While the profligate days of very long lunches and company credit card-funded excess are seemingly—and for some, unfortunately—well behind us, there’s no doubt that many of those in the persuasive arts still engage a fair bit of corporate hospitality. Colenso BBDO’s ex-chief executive Nick Garrett, who recently took on a job at Clemenger BBDO Melbourne after five and a bit years in the role, was certainly in that category. So what better way to honour his legacy than with a visual reminder of one of his favourite haunts, SPQR in Ponsonby.
Browsing: Nick Garrett
With its haul of 16 gongs (one gold, six silver and nine bronze), Colenso BBDO was the standout Kiwi performer at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. The agency’s chief executive Nick Garrett was on the ground in the South of France and he recently got in touch to share his thoughts on the proceedings. And while he was pleased with the tally that Colenso accumulated over the course of the event, he says that the general consensus among attendees was that this was far from being a vintage edition of the awards event.
What’s that smell? It’s international ad awards season! But before everyone heads to Cannes to expand/subtract their minds, agencies were looking to New York as the results of the One Show were announced. And Colenso BBDO has led the way for New Zealand, picking up a gold, silver and two bronze pencils.
From relatively small-scale beginnings in Whangarei in 1979, Michael Hill has over the last 36 years grown into an international enterprise that today has 280 stores globally employing about 2400 staff in a variety of roles. And as a culmination of this ongoing growth, the company is set to feature alongside the world’s major brands in what is arguably advertising’s biggest showcase, the Super Bowl.
In keeping with an ongoing tradition, a few industry players gave us their take on the year for our annual opinion harvest. Here’s what Nick Garrett, managing director of Colenso BBDO, thought about 2014.
Campaign Asia-Pacific magazine has named DDB as New Zealand’s creative agency of the year as well as the runner-up digital agency of the year. Also continuing its winning streak was Colenso BBDO, which picked up the gong for New Zealand’s best digital agency. And OMD also left with silverware picking up the award for the best media agency in New Zealand.
Colenso BBDO has partnered with Mountain Dew to develop a novel range of skateboard decks that reveal a hidden message as the skater grinds away the bottom. And what makes this project even more interesting is that Colenso owns a share of the IP that comes with the innovation, meaning that the agency could stand to profit if the concept attracts interest from players in the skating industry (production company Finch officially owns the IP and Colenso shares in it).
Those in the advertising industry are renowned for spending a fair bit of time in bars and restaurants, and it seems the staff of Colenso BBDO will be spending a bit more time in the bars and restaurants owned by Skycity after winning a competitive pitch that took place a few months ago.
There hasn’t been much bad news for Colenso BBDO in the past few years, with a host of big account wins, some big hires and a regular stream of big awards. But managing director Nick Garrett has confirmed it has had to shuffle the deck and say goodbye to a handful of staff on account of what he says are changing client demands and a couple of projects that didn’t come to fruition.
Just a few weeks after being named agency of the year at Axis, Colenso BBDO has picked up another agency of the year accolade, this time at the inaugural Asia Pacific Effie Awards.
It’s been a stonker of a year for Colenso BBDO, with eight out of nine pitch wins, a record year in terms of revenue and a number of big award wins. Nick Garrett and Nick Worthington share their thoughts.
It’s been a stunner of a year for Colenso BBDO, which has won eight of nine pitches this year. And its latest win is Michael Hill, which appointed the agency to develop its global brand strategy.
After a fairly controversial 2012, CAANZ and a bunch of senior ad folk engineered a few big changes to this year’s Axis proceedings to make the awards, as Colenso BBDO’s Nick Garrett said, a more collegial, more credible and more celebratory event that aimed to show the business community how influential creativity could be. And now CAANZ has announced some more changes to the programme for 2014.
Colenso BBDO’s impressive winning streak continues to roll on and, after adding Volkswagen, Samsung, a few extra Fonterra brands and another yet-to-be-announced client to the roster recently, it’s also working with Auckland Tourism Events and Economic Development (ATEED) and Heart of The City (HOTC) and will put its mind to luring more domestic travellers to the region and more Aucklanders into the central city.
Colenso BBDO has formalised its relationship with Samsung and will be the agency of record for all its various divisions, making it one of the few markets in the world where the Korean behemoth isn’t aligned with a Leo Burnett agency. But it means the agency has had to say goodbye to a long-time client, Haier-owned Fisher & Paykel.
One of the world’s most enduring and successful agency-client partnerships has come to an end in this part of the globe, with Volkswagen saying goodbye to DDB after 11 years and, in another slightly surprising decision to follow up from last month’s 2degrees pitch, choosing Colenso BBDO as its agency.
After a stellar 2012 on the awards front, Colenso BBDO was named the world’s best advertising agency by the Big Won report. And it aims to stay at the top. In an article that originally appeared in NZ Marketing, Ben Fahy talks commercial creativity, Kiwi clobbering machines and the increasing importance of IP with Nick Garrett and Nick Worthington.
The Cannes Lions are looming and, as Colenso BBDO’s managing director Nick Garrett said in a recent interview about the refreshed Axis Awards, “something has a better chance at the end of a 12 month cycle if it’s had exposure and has started to do well at international awards”. So can we predict how the Kiwi agencies might do at the world’s most prestigious industry awards? Here’s a league table from the Axis Awards based on the same points system used by Cannes (and CAANZ), with one point for a finalist, three points for bronze, five points for silver, seven points for gold and ten points for grand prix.
As chair of the Axis awards committee, Colenso BBDO’s managing director Nick Garrett oversaw a few changes to this year’s festivities that aimed to make the event more collegial, more credible and more celebratory. So how did that work out for him? Have the changes helped change the perception of the awards among the wider business community? And what about those Driving Dogs?
Fonterra, in what it’s calling a game changer for the dairy industry, the most significant innovation project Anchor has ever undertaken and a world-first, has launched a light-proof three-layer bottle that claims to improve the taste of milk. And the campaign by Colenso BBDO uses a herd of magical, sun-avoiding glass cows to promote the benefits of the new technology.
ZO completes its management team, Clems chief financial officer heads for the rum, Y&R adds to its digital chops, Air New Zealand puts even more emphasis on the customer experience, Dita De Boni heads to PR, The Pond adds a digital heavyweight, Commando gets one back, Southern PR bolsters the line-up, On the Grill takes biscuit and Linda Clark returns to TV.
After last year’s Axis Awards, shit hit fans when two of the country’s best campaigns—NZTA’s Ghost Chips and Steinlager’s ‘We Believe’—were largely snubbed. Since then, CAANZ, the CAANZ board and a collection of the country’s executive creative directors have been working together to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And a few important changes were announced at an event last night at The Bluestone Room in Auckland.
Fisher & Paykel Appliances has reattached its wagon to Colenso BBDO after a head to head pitch with DDB at the end of last year.
Beating out the world’s biggest agencies, Colenso BBDO’s stellar 2012 on the awards front means it has topped the charts of The Big Won report, which calculates global agency rankings based on awards performances. And it’s the first time a New Zealand or Australian agency has ever won the title.
After the blessing/curse that was losing Vodafone, 2011 wasn’t the best of years for Colenso BBDO. But it’s been a strong 2012 for the “awesome bunch of bastards” at the agency, which has achieved more creatively than ever before in its 43 year history. It’s currently the #5 agency in the world according to the Big Won Report, the #5 ranked agency globally in the international Effie rankings and it brought home a big load of metal at Cannes, Axis and, most recently, Caples. Here’s what the Nicks—Worthington and Garrett—had to say about it.
Colenso BBDO has earned a reputation for its cause-related communications, from its multi-award winning Doggelganger campaign for Pedigree to the brilliant Trial by Timeline for Amnesty International. And now it’s aiming to help St John, New Zealand’s primary frontline medical response organisation and the main provider of ambulance services. It takes over from Work Communications.
Cameron Slater takes on The Truth, OMDepartures and arrivals, digital developments at Colenso, McComms, Orange Group’s mission gets underway, a good Choice, Komli buzzes out, and another Bright Spark.
It’s the web app that keeps on winning, and after numerous awards for Colenso BBDO and Mars Pedigree’s ‘Doggelganger’, it’s added another prestigious trophy to the cabinet: The Diamond Award at the Direct Marketing Association’s International Echo Awards.
After 18 years together, AMI has said goodbye to DDB and shifted the business to Colenso, which works on fellow IAG-owned brands State and NZI.
Observant souls—and lovers of teaser campaigns—may have noticed a few unbranded billboards around Auckland featuring phrases like ‘money is bad’ and ‘money is good’. So what gives?