OFFICIAL AT LAST: OGILVY CD’S HITCHCOCK AND LANCASTER JOIN COLENSO BBDO
The PR release…
Colenso BBDO has landed one of New Zealand’s most outstanding creative teams in former Meares Taine and most recently Ogilvy NZ Creative Directors Jamie Hitchcock and Josh Lancaster.
The pair who are renowned for taking sleeping New Zealand soft drink brand L&P and creating one of New Zealand’s most loved and effective campaigns of recent memory have also won an impressive tally of metal at Cannes, One Show, Clio and Award on a range of clients dating back to the beginning of their career at Clemenger Wellington in 1999.
Colenso BBDO Creative Director Rich Maddocks said he couldn’t think of a better hiring. ‘We’re hugely excited about the impact the guys are going to have on the place. Culturally, they’re a fantastic fit for us. There’s not much bullshit about them and plenty of laughs. And all they care about is the work.’
Maddocks said they have a huge amount to offer to the entire agency. ‘Importantly, their role wont just be about producing great work themselves, but also in acting as mentors to our up and coming teams. Josh and Jamie have a remarkably similar point of view as our own about what makes great advertising, and how to make it happen. I’ve always admired their work, as much as the way they seem to go about it, The entire agency has been buzzing since they heard the news.’
As for Hitchcock and Lancaster, they say the opportunity presented itself at the right time. ‘We’ve had a fantastic four years working with Roy Meares and Jeremy Taine and we can’t thank them enough for the opportunities they’ve given us. It’s been an incredibly difficult decision to leave two people you respect so much. But we’re both up for a new challenge and Colenso feels really right for us.’
Brent Smart, Colenso BBDO GM said the hiring caps off a great year for the agency after being recognised as the Most Effective Agency at the Effies this month, winning Best of Show at the NZ Axis Awards and replacing last year’s loss of the BNZ with the regional win of the $100 million Fonterra Brands account in June.
Maddocks also stressed that the pair’s appointment was integral to maintaining the agency’s goal of constantly changing itself. ‘Brent and I have been totally focused over the past twelve months on new blood and new ways of approaching things.’
In the past three months alone the creative department has been bolstered by ex Saatchi Senior Interactive creative Mark Addy, up and coming mid-weight creatives Lisa … and Jonno… from Cummins & Partners in Melbourne, and Scott Maddox and Fraser Grant, the team who represented NZ at the Cannes Young Creative Competition and returned home with second place in the world. Also joining the agency in November is Saatchi Group Account Director, Angela Watson.
Meanwhile the agency is going through a major facelift. ‘This weekend the builders are in there knocking down every wall in the creative department. We want the guys to all share one space with the intention of creating a more fluid sharing of feedback and opinions between teams. I really think the more input you can get along the way from people you respect, the better your work will be. Having the department operate as one as opposed to ten teams who work at the same agency is the goal. It may work, it may not. If it doesn’t we’ll just try something else.’
Smart said the agency is in great shape as it looks forward to 2007.
15 Comments
Well done fellas!Say no to open plan offices.
Looking forward to the O&M press release now.
Yep, open office spaces are shocking.
I wonder how long it will take to replace them at Ogilvy… with anyone, even janitors. ‘Ogilvy’ – is that another way to spell ‘Doom’ here in NZ?
An agency is not doomed when the creatives leave, it’s only doomed when the clients leave. Ogilvy has been around for a long time and has clients that have been with them for a long time. So that in itself suggests Ogilvy is answering its clients briefs. Ogilvy may not have been a right fit for Jamie and Josh but I don’t think it will be difficult for Roy and Jeremy to find someone else to work with them.
Oh god, don’t for the life of you work in an open plan space. God doesn’t anyone learn? Pretty soon you’ll all be writing your ideas down on one large layout pad (or notebook if you’re from mojo).Ideas take approximately 3.2 times longer to come up with ideas in open plan spaces. Good luck with all that.
Talking of alternative spellings, an anagram of Greg Partington is ‘Prong in egg tart’.
Open plan offices are for management who do not trust their staff. I agree, abolish them. They are a thing of the past, get the walls up again.
Well done you cnuts. I wish I was half as talented as you blokes, good luck and do some good shit at Colenso before the One Show cutoff. Same with you Parsons. Get an awards budget together and start entering. We all know you’d pick up some metal if you transferred your booze budget to awards entering budget. Get a dog up yah.. and bless.
Open plan offices are rubbish.The thinking behind them usually goes like this: CD: Hey man, if we get rid of all these walls, then all of our collective energy will be able to be chanelled together. GM: Aww dude, like I’ve been saying’ that for ages, ever since I started being a suit. I reckon walls restrict thinking. Like, all you creative dudes write your ideas on square pads of paper. Those square pads are like the walls. They restrict your thinking.CD:Now everyone can have their name on an idea because they were all in the same room together. Our combined energy will be awesome.In all actuality, what happens with open-plan is that all the creatives don’t stay in their offices. They go and book out a quiet meeting room in a remote part of the office (making them hard to reach), or they go home (making them even harder to reach and get any emergencies done), or they work together but hardly talk to each other in order not to let another team hear their odea.And the worst thing about open plan (from an agency management point of view) is the fact that productivity radidly declines. Creative people are naturaly inquisitive, and you are constantly listening to other people’s conversations (whether you like it or not). Brent and Richard are trying to stamp their mark on the agency in order to pre-empt Colenso going into another one of it’s cyclic declines. But open plan is naive. Lead from the front with great ideas, not 80’s style LA style mangement experiments.Finally, well done to Jamie and Josh for escaping the madness of lower Parnell.
Amen to that.
The pods at SS Wellington are a good compromise.
All in all it wasn’t a good week for Mr Partington, was it.
I strongly believe that, in life, good things happen to good people. And vice versa, if that is the case.
It intrigues me greatly the amount of s**t handed out to Greg Partington. I question how many of us have actually met the man, more to the point, this is a man who has almost single handedly created an agency from next to nothing. You don’t have to like the man but you can certainly admire his drive and courage to achieve what he has. How many of us can even remotedly point to the same sort of success. We can be such little bitches . . .