Joint creative directors Avish Gordhan and Mandie van der Merwe depart Cummins&Partners

July 5 2018, 4:04 pm | BY Kim Shaw | 4 Comments

Campaign Brief can reveal that Cummins&Partners Sydney joint creative directors Avish Gordhan and Mandie van der Merwe have left the agency to go freelance.

The South African duo joined Cummins in August 2015 as a senior creative team and were promoted to creative director roles in October last year following the departures of Tom Martin and Julian Schreiber who left to join Special Group.

 

The pair have been recognised at almost every major international and local award show. Their work includes the critically acclaimed ‘#ShotBySound’ campaign for David Jones, the controversial ‘Stop The Horror’ project for Go Gentle Australia, and the darkly comedic ‘Last Dictator Standing’ campaign for Nando’s South Africa, among others.

Before joining Cummins&Partners Sydney, the pair worked at TBWA\ Sydney and some of the most renowned agencies in South Africa including TBWA\ Hunt Lascaris and Black River FC.

 

The pair can be reached via their avishandmandie.com website.

Global chief executive officer Sean Cummins told CB: “I can confirm that we have accepted the resignation of Avish and Mandie.

“The reasons for their decision are personal not professional. Having known this for some time we have restructured the Sydney agency on the New York model which has been a revelation in terns of speed, quality of work, better value for clients and a flatter less-siloed structure.

“And it’s creating a new generation of hybrid advertising people. We will not be replacing Avish and Mandie as we have a new structure in place which we think we be a model others might replicate.

“It’s exciting times. Avish and Mandie leave with a slew of awards from Cannes to D&AD, best of Show in Award. And our best for their future in health and happiness. And we will continue to give people the opportunity to make their advertising ambitions and dreams come true.

“We know we are a mystery to most of the industry, but we think we do our job well and have shown time and again our unique ability to come out of nowhere and produce world class work. 

“We love the business and want our industry colleagues to be proud of us for flying the flag of Australian creativity. As we are of them and our brilliant creative community.”