and innovation across the Pacific.

“This new structure represents an important shift in how we approach our service offering. Polly’s appointment, and our search for an MD in New Zealand, highlights our continued commitment to providing not only the best service to our clients, but also tangibly applying our knowledge sharing with the US to our clients in Australia to increase sales within the retail environment.”

On top of the Edge

Michael Burton has been named as the chief executive of Cutting Edge, a leading provider of creative, broadcast, visual effects, film and technical services to the media and entertainment industries.

Burton, who has more than 25 years experience in broadcast media, started with Cutting Edge as the company’s chief technology office and later held the joint positions of managing director and head of outside broadcast and reality TV. He has overseen the provision of services to blockbuster television productions such as Endemol Southern Star’s ‘Big Brother Australia’, Granada Television’s ‘I’m a Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here’, Fox Sports Cricket and Network Ten’s AFL broadcasting.

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