DDB managing director Justin Mowday told the NBR it was sad to see the pair go, but ultimately they wanted a fresh environment.

Colenso’s Nick Worthington, who’s only been wearing his new creative chairman hat for a few months, said the agency felt lucky to have the two join the creative team at Colenso. In return James Cooper said, although they had had a great time working for DDB and had learnt a lot there, they had always been fans of Colenso and were looking forward to working with Worthington.

It’s all part of a serious games of swapsies the agencies have been indulging in recently. Creative team James Tucker and Simon Vicars said goodbye to the DDB and hello to Colenso BBDO last year, so DDB nabbed group account director Angela Watson off Colenso. November saw Whybin\TBWA\Tequila Sydney poach head of art, Dave Brady, as creative group head from DDB NZ. Brett Colliver left DDB NZ for  Clemenger, Toby Talbot left DDB NZ for a bit of an O.E. in London.. and then Colenso lost James Hurman to Ogilvy Shanghai. The question now is: who’s move it is now?

We called Hurman for a chat, but he was with his kids in a supermarket in Whangamata, apparently buying All Bran in an effort to keep himself regular. But we got hold of managing director Nick Garret, who is obviously disappointed to lose such a talented man—and a mate—from the ranks, especially since Hurman has been involved in pretty much every piece of great, highly awarded work the agency has done in recent years. Still, as someone who has followed his nose to five different countries, he undersands the desire to test his skills in a much bigger market, in an agency with 600 humans and with one of the world’s best creative directors, Graham Fink, the ex-ECD of M&C Saatchi London and one of creative chairman Nick Worthington’s gentlemanly peers.

Garrett had hoped Hurman, who was recently ranked the no.2 planning director in the world in The Big Won and has a “phenomenal international reputation”, would be able to stay within the BBDO network so that a position could be kept open for him and he could set some bandwidth aside to work on major Colenso projects. But, much like the attempted arrangement between DDB and now departed ECD Toby Talbot, it didn’t work out.

He hopes the strong Kiwi homing beacon will kick in eventually and he’ll return to the homeland at some stage, but he believes this overseas experience will “round him out” and make him an even bigger asset to the New Zealand marketing community.

At this stage he says there’s no plan to name a replacement planning director and he has plenty of confidence in senior planners Andy McLeish and Sue Gill, who will take over Hurman’s account responsibilities when he departs at the end of February.

Hurman, who previously worked at Lowe and Publicis Mojo (including on the Mackenzie bread launch), started at Colenso as senior planner in 2007. And his loss is probably on a similar scale to that of former managing director Brent Smart, who took up a role with the BBDO network based in San Francisco around two years ago.

His departure follows a few changes at Colenso recently, with a deck shuffle that saw Nick Worthington upgraded to creative chairman and Seve Cochran promoted to creative director, as well as the loss of a few senior account staff, including Angela Watson.

Interestingly, Hurman will be working indirectly with Tim Broadbent, the ballbreaking effectiveness officer from Ogilvy Beijing who came over to New Zealand to judge the Effies last year and, rather controversially, tore a new one for some of the contenders. And he’ll also be able to buy products like these in the Chinese Wal-Marts.

UPDATE: Hurman says he’s basically moving from the most creative market in the world to the least creative market in the world. That’s not entirely surprising given China has basically turned from a nation of peasant farmers into one of the most powerful business nations in the world in just a few decades, so there’s a good reason for a lack of sophistication among the marketers (he says there’s still plenty of product demonstrations). But he thinks a “creative revolution” is looming, and it’s of the type that also occurred in the US, so it’s a bloody exciting place to be at the moment. And, given his quest to inspire more creative marketing, it’s a big challenge.

Hurman says he and his wife realised there was a window of opportunity to have a bit of an adventure while their children were young. They looked at a few options like New York, Berlin, Sao Paulo, or Mumbai, but in the end chose Shanghai because they knew so little about it. They wanted to be out of their comfort zone and had heard good things about the city after asking around.

“I don’t think you’ll find us in a gated expat community eating pizza and burgers,” he says.

As much as it will be good from a personal perspective, Hurman says it will also be good from a professional perspective because a lot of the multinationals are implanting seriously talented creative bods in the Chinese market. And he hopes working with Fink, who he sees as on a par with Worthington, will help bring similar success in his new gig.

As for coming home, it will happen eventually. And he’s committed to seeing his kids go to school in New Zealand.

1) Favourite campaign that isn’t yours: NZTA Legend.

2) Favourite campaign that is yours: Mountain Dew Skate Park.

3) Least favourite campaign: Abstain for the game.

4) Best brand: Stolen Rum.

5) Best stoush: Us vs them.

6) Heroes: Bryan Crawford for having the nuts to pull out of the Auckland Council pitch.

7) Villains: Tall, blonde and last seen in various boardrooms across town.

8) Most memorable marketing moment: Asia Pacific’s first creative effectiveness Lion in Cannes for TVNZ’s The Pacific.

As creative chairman, Worthington will have broad oversight of the agency business and will continue to provide creative leadership on major projects and initiatives. Cochran will take on more day-to-day creative leadership, working across campaigns and overseeing the creative resourcing and department management.

“It’s great to see Nick stepping into this role and taking on a new level of leadership within Colenso BBDO. Transferring his wealth of experience and creative brilliance into this new position will add further value to our clients, who are looking for an integrated approach,” Clemenger Group chief executive Jim Moser said in a statement.

Worthington said jokingly in an email that the new role would consist mainly of smoking a pipe and running his new slippers in. And, sadly, he won’t be able to work from his much-loved Great Barrier Island. ”The barrier and work don’t mix. The fishing’s too good.”

With more than 25 years industry experience, Worthington has been at the helm of some of the world’s most highly-regarded integrated marketing campaigns, including the Yellow Treehouse/Chocolate and Frucor V. Before that, he was at Publicis Mojo, where he oversaw the launch of Steinlager Pure and the Speight’s Great Beer Delivery.

Colenso has also won multiple international awards and was recognised as the Campaign Brief Agency of the Year in 2009 and 2010 and Agency of the Decade in 2010. It was also named as the YoungGuns International Agency of the Decade and Most Effective Agency of the year at the Effies in 2010.

Two’s company

Haydn Thomsen

Ben Fielding

Saatchi & Saatchi seems to have got back a bit of momentum recently, and it’s added a bit more with the appointment of Haydn Thomsen as digital executive producer and Ben Fielding as senior strategist.

Thomsen comes from Colenso BBDO where he was senior digital producer and before this he spent 15 years working in a range of roles for software development firms, IT services, digital agencies, retail, government and corporate organisations. He replaces Kevin Sherman, who is returning home to the United States.

His recent work includes Pedigree Doggelganger, MiZone – ‘Me In MiZone’, Tourism Auckland ‘Make Your Own Adventure’, Pepsi Max It Jobs, Fresh-up Thirst Is Creepy, V ‘Tricked Out’ online game and integrated campaign, Republic of V online, Air New Zealand’s ‘Changing the Way You Fly’ campaign and the social community programme Pass The Parcel for Vodafone, and he has won accolades such as Cannes, FWA Site of the Day, B&T: Digital Agency of the year, Effies, Webbys, and the Full Code Press.

Fielding joins Saatchi & Saatchi from TBWA\London where he was digital strategist on British Airways and adidas. He brings more than eight years global experience in Asia and the UK, working in communications strategy roles across automotive, banking, FMCG, sports and technology industries.

“Ben is a rigorous and ambitious creative thinker who gets under the hood of his client’s business and drives innovative solutions,” says Murray Streets, director of strategy. ”His international experience means he brings fresh vision and a depth of experience that we and our clients’ really value. He’s a great addition to the planning team and the agency as we pursue our goal of raising the bar on strategic thinking and creativity in this market, and the region.”

Triple whammy

Pujji (foreground) and White (rear)

M&C Saatchi has been on a bit of a roll recently, winning lots, losing not many (if any) and putting out some consistently high-quality stuff. And, to cope with its recent growth, it has added three “leading lights” to bolster its Wellington office, with Aaron White joining as general manager, Ben Pujji joining as head of digital and Guilherme Kunzler joining as senior digital designer.

“We’ve been growing very quickly in Wellington so the time was right for us to employ some top talent,” says Darryn Melrose, chief executive of M&C Saatchi. “Luckily for us, we’ve managed to get the very best Wellington has to offer. Aaron is someone I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked with in the past. He’s smart, he’s a great cultural fit for us, and clients absolutely love him. Having him as the general manager of our Wellington operation means we have the person I consider to be the best agency brain in Wellington running our office.

White was previously employed as general manager of AIM Proximity and also had account and planning responsibilities across some key Clemenger BBDO clients. He has many years experience across both client side and agency side and has worked on brands such as Kiwibank , New Zealand Post, IAG and Telecom.

“I’ve been watching what the team have been building since they’ve joined M&C Saatchi and I want to be part of it,” White says. “I’ve always got on with Darryn, Dave and Tony and am looking forward to getting stuck in and doing what I think needs to be done for clients. Having Ben join at the same time was an added bonus. I’ve loved working with him and can’t wait to do even more together. Gui is a cracking guy as well and the current staff in the Wellington office are fantastic. This is going to be huge.”

Pujji, who has run his own digital business, been strategy director for DNA Design and was most recently the head of digital strategy at AIM Proximity/Clemenger BBDO, is someone Melrose has met more recently, but he impressed immediately.

“We’d heard that he was very savvy in digital but he’s way more than that. He’s a very clever guy across the board who just happens to be extraordinarily smart in the digital space.”

Kunzler has nine years digital experience, mostly in Brazil, and most recently he was senior visual designer at Springload in Wellington.

“Gui contacted me before he left Brazil and I wanted to employ him on the spot,” says Dave King, executive creative director of M&C Saatchi. “I’ve worked with some very talented digital designers and I’d rank Guilherme right up there with the best of them. I’m very happy to finally have him on board.”

Spike that

Colenso BBDO’s executive creative director Nick Worthington has been named on the Film, Print, Outdoor & Radio jury at Spikes Asia. He is the only New Zealander to be appointed as a jury member so far, but the Digital, Media, Design, Craft, Integrated and PR jury members are still to be announced.

Colenso planning director James Hurman, whose new book The Case for Creativity has sold out of its first run, is a keynote speaker at the festival alongside Crispin Poter + Bogusky’s Jeff Benjamin and a few more high-rollers.

Ellison wonderland

Ex-DDBer Kim Ellison has left the Image Centre Group’s retail advertising arm Hotfoot to do more freelance work. She was working three days a week and was already working on other projects but she is currently contracting to Ogilvy.

Picture this

Once again New Zealand Geographic is inviting amateurs, professionals and students alike to demonstrate their skills with a camera. Last year nearly 2,400 images were entered from over 1,000 photographers, making it the country’s biggest photo comp, so get your entries in.

This year there are four categories (Wildlife, Landscape, Society and Culture and Photo Story, which is a new category this year). From these a Young Photographer and overall Photographer of the Year will be chosen.

The New Zealand Geographic Young Photographer of the Year, which is sponsored by Getty Images, will be awarded $1000 cash and the opportunity to attend a nature photography workshop with Kim Westerskov (entrants under 21 years on September 30, 2011 are eligible).

The overall New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year 2011, which is sponsored by Nikon, will win $2000 cash, a guaranteed creative contributor contract offer from Getty Images and a berth as a New Zealand Geographic photographer on board a Heritage Expeditions’ voyage.

This year the awards night on October 27 at the Auckland Museum will follow a full-day photo symposium with seminars from a range of world-class editorial photographers. Tickets can be purchased from the New Zealand Geographic website.

Three campaigns by Colenso BBDO in four categories will feature in the D&AD Annual, a showcase of the world’s best creative, design and advertising work over the past year. Yellow Chocolate will be in the book in both the direct and integrated & earned categories, ’Ignore Us, Ignore Human Rights’ work for Amnesty International will feature in the press advertising category and ‘A Rubbish Idea’ for Heart of the City will feature in the graphic design category.

“To have three clients recognised four times in the book in the same year is great,” says Nick Worthington executive creative director of Colenso BBDO. “I spent a decent chunk of my career in London and I know how tough this competition is. It is pretty much the highest regarded creative competition in the world.”

Saatchi & Saatchi was awarded in-book status in the point of sale (graphic design) category for Pick One for the Breast Cancer Research Trust and DDB got the nod in the radio category for Sky’s Art Channel (Van Gogh/Rothko/Pollock).

One level down from in-book, Ogilvy’s ‘Nothing Much’ for L&P was shortlisted in TV; Pilot Magazine was shortlisted in the magazine and newspaper design; Special Group’s A Different Night Starts Here for Smirnoff Mule was shortlisted in the mobile interaction and experiences category; Saatchi & Saatchi’s Nimble as a Mouse for Toyota IQ was shortlisted in the digital design category; DDB’s Lucky Dog was shortlisted for direction in the film advertising craft category; and Barnes, Catmur & Friends A Brief History of History for Crumpler was shortlisted in the writing for design category.

Australian agencies scored three nominations and 19 in-book recognitions.

One of the reasons DB shifted the account to Colenso was as a result of a strategic decision to spread its brands across different partners. Saatchi’s also takes care of the Tui and Heineken brands and, as you’d expect, DB’s consumer marketing manager Rene de Monchy says something of a “natural order” had developed. But, after a bit of soul-searching and research, the brand is now being relaunched to mark the 50th anniversary of DB Export with new packaging, an old beer and a big-budget, historical 90 second commercial set in the 1960s (as well as a five minute short film that will be available online) to celebrate the achievements of its creator, the pioneering brewer, serial inventor and crafty bugger known as Morton Coutts.

The new campaign about the story behind the creation of DB Export is about as far away as you can get from recent Export ads featuring gangs of boozing, smiling, scantily clad young things jumping over fences in slow motion. Colenso’s executive creative director Nick Worthington says this was quintessential beer advertising of yore, where you created something entertaining, hooked them young and then hoped they’d grow old with you, in a similar fashion to banks.

Because of this by the numbers approach, he says Export “had got lost”, which was proven after a nationwide roadtrip by Colenso’s researchers to gauge feelings towards the brand found that consumers in the heartland where most of the product was actually consumed didn’t think it was talking to them (the phrase lesbian beer, whatever that means, was mentioned). Many of them also thought it didn’t have a story. To them, Export was some flash Auckland beer that was invented by a marketing department, which shows how far the brand had moved away from its roots.

Worthington says tapping into the beer’s heritage is a long play, not a quick fix, and as well as telling Coutts’ “untold story” through the commercial and short film (it was filmed at MOTAT in Auckland, made by Revolver and goes to air on 7 October), it is also bringing back the original 5.35 percent beer in quart-sized DB Export ABC bottles, replete with its 60s branding. Around 100,000 two-packs will be sold through supermarkets and specialist stores, while individual quart bottles are being sold at 300 bars nationwide.

The beer’s history will also be on the packaging. And it is a pretty cool story: Coutts’ great grandfather, Friedrich Kuhtze, was a brewmaster in Germany. His grandfather, Joseph Freidrich Kuhtze, left Germany to pioneer beer brewing in Dunedin in 1857. And his father, W. Joseph Coutts established the Main Trunk Brewery in Taihape in 1908, which he ran for eleven years until becoming incapacitated in the 1919 influenza epidemic. That year, the 13-year-old Morton took over the brewing responsibilities.

By the time he was 24 he’d built the Waitemata Brewery, which is still home to Dominion Breweries. But the Export story starts in 1958, when the then finance minister and ‘puritanical bore’ Arnold Nordmeyer outraged New Zealand with his so-called Black Budget, “a miserly piece of work that taxed the importation of the world’s best beers so heavily that no ordinary man could afford to drink them”.

After Nordmeyer’s budget, Coutts set about making a New Zealand beer that would win the Brewers Championship Challenge Cup, which was awarded to the best beer in the world in any class at the Olympics of beer brewing, the International Brewing Awards. And because the beer, which he tagged DB Export, was to be created in New Zealand, it would therefore escape Nordmeyer’s import duty.

Thankfully, Coutts had devised a world-first brewing method known as ‘continuous fermentation’, which was decades ahead of its time (in fact, Budweiser claimed to have come up with a new technique in the 1990s, until it checked the patent books and found one M. Coutts had thought of it way back in the 1950s). In the year of its release in 1960, DB Export won a gold at the awards. But he spent the next eight years refining the lager and eventually reached his goal in 1968 when it took the best beer in the world title.

DB Export was the precursor to Export 33, Export Gold and Export Dry (which, in 1994, won the same honour as DB Export). Strangely, Worthington says the sons had become fatherless. But Dad’s back for a while (and maybe for longer depending on how sales go) and to celebrate the family has been given a make-over.

The beer inside remains the same but Export Gold has graduated from a stubbie to a long-neck bottle and its packaging has also been redesigned by Dow Design. Export Dry now sports a look that matches its “international status” and is now also available in a 15 pack. A focus on the original budget-beating vision: ‘Let nothing come between a man and a great beer’ has also been incorporated as a slogan alongside the DB logo, as has a copy of Morton’s signature.

“The new design-led look and feel reflects Export’s place in the modern market, while simultaneously emphasising its proud heritage – things our drinkers tell us they value,” Dave Shoemack, DB Export’s marketing manager, says.

The website (and so the commercial/film) doesn’t go live until next week. But when it does, you can check it out here. And you can also check out DB Export on what the young kids apparently now call the F-Cloud.

As number one on the Top 10 agencies of the decade chart, Colenso gets to laugh in the face of larger, fancier non-winners like TBWA\CHIAT\DAY New York in second, USA-wide Crispin Porter + Bogusky in third place and DDB London and Saatchi & Saatchi London in eighth and ninth places. Saatchi & Saatchi Australia came in at 10th place (full list below).

Michael Kean, co-founder of the YoungGuns, which focuses solely on creative leaders under the age of 30, says Colenso BBDO has consistently set the global benchmark for young creative talent, competing and winning against the world’s most reputable agencies and young creatives spanning 50+ countries annually.

“As an agency, Colenso BBDO has long been a top performer on the global stage, so this latest recognition is a true credit to Colenso BBDO’s leadership in their clear desire to foster and develop the next generation of world class creative leaders,” he says.

Colenso’s executive creative director Nick Worthington believes the children are our future, that we should treat them well, let them lead the way and show them all the beauty they possess inside.

“The contribution they have made to our agency over the last ten years has been massive. To be recognised as the best in the world for nurturing young talent is awesome and will reinforce New Zealand’s reputation as a breeding ground for some of the world’s hottest creative talent.”

Colenso is the only advertising agency to win YoungGuns agency of the year twice in 2001 and 2008. And some of the Gold Bullet winning campaigns include the exploding billboard on Nelson Street to promote Deadline Couriers and the Yellow Treehouse.

This honour adds another notch to the belt of what’s been a stellar awards year for Colenso, with a record haul at Cannes and recent accolades at the Spikes Asia festival.

Check out some of the winning Colenso work here.

YoungGuns top 10 agency rankings for the last ten years:

1 ColensoBBDO New Zealand

2 TBWA\CHIAT\Day, New York USA

3 Crispin Porter +Bogusky USA

4 Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi Argentina

5 Mother London UK

6 Leo Burnett, Chicago USA

7 Ogilvy & Mather, Mumbai India

8 DDB, London UK

9 Saatchi & Saatchi, London UK

10 Saatchi & Saatchi, Australia Australia

YoungGuns aims to recognise the hottest creative talent under 30 and the awards organisers made special mention of Colenso BBDO as the only agency to have been named YoungGuns Agency of the Year twice (2001 and 2008). BBDO has been named YoungGuns Network of the Year three times (2001, 2004 and 2008) and it has been awarded more Gold Bullets than any other network.

Executive creative director Nick Worthington says it’s always great to see young talent recognised on the international stage, but it’s even better to see how well New Zealand does against the best countries in the world.

“We’ve always been told New Zealand punches above its weight, but it’s nice to have a bit of proof,” he says.

Kristian Barnes, co-founder of the YGAward says BBDO has, over the last decade, clearly demonstrated that it consistently incubated some of the best young talent globally.

“This award is significant in that it recognises the investment BBDO has placed in nurturing young talent. The creativity and young talent within the network speaks for itself.

With a record haul of Lions under his (and his company’s) belt after this year’s Cannes accolades were dished out, Colenso BBDO executive creative director, handyman of the land and Titanium and Integrated Lions juror Nick Worthington is sitting pretty. And in this clip, he’s also sitting with Our Maan in Cannes in a loud French restaurant. In case you were wondering, no, you haven’t mistakenly pushed the vuvuzela button on YouTube. Our Maan in Cannes just thought conducting the interview amid the din, with the clattering of cutlery and the incessant clinking of wine glasses, would add to the Gallic charm. If only there was an accordion button on YouTube.