Maggie Christie integrates herself into Clems, Stefan Lepionka steps down as head juicer at Charlie’s, Heartland agency upgrades its Tracta, Newstalk ZB wins gold in New York, 8com cuts the ribbon at new Auckland office, Craig Franklin swaps Oz for New Zealand, and Tony Bozzard joins KMS Data.
Yesterday, the Fijian government banned inbound tourists as flash flooding wreaked havoc. But, after a global pitch thought to have received more than 60 submissions, it’s thought Colenso BBDO will now be responsible for trying to get more of them to visit after beating out agencies from New Zealand, Australia and the US to become the new global agency for Tourism Fiji.
For many outside the ad industry, arguing over who was the first to come up with an idea could be perceived as petty. But when ideas are the lifeblood of this industry and often have a tangible effect on an agency’s reputation—and, if it helps to win awards, momentum—provenance is important. Recently we’ve seen some controversy over the creation of personalised OHBaby! magazines for Huggies. And it looks like we can add another interesting case to the list: Colenso BBDO’s Doggelganger website for Pedigree and Whybin\TBWA Sydney’s Dog-A-Like mobile app for the same client in Australia.
Colenso’s ex head of planning James Hurman sailed away to China recently, and Colenso BBDO has named Andy McLeish, who has been acting head of planning over the past month, as his replacement.
State Insurance went large in 2010 year when it launched its ‘Love your Stuff’ positioning with the ‘My Favourite Things’ campaign. And Colenso BBDO has taken that musical approach even further for the next iteration with a big new TV and radio campaign showing how quickly State can get things back on track.
In another round of bankland swings-and-roundabouts Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) has appointed Colenso BBDO as its new creative agency, in alignment with with its Australian parent bank. BNZ spends around $10 million on advertising a year, so it’s a good win for Colenso, but Westpac may not be so thrilled… it dumped Saatchi & Saatchi for Colenso BBDO just 18 months ago.
Advertising is a very competitive business. Accounts are coveted, staff are constantly being poached and awards are hotly contested. And it seems that competitive streak also applies to extra-curricular activities, as evidenced by events that took place at the Colenso towers this week.
In what will be a big loss for both Colenso BBDO and the New Zealand marcomms community, planning director, talented author, effectiveness evangelist and well-liked bearded brain box James Hurman has accepted the role of planning partner at Ogilvy Shanghai, bringing an end to four very successful years on College Hill.
Colenso BBDO has had some good (Doggelganger, Impulse Saver, V Paintball and Mountain Dew Skate Pinball) and some bad (having its biggest client depart) in 2011. Managing director Nick Garrett and creative chairman Nick Worthington combine forces to do their end of year opining.
Much like DraftFCB and The National Bank, the industry has been waiting patiently to see what Colenso and Westpac would come up with after the account shifted from Saatchi & Saatchi last year. It’s already created the Impulse Saver app and a home loan spot and, while the new animated ad explaining the financial perils of the modern world that launched last night isn’t being seen as the big reveal, it is the first time the bank’s new tagline ‘help is what we do’ has been seen in the wild.
DB went to great lengths to launch its Monteith’s Single Source ultra-premium lager last year. And now an ad for the brand has hit Kiwi TV screens for the first time in five years, with a new agency in tow and a new branded reality show soon to air on TV ONE.
Questions are hovering over the Telecom account as a result of its planned demerger, and there’s some fresh uncertainty surrounding one of its main rivals, with Colenso BBDO’s hold on the Vodafone account seemingly up in the air.
We left the best until last, but Kiwi agencies picked up three Lions on the last night at Cannes, with Colenso taking home five of the six local Lions won in this year’s festival of creativity.
…as a ‘hostage drama’ unfolds between DDB and Colenso, Waxeye gets Carter, Aegis names its regional big cheese, King St advertising’s Chris Williams gets some media traction with his Rugby World Cup song, Wellington’s soon-to-open Le Cordon Bleu school finds its main man and Donovan Boyd adds an account manager.
Despite a stellar year for the Clemenger Group gang, both in terms of awards won and cash banked, there have been a few mutterings around the traps of late about axes falling at Colenso and AIM Proximity. And while the seemingly OTT figure of 20 departures has been bandied about, Colenso’s managing director Nick Garrett says that’s certainly not the case and says it’s just slight reshuffling of the pack to respond to the current demands of clients.
Westpac and Colenso have been working on the Impulse Saver iPhone app for a while now and after successfully battling through the numerous technical and security issues, launched it around the same time as the earthquake with a few full page ads in the Sunday papers. Not surprisingly, the campaign was temporarily put on ice, but the cutesy banking gimmick/impressive technological innovation that, as the name implies, allows users to add some dosh to their savings account at the push a button, has gone live once again.
Colenso is always harping on about the conversation economy; about creating content that’s interesting and/or mysterious enough to get talked about by the masses. V’s Rocket Man succeeded in this regard, but the agency’s latest foray into the dark viral arts, a production/social experiment called the Rear View Girls that aims to promote Levi’s new range of Curve ID women’s jeans, has taken it to another, more international level.
New Zealand’s (mostly) two horse international awards race between DDB and Colenso has continued apace and this time it’s Colenso in the lead, after it made Advertising Age’s ‘Agency A-List’—”the pick of the top advertising, digital, media, direct and PR agencies around the world”— and was named “international runner up agency of the year”, a spot it shared with Mother (London) and TBWA Hunt Lascaris (Johannesburg). Argentina’s Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi won the category and Wieden + Kennedy took out the agency of the year title.
Yeah, yeah, we know it’s 2011, but due to moderately popular demand (and also due to the fact that we’re running at about 34 percent brain functionality at present and good old reliable Q+A’s are a good way for everyone to ease back in), we’ve decided to post a few more year in reviews from esteemed industry opinionistos/opinionistas that we didn’t have space/time to run last year. First up, Nick Garrett, the man who took the reins from Colenso BBDO’s outgoing managing director Brent Smart and, after winning a host of big awards, snaffling some big new business and doing a fine impersonation of Mini Me at the Colenso Christmas party in his first year, can’t have too much to complain about. Here’s what tickled his fancy last year.
After snatching the Westpac account from Saatchi and releasing a couple of rather well-received campaigns recently, Colenso is on a bit of a roll at the moment. And, as is often the way when the going is good, the hires have followed, with Daniel Wright set to join as digital creative director at the end of the month and Margot Chandler appointed as Clemenger Group’s ‘people development director’ in a newly developed human resources role.
All the Lions have been delivered at Cannes and Colenso BBDO has easily topped the Kiwi agency list, bringing home a record haul of ten leonine friends (three Gold, four Silver and three Bronze), out of a total of 25 for Kiwi agencies.
Colenso BBDO has picked up four finalist nods for the Asian Marketing Effectiveness Awards, the most of any agency in Australasia and more than any other agency in the BBDO network. And it’s the only Kiwi agency to make the cut.
The official release has been sent and no-one’s particularly surprised with its content: Clemenger Group has appointed Nick Garrett as managing director of Colenso BBDO, beginning 1 March 2010.
Campaign Brief are reporting that Nick Garrett, BMF Sydney’s group account director, will be taking over from Brent Smart as managing director at Colenso.