CB Exclusive – Whybin\TBWA, Sydney snares BBH London CDs Gary McCreadie and Wesley Hawes to replace Dave Bowman and Matty Burton
CB Exclusive – Campaign Brief can reveal that Whybin\TBWA, Sydney has snared top BBH London creative directors and board partners Gary McCreadie and Wesley Hawes to replace joint executive creative directors Dave Bowman and Matty Burton, who announced last week they were joining Sydney start-up agency Special Group.
McCreadie (above left) and Hawes (above right) have had a brief stint at Whybin\TBWA Sydney before, joining in August 2009 while Garry Horner was ECD.
McCreadie and Hawes leave BBH as global creative directors on Axe/Lynx, the agency’s largest and most creatively awarded account.
They are responsible for some of the most celebrated campaigns from BBH London in recent years, including the Gold Cannes Lion awarded ‘Apollo’ integrated campaign; the ‘Monday/Wednesday’ work; and the ‘Soulmates’ film, all for Axe/Lynx. Additionally, they produced the ‘We Own the Weekend’ campaign for the Guardian, the awarded ‘Aarrrgghhh’ spots for Tango, and the Barclaycard ‘Waterslide’ film.
“Gary and Wes are one of the most exciting creative leadership teams in the world right now. It is a great coup they have agreed to join us,” said Paul Bradbury, chief executive officer of Whybin\TBWA Group. “They respect the power of big platform campaign ideas, having been in the engine room at BBH, working on ‘The Lynx Effect’ for Unilever, ‘Keep Walking’ for Johnnie Walker, and the ‘We Own the Weekend’ campaign for the Guardian. They are outrageously funny, down to earth and strategically driven. They will fit in brilliantly.”
“It’s always very satisfying when great creative people return to work for us,” said Scott Whybin, chairman and regional creative director. “My obsession is teams that get big bold campaign platform ideas that flow easily across every channel with consistency and class. These guys get it.
“Having worked for us in Sydney before they get the tone and pace that is required, plus they have had world class training and experience at BBH London. They are ready to put their own mark on an agency,” added Whybin.
22 Comments
Good hire – well done
Now thats a brilliant hire
They didn’t last long at Whybins before?
Brave move.
This is an amazing appointment, one week after one group leaves, the best creative group in Europe join, was it planned? Scott Whybin is the elusive pimpernel, he’s done it again!
Obviously it was worked out in advance, given Bradbury is ex BBH, pretty sure he sealed the deal.
Couldn’t find a better, nicer or more deserving team! Go TBWA x
Book full of great tv. No integrated, cross platform thinking at all.
Matty & Dave will be hard to replace.
I can’t believe they got this quality!
Go Bradbury and Whybun.
Masters of the universe!
BBH Vs Whybins Sydney. That’s a no-brainer. I’d take the NRMA and DJs catalogs over the global budget hot chick TV ads too!
They have done some great work on long lasting campaigns at BBH.
What did they do when they were in Aus?
I mean that as a genuine question, they must have made something decent here I remember they were at Host which is a good shop.
It is a great thing Whybins have going, almost an ECD launch pad if you will.
They hardly set the creative world on fire last time they were here and they were at Host quite a while….lets see if it’s any different this time, but i doubt it, Whybins has little left to offer them.
Congrats guys. See ya soon.
Ben S
The dark prince has managed to work matty and dave out of the building and into their own start up the whole time planning for this.
Genius
I said you’d be back! Look forward to seeing you both again in Oz.
This is all time! has to be Paul Bradbury typing right?
Well done boys. Massive news.
Well good luck to ’em.
They’ll certainly feel the large ste[p down in quality, budget and talent.
Obviously an old picture…Pretty sure they both have a lot less hair these days! Just kidding boys, looking forward to having you!
Yes, they’re book is full of great TV, without cross platform integrated stuff.
Did you consider that might be why they were hired?
If Whybins could do great TV, they might have won fewer awards in obscure categories, but probably would have kept NRMA and Fairfax.
I think that if you’re basing an agency on TV alone these days that could be dangerous.
I’m not sure if faifax is a ‘ because you didn’t do great tv’ case, they don’t do tv. Not to my knowledge anyway.
But NRMA might be the case. Although the work they did obviously worked. According to the Effie’s at least.
It would feel very reactionary to me to ‘hire’ people for simply that. That’s assuming there is not a single creative who knows how to ‘write tv’ in the place.
I would find that hard to believe, given the two before have written great tv in the past.
I would see this as an opportunity for the two new ones to do something other than TV. Why else would they take this job?
It means there is a problem greater than the creative people.
Almost all creative people know how to write good TV. Especially if they become senior, it’s a cost of entry.
And in an entire department, especially at Whybin, I would doubt that they can’t write it.
If they cant ‘do’ great TV, well that usually means that there are deeper problems.
On the NRMA quote from above, the guys did pitch and win that business and do some great work. I also don’t believe that it would have all come down to ‘they can’t do tv’. But maybe it did, who knows? If it did though in my opinion they haven’t moved the business for great tv because they still haven’t got it.
I haven’t heard about Fairfax? did they have that and loose it? What does Fairfax do apart from loose more money every day and avoid take overs from Gina?
To hmmmm, I suspect they’d be pretty glad to see the back of Fairfax at least…