MOSER TO HEAD UP CLEMENGER GROUP IN NEW ZEALAND, PONTIN TO TAKE MD ROLE AT CLEMENGER BBDO SYDNEY
Roger MacDonnell will step down from the leadership of Colenso BBDO and Clemenger Group New Zealand after 40 years at the helm at the end of this year. He will continue in a part time capacity and remain a Director of Clemenger Group Ltd.
Taking over from MacDonnell and assuming the role of CEO Clemenger Group New Zealand and chairman of Colenso BBDO effective January 1, 2009 will be Jim Moser (left), who is currently managing director of Clemenger BBDO Sydney.
Taking over from Moser in Sydney, effective August 1, 2008 will be Andy Pontin who is currently managing director of Clemenger Proximity Australia. Pontin will continue to have responsibility for Clemenger Proximity in Sydney.
“These changes demonstrate the Clemenger Group’s commitment to the development and promotion of the best people in our industry. That these changes will occur seamlessly and that we do not have to go outside for such important appointments is proof of that,” said Robert Morgan, executive chairman of the Clemenger Group.
MacDonnell has enjoyed a magnificent career with the Clemenger Group dating back to 1969 when he co-founded Colenso. Colenso quickly became one of New Zealand’s top agencies and has since assumed the mantle of New Zealand’s No 1 home grown iconic agency brand.
MacDonnell’s achievements are numerous, he has been one of the most important and influential industry figures in New Zealand.
“The success of Colenso has to a very large extent been built by Roger MacDonnell (left). His inspiration and passion for creativity and sheer drive has been the single most important ingredient to Colenso’s success,” said Morgan.
Moser joined Clemenger BBDO Sydney as managing director in 2000 after already proving himself as an excellent agency MD for BBDO in Europe. “During his time at Clemenger BBDO Sydney Jim has created a wonderful culture during the most successful period of the agency’s history. In amongst many accolades the agency has received under Jim’s leadership is winning more AFA Effectiveness Awards than any other agency in Australia for the past decade, winning Agency of the Year from B&T in December 2004 and winning Adnews Campaign of the Year for RTA this year.
“This is a well deserved promotion for Jim who has proven himself as an excellent leader during his career with Clemenger BBDO over the last nine years in Sydney. Our business in New Zealand goes from strength to strength and I am certain that this will continue long into the future under Jim’s leadership,” says Morgan.
Andy Pontin (left) moved to Australia in 1995, quickly becoming a leader in the advertising community. He is a past chairman of the Australian Direct Marketing Association and in 2003 won the coveted Direct Marketer of the Year Award, establishing him as one of Australia’s top marketers. Pontin became CEO of Clemenger Proximity in 2006 and this year Clemenger Proximity was awarded Direct Marketing Agency of the year by Adnews (and finalist for B&T) amongst achieving major recognition at international and local award shows for Clemenger Proximity’s work.
Says Morgan: “That Andy is a direct marketer by background demonstrates our belief in the need for seamless integration between our mainstream, direct and digital disciplines. He is also a passionate believer in the production of outstanding content, no matter what the distribution channel. He is the perfect partner for Richard Maddocks to lead an amazingly talented team into the future at Clemenger BBDO Sydney.”
38 Comments
Damn it. I thought it was the Bos for sure.
there is most certanly truth in this :
http://www.marketingmag.com.au/news/view/436/
10:08, can you hear my little violin?
I’m sure the owner of NetX are particularly happy with the cash they got for the sale, and surprise surprise, banners and website design are the bread and butter of your job. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a ‘digital evangelist’ who is so far up themselves they forget the reality of the job they are doing.
Good luck to any ‘digital creatives’ too. Talk about a dying breed. The main difference between a digital group and a traditional agency is the planning and strategic thinking behind the creative work. All the whacky buttons in the world won’t make jack shit difference in the end is strategically the work is terrible.
As soon as the regular creatives start to focus their creative mojo on digital and realize that a lot of the time clients will research the bejesus out of a TVC and let a couple of banners go straight through to the studio, the metal will reveal itself.
I think Australia’s performance this year in the cyber lions is a pretty good indication that something pretty drastic needs to be done the get things creatively going.
NetX, tequilla, get those resumes ready.
10:50 I think tequila have done pretty well, few one shows, few finalists. Netx has been on the downslide since early last 2007.
The big problem is digital shops that are part of large agencies have a huge portion of their budgets given back to the atl guys.
And it’s fucking hard to find people who want to work in digital.
Agree with you on strategy, but everyone working for those two agencies could walk out and earn quadruple elsewhere because we simply can’t replace them.
Keep jacking.
TEQUILA has one L, sorry.
10:50: anyone who cannot cut it in the new marketing landscape will be the dying breed. not just digital people.
3:27. Your insight is just amazing. I bet you’ve got a degree with honours.
Poor Jim, having his moment in the sun hijacked by the digital nerdy boys.
Where’s Brent Smart? He’s not going to be happy. I would have thought he was the best thing Clems had going for them. At least he understands creative.
digital creatives. traditional creatives. all bullshit. there is only two types of creatives – good ones and shit ones. good ones know how to do digital, tv, print whatever. shit ones don’t.
and the real problem is: there are too many shit creatives in Australia. old hacks and young hacks who think that digital is doing a TV ad and calling it a viral. guys who are cumbersome in their approach to advertising, bogged down in process. unable to make anything themselves. how fucking irrelevant!
the new breed – the good creatives – are skilled in flash and after effects. they get 2.0 because they use it all the time. they don’t think rich media is a big media budget. But at the same time they are comfortable discussing the difference between HD and 35mm. And their ideas reflect it.
what’s this got to do with colenso?
NETX STILL AROUND IN SYDNEY?
AP
You’ve come a long way from licking and sticking.
Well done.
ATL and digital creatives – different ball game people. and for those of you that dont realise it now will never realise it. keep on dreaming that there isn’t in a need for digital creatives, that will get you far.
interesting move for clemenger sydney. wonder what the TV creatives think of this change – they might actually have to start thinking outside the box!
Being somewhat of a digital evangelist most of my life, I don’t entirely agree with the way you’ve said it 10.08, but you raise some very interesting and pertinent points. Controversially, I will say that I think NetX were always a tad up themselves and sold out anyway! But this whole integration with digital thing does need revisiting and its important to point out that any great Digital Creative has always been about Strategy, or should have…If it had only ever been about banners, it would never have gone anywhere and it went everywhere and that’s the point! ‘Everywhere Strategy’ is pretty hard! Think about it! If you really are a great digital thinker who can make it happen creatively, you must be able to plan it. To plan it you have to intimately know video behaviours online and on handsets and not just how the punter is watching it, but how they’re using it or changing it and where they share and keep it. Even to begin to do that you have to know how to research and measure wikis like Wikipedia; bookmarks like Delicious; online gaming like World of Warcraft; sharing like Pownce and Izimi; webisodes like Stickham, Your Truman Show and thousands more; Livecasts like Operator 11 and our own brilliant Baby Porridge; Photo Sharing like Zoomr and Flickr; News Aggregators like Reddit and Digg; Event Networks like Yahoo’s Upcoming; VR Communities like Second Life; Micro and Phone Apps like Jaiku and Twitter; Social Networks like Facebook and MySpace and Video Sharing like the greatest of the great, YouTube. Then you have to put all that in a ‘brand frame’ of mainline online or handset activity like a TV Show or something and perhaps ‘locate’ that to outdoor furniture and definitely Retail-which is a whole other digital world, online, on-the-phone and in-store. And with new QR Code Phone markets it will get more and more important. And, finally, its about time people started realizing that mobile phone penetration is actually spread equally across the generations and a mass, mass, mass, digital media! ‘Youth’ marketing has become a cliché amongst those ‘youth marketing experts’ who have been treating this market the same for twenty years!!! Mark my words, these guys spend 12-15 hour averages online, which dispels myths that this group wants to do everything online! But they do everything in that time from instant messaging and visiting social networks to shopping and listening to music and catching clips. Proportionately, a great deal of their Mobile time will be spent via MMS and not necessarily online, or if online, via a WAP or WI Push-Thru Site. The Digital Creative must be a rich digital planning person or have really rich digital planning people joined at their hip; but in my book, to do Digital Media Strategy you must be able to do Digital Media Creative and …..YES…Integration is f….d, but it was f….d by you all! David Ogilvy wrote a BOOK about your single minded proposition craft of planning, which is intrinsic and still is…What the hell makes you ever think that digital planning doesn’t need a book, it does and I’m sorry I just wrote it on this blog, but you raise stirring and important global issues. CHEERS!
“digital creatives. traditional creatives. all bullshit. there is only two types of creatives – good ones and shit ones.”
Ding, ding, ding we have a winner.
I’m a mere junior, so perhaps naive. But to me a good idea is a good idea, and it should work across any format. Viral ain’t just a TVC on the net. Ambient isn’t just a poster on a tree, but at the very core of a brilliant ad is a brilliant creative idea.
How the idea manifests itself isn’t the point, the point is it’s a good idea. Good creatives just need a good idea, part of it will be working out the right platform.
Fuck flash, rich media and all that shit. Flash is execution. There will always be monkeys to execute. It’s the fucking idea that’s rare. [Apart from having the ability to persuade the client buy into the strategy/idea] the idea is the the holy grail.
What’s more, the hardest thing about 100% integration is not the work, it’s the ego.
cheers.
Is that actually JIm Moser, or a stock shot from Getty? What a handsome devil.
Piss off nerds, this is not a forum for your stupid digital wank.
Jim, if you’ve still got the Merc, I want it.
DDBOOM!
Chris, Bracket Boys/10:44pm
You didn’t need to tell us you were in digital. It all became oh so clear when every one of your sentences ended with a screamer.
How come there are 19 comments listed but we can only see two?
It scares me that the commenters on this blog represent at least a part of the industry’s opinion of where it’s heading. Do you all have your head’s stuck that far up your ass that you haven’t noticed all but the online budgets are shrinking? Or are you just so scared for your own jobs that you keep denying it?
I’m getting towards the end of my career in advertising, but unlike the commenters above at least I can see that the ‘big idea’ bullshit won’t cut it much longer. If you think your clients will be happy to make your $800k TVC when they could get the same results from ‘shitty banners ads’ you’re fucking kidding yourself. I’ve worked with some great digital creatives lately, and I’m sorry to tell you that they’re on a whole different level to you guys shouting about being ‘integrated’.
Well done to Jim and Andy as well.
“There is only two types of creatives.”
Presumably, those with the gift of grammar and those without?
Chris ( bracket boys) I would hire you in an instant. The kid proclaiming the importance of the ‘big idea’ I would run away from, fast. Get rid of your award school script and get into the real world where clients want campaigns to actually deliver. In my experience a reliance on the big idea at the expense of a proper strategy and planning only results in a campaign where one element works, the rest gets fitted around it to produce a (mediocre) campaign. I am so sick of seeing those formulaic big ideas trotted out:
– Posters with ‘visual gags’ accompanied by a tiny logo
– TVCs with a long and protracted intro, no voice over and a ‘cool’ tag line
– A press idea turned into a banner ad accompanied by the agencies claim that they ‘get’ digital
– The appearance of a TV commercial as a ‘viral’ as a way of targeting the ‘youth market’
– ‘You Tube’, ‘MySpace’, ‘Wikipedia’ and ‘Facebook’ in any sentence that also includes the word ‘integrated’
Give me a break.
DDBarry Hall!
For Christ’s sake, would you digitossers clear this site and go to some geeky www where you can toss each other off. The rest of us don’t give a rat’s arse what you think. Especially, I imagine, Jim. It’s his party, so just fuck off and die, you stupid gatecrashers.
2.40
“a big idea at the expense of strategy.” ?
Respectfully, can I suggest that the latter might help deliver the former?
Now, I’m not taking the piss, but can you support what you’re saying with a little more info please?
I’m not referring to big TVCs that run as virals, or posters running as banners. We’re all sick of seeing formulaic communication.
A big idea is borne out of solid strategy, no? Pray tell……
i love the abuse being thrown at digital tossers. Why don’t you big ideas creatives stop using this blog? after all this IS http://www.campaignbrief.com
And while you are at it, stop surfing the net for porn and cancel your gmail account
ignorant tossers
Yes, 2.40.
Sounds like you’re applying for a gig.
Kindly explain a little more about campaigns that deliver……
🙂
6.04.
You could be right.
Bravo.
What a sad state this blog is in. None of the above even remotely relates to the story. All internet nerds please go back to your online games. Back to the story:
Jim Moser is an intelligent, successful agency leader. He’s a really interesting choice for the NZ group. I’m sure he’ll do well. Congratulations Jim. Roger Mac is one of the best. A living legend stepping down. All the best Roger.
“there will always be monkeys to execute”? Piss off and go get a job in sales you talentless wanker. It’s fuckwits like you that perpetuate the myth that advertising is full of coke snorting ego maniacs.
Excuse us for turning a blog about a career move into a discussion about the state of advertising. The fact that this needs to be discussed in a hijacked forum shows that this is a fairly important discussion that deserves it’s own thread.
Unfortunately, the moderators of this blog and the Sydney mafia only give a hoot about the latest TVC and who works for which agency.
Well done on your move across the ditch.
Go register..nobodycaresaboutus.com and start your own blog then.
Try to stay on-brief, 4:54 and the rest of you digitossers.
Perhaps you’ll get your turn when the blog posts a fascinating story about the appointment of someone nobody’s ever heard of as CD of a digital agency nobody gives a shit about.
errr, try to read more than a paragraph 5:56……I think that’s what 4:54 was saying…..have another Chardonnay
Perhaps it was the sequence: 4:54’s comment seemed to contradict those who were trying to steer the thread back to relevance, but I could be wrong, 8:57.
I chose a lousy century to give up drinking…