In a career full of successes, leading the transformation project that brought together the National Bank and ANZ was one of the sweetest for Mike Cunnington.
Browsing: Mike Cunnington
More than 700 members of the marcomms fraternity ventured to the Langham last night to celebrate the country’s best marketing ideas, strategy and execution, listen to Te Radar take the piss out of the industry and try to do a bit of business. And Griffin’s came away with the major gong for the hugely successful re-introduction of Choco-ade biscuits to Kiwi shelves.
He led the project to bring the National Bank and the ANZ together. And he led it bloody well. But now head of marketing Mike Cunnington is off for a new adventure within government.
Last year, when Lindsey Redding passed away, one of the posts he had written called a ‘A Short Lesson in Perspective’ started circulating again. In it, he concluded that life in this industry didn’t really pass his ‘overnight test’ and that those sitting in “a darkened studio or edit suite agonising over whether housewife A should pick up the soap powder with her left hand or her right” should do themselves a favour and go home to see their family. There’s no doubt this profession is a demanding one—and it seems to be becoming more demanding by the day—but it’s also got plenty going for it and, in a new video series aimed at promoting the industry, the Marketing Association has decided to get some of those positives from experienced campaigners.
As head of marketing for ANZ, Mike Cunnington is donkey deep in one of the biggest ever changes to New Zealand’s financial landscape. And the campaign to fuse the brands is now in its final stages. We had a chat with him for the November/December edition of NZ Marketing. And here’s what he said.
The trusty Huntaway took the departure of the National Bank brand in his stride, and last night saw the launch of the first brand campaign for the new ANZ since the big announcement was made a few weeks back, with a Kiwi-specific cameo from Aussie actor Simon Baker back in character as The Mentalist’s Patrick Jane. And while we’re impressed with his use of two tea bags, a classic trick used by tea-nerds who like a stronger brew without the ‘nyertch’ factor of tannins, we fear our fictional friend may be stretching the truth a little.
A media review by ANZ has seen SparkPHD get the call up as the bank’s Australasian agency, which means Ogilvy Media now misses out on the spoils in New Zealand and Spark PHD will resign the BNZ account it currently holds.