Interpublic Group IPG has announced today that it is putting in motion its succession process at its Mediabrands unit. Effective May 1, Matt Seiler will step down as global CEO of IPG Mediabrands and will remain as chairman of the group through 2015 to ensure smooth transition to Henry Tajer's leadership.

Tajer, who was named Mediabrands' global COO in January of 2014, will be re-locating full-time to New York from Sydney, where he currently spends a portion of his time in his role as CEO of the group's highly-successful Australian operations.

CB Exclusive - Finch has announced that Dael Oates will be the latest addition to the company's roster of directors. Australian-born Oates has seen global acclaim for his multi-disciplinary style of work, directing award winning work that has medaled at award shows around the world.

Starting life as a designer, Oates has built a successful career as a director with a one of a kind technical craft based in his special effects background, cultivated by his eight years at Academy Award-winning studio Animal Logic. His subsequent directing career has seen him become one of of the leading visual directors in the region.

Says Oates: "I'm pretty pumped to join the calibre of talent at Finch. They are leading the way in many fields right now and that energy is infectious and inspiring."

In addition to his distinctive and unique style of film craft, Dael has an aptitude and passion for storytelling and has just finished writing and directing his third short film, "Death In Bloom," starring Robyn Nevin.

Corey Esse, managing director/executive producer is equally excited about what Oates will bring to Finch.

Now you can have a daily reminder where your agency is placed on the 2015 Campaign Brief Hot+Cold Chart with your very own coffee mug or mouse pad, delivered anywhere in Australia for only $25. Or with our compliments, if you are based in Australia and you subscribe to BestadsPRO for only $30 (*new subscribers only).

Your personalised coffee mug or mouse pad will have your first name (or nickname) and show your agency highlighted 4 times the size of the others. (see the example for The Monkeys, pictured here).

Note: If you are in a Perth agency we will use the Perth chart. Same goes for people in Brisbane or Adelaide.

Of course people in red zone agencies are sure to take up this special offer, but even if your agency is more in the pink or even blue zone, you will have daily motivation to crack even better work this year so hopefully you can see your agency's improvement this time next year.

ORDER + PAY HERE
or get your mug or mouse pad with our compliments if you SUBSCRIBE TO BESTADSPRO

Cunard's Queen Elizabeth formed the backdrop of a moving tribute to Australia's Anzac heroes in Sydney this week as the ship visited for a two-day stay before sailing to Gallipoli as part of her world voyage.

Working with brand activation agency, April5, Cunard invited Sydneysiders to pay their respects by leaving a red poppy in a two-metre high Poppy Wall in remembrance of the Anzacs, which was in front of Queen Elizabeth at Circular Quay.

WATCH THE VIDEO

The CLIO Awards, has today announced its 2015 jury chairs, comprised of top advertising executives from across the globe. Agencies worldwide are invited to submit their best work from the past year, in 18 media types, for review and selection prior to April 3.

Emma Daines (left), group managing director/executive producer, Fin Design + Effects will represent Australia on the Film Technique jury and also on the jury is Aussie expat Nick Law (right), global chief creative officer at R/GA who is set to chair the Digital, Digital Technique, and Social Media jury.

Leo Burnett, Sydney took out the AdNews Agency of the Year gong at an award ceremony held last night in Sydney.

Agency of the Year: Leo Burnett, Sydney
Advertising Network of the Year: Leo Burnett
Ad Campaign of the Year: DDB Melbourne for Devondale
Media Campaign of the Year: McCann Melbourne for Vic Responsible Gambling Foundation '100 Day Challenge'   
Media Network of the Year: UM
Media Agency of the Year: Bohemia
NSW Agency of the Year: Leo Burnett, Sydney
Victorian Agency of the Year: Cummins&Partners, Melbourne
State Agency of the Year: The Brand Agency, Perth
Ad of the Year: Saatchi & Saatchi, Sydney for Toyota Hilux 'Unbreakable Driver'

Virgin Australia is the principle partner of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. To celebrate the partnership Clemenger BBDO, Sydney turned people travelling on an airport travelator into sheet music for one very special performance.

VIEW THE SPOT

DDB Group Melbourne is in the final stages of acquiring independent agency Lifelounge and, as a result, Lifelounge's founder Dion Appel (left) will replace Lorenzo Bresciani (below, left) as DDB Melbourne managing director. The latter is departing to start his own specialist brand consultancy.

Says Dave Brown, managing director, DDB Group Melbourne: "For some time Lorenzo Bresciani has held the ambition of starting his own specialist brand consultancy and as such, has decided to step down from his role as DDB Melbourne managing director to take on this new challenge. We are in full support of Lorenzo's new venture and a portion of Lorenzo's time has been retained to DDB Group Australia as he will continue to work on specialist strategic projects.

"I am very pleased to confirm the appointment of Lifelounge's founder and CEO, Dion Appel, as the new managing director of DDB Melbourne. DDB is also in the final contractual stage of the acquisition of Lifelounge Agency with all details agreed by both parties. Full details of Dion's appointment will be announced in the coming weeks. This is significant news for DDB Group Melbourne and know the partnership with Dion will take the brand to a whole new level."

Four Seasons Condoms has appointed Emotive as its content marketing agency for 2015, responsible for social video, content strategy, delivery and amplification.

To launch the partnership Emotive has created a new video campaign that celebrates Mardi Gras called 'Are You Coming?' going live nationally today.

WATCH THE VIDEO

Specialist brand activations and shopper marketing agency ApolloNation has promoted client services director, Cameron McGeachie, to the role of general manager of the Sydney agency.

McGeachie has played an integral part in the agency's success since joining in April 2008, working his way up through the ranks with a proven record of providing incredible promotional, experiential and shopper marketing campaigns that have delivered exceptional results for ApolloNation's clients.

Director, Gregor Nicholas has joined 8 for representation in Australia.

Nicholas has been based in New York for the last four years and is returning down under for "the love of family and nature".

Teaming up with executive producer, Kim Kirby, Nicholas' commercial work portfolio spans comedy, drama and highly choreographed large-scale action. He is recognised for his consummate and inventive storytelling and for the finely nuanced performances he gets from actors and non-actors.

NOVA Entertainment has announced the launch of smoothfm's latest marketing campaign via Big Red, featuring the iconic international act Spandau Ballet, airing on commercial, pay TV and digital from Sunday 8 March.

The TVC highlights smoothfm's position of creating a moment of relaxation in everyone's busy lives. Using simple, beautiful imagery, the TVC reflects the mood created by smoothfm, set to Spandau Ballet's big hit "True".

VIEW THE SPOT

The Association for Data-driven Marketing and Advertising (ADMA) announced today that Emma Gray (top, left), chief loyalty & data officer for Woolworths Ltd, has been appointed to the ADMA board of directors.

Gray picks up the mantle from Emily Amos, general manager-Woolworths Marketplace, who has spent four years on the ADMA board.

News Corp Australia, the official representative of the Cannes Festival of Creativity in Australia, has today announced the industry leaders selected to the Australian Cannes Lions jury panel.

The 2015 Australian Cannes Lions jurors are:

Titanium & Integrated: Ant Keogh (left), BBDO
Branded Content & Entertainment: Caroline Spencer, Fremantle Media
Creative Effectiveness: David Fox, Ogilvy
Cyber: Jonathan Kneebone, The Glue Society
Design: Adam Rose, AJF Partnership
Direct: Rob Morrison, OgilvyOne
Film: Patrick Baron, McCann
Film Craft: Rob Galuzzo, Finch
Media: Chris Nolan, Starcom
Mobile: Russ Tucker, Digital Arts Network
Outdoor: Richard Morgan, 303Lowe
PR: Ben Shipley, Hill & Knowlton Strategies
Press: Matt Gilmour, Archibald/Williams
Promo & Activations: Kylie Green, Dentsu Australia

Following a global call for content, Cannes Lions has today issued an opening volley of speaker names for Lions Innovation - the new 2 day "festival within The Festival" that fuses data, technology and ideas.

The speakers will be part of an avant garde programme that explores, explains and expounds the opportunities inherent in rapidly changing creative conventions.

Director Benji Weinstein has joined Exit Films.

Weinstein is a true talent on every level, he is smart, creative and a great communicator with impeccable comedic timing.

Weinstein has been internationally recognised for his hilarious if not sometimes slightly wrong humour. Most recently he has directed spots in Australia with DDB Melbourne for Devondale and Don Smallgoods, and V Energy with Clemenger Sydney. 

Says Exit executive producer Emma Lawrence: "We are so excited to have Benji on our roster, he is one of the best directors I have worked with. His capacity, brain and sense of humour are giant."

View his reel.

Aussie Apples has launched a refreshing new marketing campaign to prompt Australians to reach for a fresh Aussie Apple when on-the-go rather than a processed snack via newly appointed creative agency The Works.
 
The campaign titled 'Refresh Yourself' brings Aussie Apples to the foreground and conveys how opting for this Aussie favourite will deliver a uniquely refreshing and reviving experience.

WATCH THE VIDEO

Award-winning full service digital agency Deepend has appointed Nitin Mistry to the position of creative director.

Mistry's reputation has been built on fifteen years of digital leadership and innovation across Australia and the UK, bringing a wealth of experience and talent to Deepend and its sister agencies which comprise the Deepend Group.

Before joining Deepend, Mistry was the creative director of Orchard where he provided the creative leadership for several prominent clients, including Westpac, Cancer Council and Bayer. He also played a pivotal role in substantially expanding the client roster and tripling the size of the creative department.

The annual CB Agency Creativity/Billings Index (or Hot+Cold Chart) is a must for all marketers on the look-out for a new agency - or to see where their agency is placed in the industry.

There is a chart for Melbourne/Sydney, plus Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, as well as New Zealand.

If you are a marketer that uses an advertising agency or an ad agency principal or ECD, email Lynchy at CB to request a FREE hi-res PDF, which you can print out and pin on your wall - or blow up to A2 or A1 and frame.

About the CB Hot+Cold Chart:

While size may be important to some big clients ("I've got a bigger agency than you"), it is by no means the only measure of an agency's worth. Which is why Campaign Brief introduced in 1997 a new way of measuring our agencies: by relating their size to their creative product.

That way, clients seeking a big, creative agency know where to look. Some may prefer a small, creative shop. Others may seek a big, conservative operation. Or a small shop that pumps out what they want, when they want it, at the right price.

Whatever their tastes, CB make it easier to see where a selection of agencies in Sydney and Melbourne sit in our 19th Annual Big vs Small - Hot vs Cold cross-analysis.

A social experiment conducted by URBAN on behalf of Holden Cruze has set out to determine the effect of in-car tensions on new relationships.  

Putting hopeful singles to the ultimate road test, the experiment was conceived to test the simple hypothesis: "You don't know someone until you drive with them". Pitching singles to go on a first date together in the new-look Holden Cruze, it set out to test whether in-car dynamics would make or 'brake' their budding romances.

VIEW THE VIDEO

Australia's leading mobile betting and entertainment company, Sportsbet has appointed BMF to creative duties across several key projects. This is the first new business win for the agency, hot off the appointment of Steve McArdle as managing director and Christina Aventi as executive planning director.

Ad Council has launched its new campaign called 'Love Has No Labels' via R/GA New York. The campaign challenges Americans to open their eyes to its bias and prejudice and work to stop it in themselves, their families and their colleagues.

The campaign was created by R/GA's Aussie expat global chief creative officer Nick Law together with Aussie expat executive creative director Chris Northam and ECD Eric Jannon.

VIEW THE FILM

Education-to-employment leader Acquire Learning is upping the ante in its creative pitch to the market with the launch of a new film titled 'Champions' created by We Are Vanguard and production house C-KOL.

The short film, slated for cinema and social media release, amplifies Acquire's Reinvent Yourself message and aims to inspire job seekers, students and career changers to rise to the next level in their education and training leading to future career pathways.

VIEW THE FILM

Tickets to AWARD Awards 2015 are selling fast.

The event is held on Thursday, March 19 at Town Hall, 483 George Street, Sydney

Time: 6:00pm Pre-show drinks
Show commences at 7:00pm
Followed by after party with Jake Stone from Bluejuice
Dress: Cocktail

BOOK NOW

After nearly a decade in Asia, Chris Thomas, the CEO of BBDO Asia, the Middle East and Africa has been promoted to CEO of the Americas region - effective May.

Thomas (left) will take responsibility for twenty-one BBDO agencies in the U.S., Canada and Latin America. He will also remain Chairman of I&S BBDO Japan and Chairman of Proximity Worldwide. He takes the Americas' role left vacant after the departure of Aussie expat Troy Ruhanen in July last year, who is now president and CEO of sister Omnicom network TBWA Worldwide.

Jean-Paul Burge (JP) becomes Chairman and CEO of BBDO Asia. He was most recently President of Southeast Asia and CEO BBDO Singapore.

Dani Richa, currently Chairman and CEO of BBDO Middle East and North Africa, will add the rest of Africa to his responsibilities.

UPDATED - Campaign Brief thinks the hottest agency in Australia is Clemenger BBDO Melbourne - but what do we know?

So here's your chance to vote on which agency should have got the title. But you have to pick from our list of 8 contenders who we believe produced the best work in 2014:

Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne; M&C Saatchi, Sydney; The Monkeys, Sydney; Leo Burnett, Sydney; GPY&R, Sydney; DDB Melbourne; Leo Burnett, Melbourne, McCann, Melbourne

UPDATE: The response to our first CB Poll was overwhelming, using up the allocated 2088 votes in only a few hours (only one vote per device). Then we created a second poll, which attracted 4663 votes. And a final poll which attracted 7316 votes - an overall total of 14,067 votes.

So which agency came out on top? GPY&R Sydney got the most votes, followed by DDB Melbourne and Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne.

Strand Arcade is continuing to build upon its long-standing reputation as the home of Australia's most prestigious design talent and bespoke artisans with the release of its new Autumn/Winter 2015 campaign and Volume 5 of its cult paper 1891 via Studio Woo.

Volume 4 of 1891celebrates the generations of past and present.

Highly-renowned, US-based editor and expat Laura Brown casts her eye over the season, taking on the coveted role of 1891 curator. Having spent her teenage years shopping in Strand Arcade, Laura's direction for the paper came from a sentimental place.

Says Brown: "I love that the Strand Arcade has become a haven for both fantastic young designers - Lover and Dion Lee - for example, and just amazing craftsmen, like Andrew McDonald. It also feels like a neighbourhood in the middle of the city."

Campaign Brief print subscribers will receive their copy of the CB Agency of the Year issue next week.

The issue includes Australian, NSW and NZ Agency of the Year - won by Clemenger BBDO, Melbourne, M&C Saatchi, Sydney and Colenso BBDO, Auckland respectively - as well as the annual CB Agency Creativity/Billings Index (or Hot+Cold Chart).

There is a chart for Melbourne/Sydney, plus Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth, as well as New Zealand.

Subscribers can also view the issue online and print pages and spreads from past issues going back to 2007 so it's well worth the investment.

You can subscribe here to the print+online edition for only $44 (inc GST) per year within Australia (NZ: $60, Asia: $70, rest of the world: $80). 

Clio has launched its Call for Entries with the deadline for entries closing on Friday, April 3.

The Award Show will be held on Wednesday, September 30th at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.

ENTER HERE

Today, Scentre Group, owner and operator of Westfield shopping centres in Australia and New Zealand, has launched its AW15 fashion campaign, "Fashion Obsessed" via Baker Brand.
 
Spearheaded by international fashion-weight, Derek Blasberg and joined by "It-girl" Alexa Chung and Australian model turned actress Abbey Lee, the Fashion Obsessed campaign will include content across several consumer and industry touch-points including mini-documentaries, in-centre appearances, digital content across 39 Westfield centres, Fashion Saturday on 21 March, a one-day shopping frenzy with over 150 offers from Australian retailers that now extends to westfield.com.au; bespoke fashion publications and editorial on westfield.com.au.

VIEW THE DEREK FILM
VIEW THE ALEXA FILM
VIEW THE ABBEY LEE FILM

Each week Bestads picks the very best advertising in the world, in every medium - which is reviewed by a top creative director or team to select their own personal favourites.

This week's guest judge is Carlos Camacho, executive creative director at Lowe Vietnam.

BEST TV
Favorite: Loto Out Of Office. I loved and enjoyed this spot starring two "office easy riders" that shows what it feels to have the winning ticket, a journey from monotony to awesomeness. The "Mexican-fiesta" version of Steppenwolf's Born to be wild serves as a great soundtrack that sets the mood perfectly. READ MORE...

Australia's Dubsat, which provides advertising technology to agencies, production houses and publications, has acquired the FastChannel business from Extreme Reach, as part of its continuing expansion into North America.

Says Grant Schuetrumpf (left), global CEO, Dubsat: "Dubsat's Adsend and Extreme Reach's FastChannel are two of the leading and most recognized press display advertising management and distribution services available in North America today. As the magazine and newspaper markets continue to become ever more driven by digital automation and its efficiencies, this acquisition solidifies Adsend's position as the premier software solutions provider to the market.  Advertisers and publishers connect with Adsend to streamline their advertising creation, quality control, order fulfillment and ad placement reconciliation across the supply chain."

Passion Pictures, the multiple-Oscar-winning international animation and film production company founded by Andrew Ruhemann, has opened a new office in Melbourne to serve advertising clients in Australia and New Zealand.

The new studio will be run by executive producer Katie Mackin (left), who returns to her native Australia after spending 10 years in the UK working mainly at Passion's London office as well as stints at some of the world's top VFX houses.

Designworks has further strengthened its interactive design and digital marketing offering with the acquisition of Auckland based agency Union Digital.

The deal sees Designworks take a majority stake in the 20+ strong agency, which will remain operating as a stand-alone branded agency within the Designworks Group.