Tag: Creative agency

Singapore – Wunderman Thompson has announced the expansion of Magpie, its own peer-to-peer mentoring app for women, across Asia-Pacific. This follows after the launch of said app in the United Kingdom during International Women’s Day.

Said app aims to empower and connect women across the business using a matchmaking style app based on each individual mentor’s expertise and knowledge. 

Complimenting longer-term mentoring schemes available in the industry, Magpie connects women for peer mentorship on specific/individual needs, featuring 15 themes ranging from maternity and motherhood, leadership, building your personal brand, and managing stress.

Originally launched in the UK on International Women’s Day in 2022, the app was created by RISE, Wunderman Thompson UK’s women’s network, and was born from a desire to create a self-serve platform to form connections and support Wunderman Thompson’s women who account for half of the agency’s workforce.

After a successful pilot scheme across the agency’s APAC offices, Magpie will launch the app across the region’s talent on 8th March, supporting their women’s network Ladybirds, which aims to strengthen representation and gender parity across the region through networking, mentoring, events. and knowledge sharing. 

Lindsay Shirley, chief people officer for Wunderman Thompson APAC, said, “As senior leaders, we have an obligation to mentor and support women to build their careers and thrive at Wunderman Thompson. Many women have wanted a mentor but not known where to find one, Magpie has helped us bridge that gap and we’re thankful to RISE UK for it.” 

Meanwhile, Supria Dutta, head of talent for Wunderman Thompson APAC and Ladybirds member, commented, “We are excited to bring Magpie to our region on International Women’s Day. This unique peer mentorship app has the potential to build bridges between women on all levels and potentially open doors for active sponsorship.”

Australia – Havas Media Group has named Rebecca Tos as its new managing partner, where she will lead the new Havas Market× business division, integrating customer experience, e-commerce, and data, working alongside paid media and content activation to help marketers find opportunities to engage consumers across the entire customer decision journey.

A seasoned CEO and marketer, Tos has been building and transforming businesses and brands both strategically and commercially for more than 23 years. She has previously held executive leadership roles, including leading 150 people as managing director of the Dentsu-owned Merkle group of performance, data, and tech businesses, and spent five years as CEO of Columbus. 

Since 2020, Tos has been an advisor to tech, digital and e-commerce companies, including Havas Media since last year.

Speaking on her new role, she stated that she feels energised every day to be working with the agency’s exceptional talent and clients to continue optimising customer experience throughout the e-commerce journey. 

“Customer and shopping experiences have become complex, personal and omnichannel. Leveraging our proprietary technology and expertise,  it’s incredibly rewarding, seeing the impact we have on customer conversion rates, experiences, and imperatively, our clients’ revenue and bottom line,” Tos said.

Meanwhile, Virginia Hyland, CEO of Havas Media Group expressed her optimism in appointing Tos in the role, stating that her deep expertise in ecommerce, customer experience, data, CRM, tech, and performance made her ideally suited to build on the agency’s momentum from 2022’s client work and growth.

“Havas Media’s focus is to answer the challenge marketers face in finding the best opportunity to engage with audiences, whether through ecommerce, content, or paid media. As we strive to be the agency partner that helps marketers operate with ease across the customer decision journey,” she said. 

Hyland added, “We have now moved our capability from optimising within [the] channel to engaging and influencing audiences across the customer decision journey. Rebecca’s passion and experience in the retail sector, has already enhanced the agency, bringing customer experience to the fore, combining ecommerce consulting, marketplaces, SEO, email marketing, CRO, as well as data and analytics.”

Auckland, New Zealand – Advertising agency Howatson+Company’s Chief Creative Officer Levi Slavin has announced through a LinkedIn post that he will be departing the agency and will be joining family start-up The Ironclad Pan Company.

Slavin will be joining Ironclad as its chief creative officer based in Auckland, New Zealand. He will be bringing with him more than 20 years of experience in the creative industry.

“While the job was incredible, and our success inarguable, living away from family became too hard. So, starting this year, I’m going to be joining our family start-up Ironclad Co. full time,” the post read.

In an interview with MARKETECH APAC, Slavin shared that his new role will encompass building digital platforms, making documentaries, creating movements, and building powerful communities, amongst others.

“At Ironclad Co. we make products that are designed to be handed-down — rather than the ending up in landfill. We started with a 100% recycled iron skillet that had a three generation guarantee engraved in the base. The response was remarkable. I think people are genuinely exhausted with brands that use the environmental or ethics as sales tool rather than a brand fundamental. I’d like to continue to see how far we can take that,” he added.

On moving on from Howatson+Company to Ironclad, Slavin commented that he was equally “terrified and excited.” He added, “I am finally able to take an idea from inception to market with no interference. That’s a big responsibility. There no excuses—like budget, or time, or odd feedback, or nervous stakeholders. It’s just us.”

Moreover, he shared Ironclad’s plans moving forward, including designing a restaurant, creating a remote cooking school for kids, and building a platform that stores secret family recipes for the coming generations.

Prior to the move, Slavin was also CCO of ad agency Colenso BBDO and global creative director at Anomaly.

Slavin joined Howatson+Company in January of last year and was based in Australia.

Sydney, Australia – Local creative agency BMF has been appointed by global car sharing marketplace Turo to handle its creative account ahead of its launch in the Australian market.

As part of the partnership, BMF will be responsible for developing Turo’s brand marketing activities and growing their awareness in Australia as the business expands nationally.

Tim Rossanis, managing director at Turo Australia, said, “As the largest car sharing marketplace in the world, we’re incredibly excited to provide Australians with the opportunity to build a business on Turo.” 

He added, “Our vision is for guests to come to Turo for a car to match any occasion and BMF is the perfect creative partner to help us drive home that message. After years of lockdowns and La Nina, this summer will be full of people enjoying the special travel experiences that Australia has to offer, and if there’s a day for it, we have a car for it.”

Meanwhile, Steve McArdle, CEO at BMF, commented: “The car rental market has been crying out for a disruptor since forever, and Turo is it. They’ve got cars you can’t wait to get behind the wheel of and a leading experience that saves you enormous amounts of time and money. Couple that with a marketing team full of high energy creative wizards who demand interesting work, and you’ve got one excited agency.”

BMF recently worked with The Australian Financial Review to launch a new brand platform called ‘Make It Your Business’.

Sydney, Australia – Independent creative agency Now We Collide launched a new campaign unveiling digital employee experience company Azuronaut’s new name, Cocentric.

The rebranded Cocentric aims to improve the digital employee experience in order to ‘bring people and tech together to unite and connect the workplace’. It is also set to launch today across the UK, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand with a redesigned website, and digital and social media presence.

Global brands like Kerry Group, Populous, Pladis (McVitie’s, Godiva), and The White Company have already partnered with Cocentric to improve their employee communication and collaboration strategies.

In its rebranding efforts with Cocentric, Now We Collide overhauled the company identity by creating a new company wordmark, which is a play on the words collaborate, communicate, and centric.

The agency also created a new logo, style guide, and brand strategy for the company. It also refined and defined Cocentric’s core company values, mission, vision and purpose.

“Our approach to the digital employee experience is unique and our rebrand as Cocentric reflects this, clearly differentiating us from the competition. The rebrand has already been embraced by our employees and stakeholders and we’re excited to see it go live,” said Regan Collins, Cocentric’s founder and CEO.

Cocentric COO Brett Secole also comments, “Our business had evolved hugely over the last few years and the relaunch as Cocentric represents an expression of our huge growth, providing our clients, employees and wider stakeholders real clarity on our strategy moving forwards.”

On collaborating with Now We Collide for the rebranding, Rhea Hokayem-Conway, head of marketing at Cocentric said, “We reviewed a number of proposals as part of the pitch process and Now We Collide immediately stood out due to the calibre of their work, their insights led strategy and their understanding of the challenges we faced.”

She added, “Everything was very collaborative from the outset, this has enabled us to get the very best out of the partnership with them, and we’re looking forward to working closely with them in future as we continue to roll out marketing plans”

Keir Maher, CEO and managing partner at Now We Collide also said, “Cocentric is a dynamic company on the move, with a market-leading mindset and that sits perfectly with our approach. As a team we were totally aligned from day one on the challenges and where we needed to get to. It’s always a great experience to work with businesses with similar values on collaboration, embracing change, challenging conformity and our ambitions for the future. The result speaks for itself with a much clearer brand look, feel and sound.”

Kurt Toohey, creative director at Now We Collide explained, “The visual identity and brand framework firmly sets Cocentric apart in their category and gives the team a solid foundation to build on as the brand continues to evolve. Along with a new name, we developed a simple, yet strong wordmark, brand symbol, refreshed colour palette and layout system.”

Toohey added, “Animated versions of the brand symbol and wordmark were also created, with the symbol variations subtly alluding to the brands purpose to ‘unlock the best in people’, with the silhouette of a lock forming before transforming into the open ‘C’ shape.”

Prior to the collaboration with Cocentric, Now We Collide was also tapped by digital transformation firm TMX to manage its brand strategy.

Sydney, Australia – Wunderman Thompson in Australia has promoted Melissa Radman to the role of national design director. In her long-time career, she has been promoting design and creativity especially for up-and-coming talent in the industry, as a guest lecturer and industry advisor, portfolio judge and mentor.

Since returning from maternity leave, she has donated her time to the Perth Advertising and Design Club committee, bringing events to the industry for mental health and indigenous creativity.

Radman and her team have delivered consistently with their wholistic approach to strategic brand design including recently for West Australian Ballet, Steel Blue Boots, HSBC and state government utilities and initiatives. 

They are also driven by purposeful ambition and take pride in all the agency’s brand design projects being an integrated extension of a client’s brand strategy and creative output. 

Speaking on her appointment, she said, “I’m honoured to be appointed as National Design Director, and excited to welcome Nikki to the team for her internship, and hopefully beyond. The opportunity to work across the national Wunderman Thompson client base and stretch the boundaries of our strategic design thinking is amazing for the team, and for me personally”.

Meanwhile, Wunderman Thompson CEO Matt Parry commented, “Mel and her team bring a huge level of experience and creativity to our design offer nationally. It was a natural decision to place her in this important national role. We’re also excited about adding Nikki to the team and looking forward to giving her career a great kick-start at WT”.

In addition, the design team will be bolstered by the addition of Nikki Singh, one of four recipients of the Helen Lansdowne Resor (HLR) Scholarship. The scholarship is an international opportunity that aims to amplify historically marginalised voices in the creative industry. It provides females and non-binary university students the opportunities and support they need to successfully join the advertising industry’s creative ranks.

Mumbai, India – Madison World’s digital arm Madison Digital has recently launched its digital creative unit ‘Madison Loop’, which will offer social media management, digital creative development and solutions, SEO, ASO, website development and management, technology solutions, influencer management and content collaborations.

Madison Loop has already developed a portfolio of work for clients including McDonald’s, Vicco, Joy Cosmetics, Raymonds, Pidilite, ePay Later, Godrej Properties, Bandhan Bank, Asian Paints, Zee5, Glide Invest, and Zee Bangla, amongst others.

Madison Loop will be led by Kosal Malladi, vice president at Madison Digital who will continue to report to Vishal Chinchankar, CEO of Madison Digital and Madison Media Alpha.

Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO at Madison Media and OOH said, “For any creative idea to be successful it needs to be adapted to the syntax of the platform. In Digital the creative idea needs to be expressed across platforms as varied as Instream video, Breakbumpers, display, social media posts, microsites, social messaging, influencers, content etc. Under Kosal’s leadership we are very excited to launch Madison Loop that will not only create a platform relevant expression of a creative, but also link it to outcomes using data and tech.”

Meanwhile, Chinchankar commented, “We need creativity now more than ever. This digital multiverse finally allows us to have a dedicated division to cater to all our clients’ creative needs under one roof. The new expansion of Madison Digital under Kosal’s leadership will be a great step forward for the company.”

Lastly, Malladi said, “I have been a part of Madison since 2014. I have seen digital evolve from a good to have to an absolute must have. Digital, today, can no longer be just about that one video or banner. Media and creative need to work hand in hand to tap into the digital consumer. Madison Loop’s focus is on solving business problems by layering creative magic with ‘data and technology’ solutions. Madison Connect and Madison Automate are tools that have been built by Loop to scale Influencer management and Creative automation respectively. I am really excited to scale Madison Loop.”

Sydney, Australia – Independent creative, design and media agency Enigma has appointed Gipi Gopinath as its new head of performance media, further bolstering the agency’s existing performance capabilities.

Gopinath’s key responsibility will be to lead Enigma’s performance media team as the agency continues to realise its ambition to invest heavily in data and tech capabilities.

He was recently the SEO experience director at Reprise Sydney and prior to that was director of search at Croud Sydney. He has also held senior SEO roles at APD in Sydney as well as iCrossing and TUG in the UK.

His years of strategic skills and experience have encompassed SEO, SEM, social, and programmatic, and managing teams to deliver digital strategy and implementation for top-tier clients including eBay, LG, Fantastic Furniture, Tourism Australia, and Coca-Cola.

Speaking on his new role, Gopinath said, “I am incredibly excited to join Enigma, they are one of the few truly integrated agencies; they have such an exceptional and talented team who are truly passionate about their craft and clients. I am looking forward to the opportunity of working with Justin and the team and developing some truly amazing work and driving continued success and growth of our performance offering.”

Meanwhile, Justin Ladmore, head of media at Enigma, said Gopinath’s appointment was another exciting milestone as the agency continues to grow its media team and expand its performance product offering to include SEO and CRO.

Enigma’s appointments this year include Olivia Hannah Matthews as head of brand.

Sydney, Australia – As part of its new national structure development, creative agency M&C Saatchi has announced the promotion of Michael McEwan as CEO for the AUNZ region. He will be reporting to Justin Graham, CEO of M&C Saatchi Group AUNZ.

Prior to his new role, McEwan was managing director of the AUNZ team. Previous experience also saw him holding a managing director role at Ogilvy Australia for more than a year.

McEwan will be bringing his 25 years of experience working with some of the world’s most progressive brands locally and internationally. His appointment will help enable greater client accessibility to the agency’s diverse talent pool.

Speaking on his elevation, McEwan said, “I’m excited about the opportunity to further help lead M&C Saatchi’s growth, bringing our diverse and specialised thinkers together to create more brilliant work and exceptional outcomes for our clients.”

He added, “Equally, our industry in partnership with our incredible clients provides a unique responsibility and platform to have a voice to drive positivity and progress. It’s what I believe those in our team care about and where they want to focus their talent and energy. Opportunities to make a difference and apply our creativity are all around us, it’s certainly an exciting time.”

Graham also commented, “Michael has gone from strength to strength within the M&C Saatchi Group. Now elevated to the CEO role, he will run at multiple new business opportunities with our borderless creative offering.”

The national restructure began earlier this year with the promotion of Emma Robbins to national executive creative director.

M&C Saatchi has also been making leadership appointments in other countries, including Nisha Devina Roy’s appointment as managing director for Kuala Lumpur and the new leadership team in Singapore.

Manila, Philippines – Media and marketing communications agency PHD has appointed Jam de Guzman as its managing director in the Philippines. In his new role, de Guzman will elevate business growth, strengthen network partnerships, and enhance client servicing operations.

With more than two decades of media and advertising experience, de Guzman has previously taken on senior leadership roles in Publicis Media, Dentsu International, and IPG Mediabrands. During his time in the agencies, he has built a reputation for producing innovative capabilities, delivering commercial growth, and driving transformative solutions for clients.

In addition to his industry portfolio, Jam has played a key role in shaping the advertising and communications landscape. Currently, he serves as the President of Media Specialists Association of the Philippines (MSAP) and the Board Secretary of the Ad Standards Council (ASC).

He will be reporting to Mary Buenaventura, CEO of Omnicom Media Group Philippines.

Speaking on the appointment, Buenaventura said, “Jam is a visionary leader with a strong track record of driving transformative growth for clients. His expertise in delivering value across a spectrum of media services and his strategic business sense are assets to our team. I am delighted to welcome Jam to the PHD family, and I am confident that Jam will continue to build on what PHD Philippines has already achieved and move the agency forward in its next era of growth.”