More than 700 entries in 30 categories underwent two days of scrutiny from the world’s top creative directors for the 34th John Caples Awards. And the winners will be announced at a ceremony in March.

And the Kiwi finalists are:

AMBIENT/GUERRILLA MARKETING

Beautify Your City – A Rubbish Idea
Colenso BBDO

Carmonica, DraftFCB

Angels, Publicis Mojo

BRANDED WEBSITE

New World Easter Hunt, .99

DIRECT MAIL DIMENSIONAL, OVER $5 COST-PER-PIECE .

Yellow Apples, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

Fujikistan, Republik Communications

DIRECT MAIL DIMENSIONAL, UNDER $5 COST-PER-PIECE

Vacuum Cleaner Bags, DraftFCB

DIRECT MAIL, CUSTOMER RETENTION

Big Thank You, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

DIRECT MAIL, FLAT (1-500 PIECES)

Knitted Envelope, DraftFCB

CAMPAIGN MICROSITE

FJ Top to Bottom off road – 60 Years of Land Cruiser, AIM Proximity

Doggelganger, Colenso BBDO

MOBILE APP

Impulse Saver, Colenso BBDO

VIRAL VIDEO MARKETING

Rear View Girls, Colenso BBDO

ONLINE

Living Office Banner, Special Group

OUT OF HOME

Yellow Local, Colenso BBDO

PRINT

Yellow Local, Colenso BBDO

PRINT COLLATERAL, NON-MAIL

Beautify Your City – A Rubbish Idea, Colenso BBDO

EFFIE Awards, DraftFCB

RADIO AND PODCAST

Sports Stories Before Bedtime, DraftFCB

RETENTION/LOYALTY, NON-MAIL

Looking good in Yellow, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

SOCIAL MEDIA

Maxit Jobs, Colenso BBDO

Shortland Street Summer Fling, Colenso BBDO

The Schmancy App, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

Say No to Naff Facebook, DraftFCB

SPCA Make Friends, DraftFCB

DIRECT RESPONSE TV

Don’t Bail Out, Clemenger BBDO Ltd

Yellow Local, Colenso BBDO

INTERACTIVE CAMPAIGN

FJ Top to Bottom off road – 60 Years of Land Cruiser, AIM Proximity and Saatchi & Saatchi

Share the Joy, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

Welcome the World, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

INTEGRATED CAMPAIGN

What’s Your Dulux Colour of New Zealand?, Clemenger BBDO

Impulse Saver, Colenso BBDO

Skate Pinball, Colenso BBDO

V Paintball, Colenso BBDO

Believe, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

Share the Joy, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

Warnie Chicken Bites, DDB Group Rapp Tribal New Zealand

LAUNCH CAMPAIGN

FJ Top to Bottom off road – 60 Years of Land Cruiser, AIM Proximity and Saatchi & Saatchi

Skate Pinball, Colenso BBDO

Doggelganger, Colenso BBDO

Impulse Saver, Colenso BBDO

BEST ART DIRECTION

Fujikistan, Republik Communications

BEST COPYWRITING

Fujikistan, Republik Communication

CREATIVE USE OF TECHNOLOGY

Doggelganger, Colenso BBDO

Impulse Saver, Colenso BBDO

“I was very impressed with the work BallantyneTaylor had done for Canon Australia, particularly their fresh, irreverent business campaign,” says CallPlus’ senior brand Manager Caroline Morris. “Few agencies combine an innovative creative approach with an extensive understanding of B2B, and that appealed to us.”

CallPlus, which was established in 1996, has over 150,000 business and residential customers and turns over in excess of $100 million per annum, claims to be “New Zealand’s largest [privately]-owned and operated telecommunications provider”.

BallantyneTaylor’s managing director Steve Ballantyne says the win can be attributed to the agency’s specialist skills in the B2B area and, while there may not be quite the same budgets in this space, the flipside of that is that there’s not as much competition.

“We’re delighted to have this business. It is an exciting space to be in. It’s a fantastic opportunity and we’re looking forward to rolling out some interesting ideas.”

He says it will be taking care of the business side of things, and it hasn’t won the company’s residential ISP Slingshot, which is currently handled by Mr Smith.

Earlier this year CallPlus became the only New Zealand business to win the prestigious 2011 Global CIO 100 award for innovative excellence in IT.

Who’s it for: Xbox 360 ‘Rugby World Cup 2011′ by Republik and Automatic Films.

Why we like it: Video game ads rarely stand out, but this one does (and so does this one). Entertaining, well-made, a nice line and extra points for a local indie getting to make an ad for a massive international brand that will run in the Australian and New Zealand markets.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Who’s it for: Living Legends by Meridian

Why we like it: StopPress is bitterly disappointed the Great Queen St Sheep Run was called off. But getting locals and visitors together to plant 85,000 native trees in September and October for the Living Legends Muck-in, a scheme that Meridian is sponsoring, is possibly a slightly more worthwhile replacement event. Check out the website here for plantings in your area.

Return of the Mack

David MacGregor has left BrandWorld and launched his own company, Macgregor Media, a business that aims to create integrated commercial formats and products across all media platforms, from TV programming and advertising to mobile applications for phones and tablets.

He says the move is a response to the increasing demand for useful, engaging content, free-for-all opening of media channels and the inexpensive digital means to fill them with compelling stories.

“If it’s media, it’s me,” he says.

MacGregor’s career began in the early 1980s as an award-winning creative. In the mid 90s he launched BrandWorld and created one of the world’s first syndicated, multi-advertiser platforms, Family Health Diary, a business model that continues to be highly successful for BrandWorld, one of TVNZ’s biggest advertisers, and has spawned other masthead brands such as Eating Well and Discover. MacGregor has been working on new product development with the BrandWorld, which remains a client, for the past four years and he sold his stake in 2002.

He is also co-founder of and advertising columnist in Idealog magazine, which has won business publication of the year in each of the five years of its life.

He has been blogging since 2004 and his ThoughtSpurs blog has been read by hundreds of thousands of people. This week marked his fourth anniversary on Twitter.

“You should never take advice about social media from people with fewer than 15 followers on Twitter—or anybody under the age of 26 and a half, about anything,” he says.

Shoemack makes tracks

Dave Shoemack has left his role as DB Export marketing manager for a plum gig in Amsterdam as senior brand manager for Sol beer at Heineken International.

His replacement is Russell Browne who was the Monteith’s marketing manager.

Shoemack was promoted to the role soon after winning the Rookie Marketer of the Year category at the TVNZ-NZ Marketing Awards in 2009 and was instrumental in last year’s slightly controversial ‘Beer: The Untold Story’ campaign.

Cooney hangs up

Kieren Cooney, Telecom’s head of marketing and, more recently, national punching bag, has left the company to take up a role as chief communications officer with the National Broadband Network company, the organisation building Australia’s ultra-fast internet infrastructure.

“It feels like a real privilege to be involved with this type of initiative, which is truly about nation building and building the next capability for Australians,” he told the Brisbane-Times. “To be able to lay such a strong foundation in Australia’s future is amazing, this is probably only once in a generation in terms of scale and impact.”

The Australian-born Cooney was originally appointed as head of Telecom’s mobile division last April and took over as head of marketing in June last year. His resignation was finalised before the Abstain for the Game campaign was leaked.

Cooney was also general manager (new markets) at Vodafone and was a presenter on music channel Max TV and Juice TV.

Echo location 

Republik’s direct mail Fujikistan campaign for Fuji Xerox enjoyed four finalist spots and took home two Gold at this years RSVP awards and it’s set for some international success at this year’s DMA International ECHO Awards.

“We received notification to say that we had placed and we were to be awarded at the event in Boston on October 4th and were pretty chuffed at that. A couple of days later received further notification that in addition to the category awards, Fujikistan has been selected as one of the top four overall campaigns of 2011 and will form part of a newly formed, ‘Peoples Choice ECHO Award’.”

Republik’s creative director Andrew Sims has been invited to the conference to present a case study of the campaign highlighting its strategy, creative, innovation and results.

“Fujikistan was created to launch and sell a specialist hi-end digital colour printing press, The Color Press 1000. The DM campaign formed the back-bone of the launch strategy. After breaking all New Zealand, APAC and International sales targets, it’s nice to be enjoying success on the awards circuit,” says Sims.

Sacre Bleu!  

Click here to view the embedded video.

The 3 News team has also got involved with an online only show ‘One Off The Ruck’. Check out the first two episodes here.

On the PANPA podium 

The Press was a popular choice as Newspaper of the Year with a circulation between 25,000 and 90,000 at the Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers’ Association (PANPA) Awards last week.

Fairfax New Zealand chief executive Allen Williams attended the awards and was delighted to see the industry recognise the work done by the The Press team under extraordinary circumstances surrounding the Christchurch earthquake.

“The audience at the gala dinner gave The Press team a standing ovation and I was very proud to stand alongside them. It was a well deserved win and I am extremely proud of The Press team,” says Williams.

Press photographer Iain McGregor also claimed a major award for his quake photography, sharing Photograph of the Year with Craig Greenhill from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph. 

Fairfax New Zealand’s digital head, Nigel Tutt was awarded the 2011 Hegarty Scholarship for young executive of the year and Stuff’s Rugby Heaven iPhone app took away the Specialty site award.

“Its the second year in a row that a young Fairfax executive has won the Hegarty Scholarship and I would like to congratulate Nigel and his team on the wins for their market-leading work,” says Williams. “Our updating of technology and systems has resulted in the growth and enhancement of Fairfax Media’s news gathering and reporting. We’ve got the right people and the right technology to deliver top news around the clock, ahead of the competition.”

Other winners included The Dominion Postfor Audience/Circulation 25, 000-90, 000 and Events 25,000-90,000.

Not too much to write home about for APN, although The New Zealand Herald won the Lifestyle section National/Metropolitan and nzherald.co.nz won the branding section for digital for the “creative and sassy” NZ Notworth News campaign by M&C Saatchi.

“What the campaign delivered was something bold, unexpected and unlike anything else seen before,” says APN Online Marketing Manager, Sarah Kenny. “Yet it was completely relevant to the brand and its position. It was born from strategic thinking and it focused on a single minded proposition: if you want news you can trust, then head straight to nzherald.co.nz.”

The Bay of Plenty Times and Mountain Scene also took category awards. Check out the full list of winners here.

Events, dear girl, events

Mango Communications today announces the appointment of Amy Hayden to further bolster its Events team.

Hayden has sharpened her events and sampling skills at Phenomenon Promotions where as a senior account manager she developed, presented and executed inspiring concepts for clients and managed her own team.

An activation expert, she will be working across sampling, events and brand experiences.

“This is the year we hone in on brand experiences that cut through the clutter every time,” says Mango managing director Claudia Macdonald. “What better way to do this than by bringing in an events and sampling pro that has the experience and courage to take our clients to the next level.”

Traill mix

CAANZ has appointed Lisa Traill, who has a background in project management and marketing at commercial and not-for-profits, as industry development manager, replacing Dean Howie.

Orange cake

Wellington and Auckland-based mailhouse Orangebox has just blown out the candles for its 8th birthday and business partners Stephen Bennett and Thomas Subritzky got all emotional and delivered a speech.

“It’s been an adventure every step of the way, as we’ve expanded and grown our offering and services,” they say. “We have to give thanks to the fantastic clients we have formed partnerships with over the past eight years. Their loyalty and support has been unwavering and much appreciated. In addition we want to applaud our outstanding and talented staff who regularly pull out all the stops to make it all happen for our clients. We’re totally committed to further growth and we’ve got lots more exciting things planned for the future. After all, we love direct.”

Kordia accord

Kordia, New Zealand’s only telco dedicated to the business sector, and a significant player in the local telecommunications scene, has announced it has appointed Professional Public Relations New Zealand (PPR) as its communications partner.

“We chose PPR because of its leadership in business and corporate communications, its approach to strategic advice and its full service offering,” says Kordia’s general manager of sales and marketing, Drew Gilpin.  ”We’re really looking forward to working closely with the PPR team to further develop our position in the market.”

“Many people will have seen our new marketing campaign and it’s fair to say we mean business. We are committed to providing New Zealand businesses with the kind of solutions and service they just don’t get from any other telco. We understand the needs of businesses and create solutions that will make a difference to how they operate. Our customers get more out of their networks because they have true visibility and control over what’s going which creates greater efficiencies and benefits both of us in the long run.”

General manager of PPR New Zealand, Jonathan Tudor, says working with Kordia is an exciting opportunity to build a brand in an industry that is at the heart of New Zealand’s economic success.

“Kordia is making important inroads in the telecommunications industry in this country and we welcome the chance to help them take even bigger strides into the network and technology solutions sector. Telecommunications services are no longer just business enablers; when implemented and managed effectively they become strategic assets for smart businesses. Kordia’s services make this a reality, and although top brass CIOs and IT Managers are aware of these services, PPR will help Kordia communicate with a much wider audience and as a result grow their business.”

Point and Glick

The Economist Group has appointed Miriam Glick to the position of associate director, marketing and sponsorship, Asia Pacific, from 8 September.

Glick will be responsible for formulating The Economist’s regional strategy to drive growth in advertising and sponsorship revenue. She will work closely with the sales team to expand The Economist’s exciting new programmes around social media.

While most Australian newspapers’ circulation figures are down, The Economist’s circulation in the Asia Pacific, which includes Australia, is up 6.1 percent on the year before, at 143,000 copies per week. Revenue figures in the Asia Pacific region grew by 32 percent, reflecting strong economic growth in Asia.

Prior to joining The Economist Group, Glick worked at General Electric where she held positions in the company’s global marketing/communications and product marketing.

“She will be instrumental in helping us expand The Economist so that it becomes more than a leading weekly print platform,” says The Economist sales director Rob Ferguson. “Our aim is to develop creative advertising solutions and integrate them across various social media platforms for our advertisers. The Economist is at the forefront of delivering thought leadership programs and this approach has been very successful in other markets.”

The Canon Media Awards always feature the usual argy bargy between the big print players as they claim various victories. But they also reward individuals right across the journalistic spectrum. And one of the greatest honours is the Outstanding Achievement Award, which was won this year by journalist Jim Tully and photographer Peter Bush.

Tully, a go-to-guy when media are looking for media commentary, is currently the head of Canterbury University’s School of Social and Political Sciences and this is his 25th and final year of guiding post-graduate students into journalism. He spent 18 years working in daily newspapers where he held the positions of editorial manager and assistant editor of the Auckland Star and editor of the 8 O’Clock weekend newspaper, before joining academia.

Tully was the inaugural New Zealand Journalist of the Year in 1978 when the forerunner to the Canon Media Awards was launched.

“In the past 25 years Jim has inspired and shaped the futures of many of the country’s best known journalists and editors. I am sure his experience and wisdom will be greatly missed by his students and colleagues,” says Canon’s country manager Mike Johnston.

Bush, a Companion of the NZ Order of Merit and Queen’s Service Medal, started his photojournalist career as a cadet for the New Zealand Herald in 1948 and shot his first All Blacks Game in 1949 on glass plates.

“Peter Bush’s career is legendary,” says Johnston. “He has been a fixture on the sidelines of All Blacks test matches over the past six decades, while also finding time for news and landscape photography. Peter has been a devoted Canon EOS user for some time and his images capture all the energy, emotion and history of our nation’s favourite sport. We are incredibly proud to be able to recognise Peter’s career and honour him with this award.”

Wizards of Oz

After almost ten years in Freemans Bay, indie agency Republik has opened the doors to its Sydney office.

“It’s no real surprise, it’s not been a matter of if, but when,” says Republik director Paul McNamara. ”Over the past two years we’ve enjoyed a lot of success across the Tasman and it’s now time to lay down a foundation for us to build on. In the short term creative and production will continue to be managed out of Freemans Bay, but this will change as demand on resource increases. There’s a lot of opportunity for us in Oz and we’re really excited about the potential”.

But you can’t have a new office without new humans, so it’s appointed ex marketing manager at Commonwealth Bank of Australia Mason Williams to start up the account service team in Sydney.

Before crossing over to the client side, Williams was senior account director at George Patterson Y&R for almost four years, working on Panasonic, Waratahs Rugby, Telstra, AGL, Star City and LG Electronics. Prior to that he worked at a number of Sydney based agencies in senior account service roles.

“Mason joins us with a huge amount of account leadership experience and a hands on attitude, which is critical when you’re setting up. He’s actually not a bad bloke, apart from being a staunch supporter of the Wallabies,” says McNamara.

Fostering change

Chris Foster has been appointed chairman and regional chief executive of Saatchi & Saatchi Asia Pacific, with the role based in Singapore. And this new appointment means the Saatchi’s regional HQ will shift from Sydney to Singapore.

For the past three years Foster has been chief executive of Fallon, Minneapolis and has led a highly successful turnaround of the agency’s operations. He replaces Ian Rowden at Saatchi’s, who was based at the Sydney office and is thought to be returning to the US. The release didn’t mention his departure.

Kevin Roberts, chief executive Worldwide of Saatchi & Saatchi, said Foster was an outstanding leader for the Asia Pacific region, having had previous roles in the region for Saatchi & Saatchi 1998-2005 in Hong Kong and Tokyo.

It’s certainly a big job and Foster’s region is made up of 13 nations: India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Japan, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Korea, Malaysia, Australia, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and New Zealand.

“Chris is an inspirational leader,” says Roberts. “His return to Asia Pacific is good news for clients and for our people. He is a world-class brand navigator with very successful US experience to add to his previous decade in Asia.”

Foster’s region – which excludes China – has one third of the world’s population, over two billion people. “Serving the everyday needs of these people is a serious business and Chris is our natural leader for this region.”

Foster has been Saatchi & Saatchi’s chief executive in Japan, Korea, and Hong Kong, GM of international accounts in Asia Pacific, and global equity director for the agency’s client Procter & Gamble, where he led a team of more than 400 overseeing the laundry and home care business globally.

“Chris will work hip-to-hip with our chairman and regional chief executive of Greater China, Justin Billingsley, to drive growth throughout the region and create a united team that serves half the world’s people.”

Office Space

Speaking of office shifts, Fairfax Media has moved two of its Auckland office premises to one central site at 2 Hereford Street, Auckland Central.

The new office will accommodate more than 200 people in total, including those from Fairfax Corporate, the Ad Network Sales & Research teams, Fairfax Corporate Communications and the Fairfax Auckland Digital team, all previously based at 110 Customs Street West. They join a team from Fairfax Sundays Business unit, Fairfax Group IT Services, and the Sport, Business and Auckland content bureaus, who moved from their base at 155 New North Road.

Chief executive Allen Williams thinks the new “vibrant” location, just off Karangahape Road, will be conducive to producing the creative and market-leading work Fairfax Media is renowned for.

“Combining two of our Auckland sites into a single hub is a physical manifestation of our integration. The cross-channel integration across our newspapers, magazines, online, mobile, apps, tablet, video and digital TV, is both in terms of our high quality journalism, as well as our advertising sales. Now, we have both of these under one roof.”

The Fairfax Media Magazines division in Auckland will remain in its existing premises at 317-319 New North Road, Kingsland, as will the Auckland Suburbans Group, which is based at Central Park in Penrose.

Method to the madness

Auckland-based digital agency Method Studios has taken a gold and two Distinctions at the 17th Annual Communicator Awards in New York.

“Of course it goes without saying that we love the recognition for our work” says Samantha Ramlu, Method’s managing director. “But it’s also great to see an increased appreciation in the value that fun and engagement bring to digital advertising.”

Method won gold for its work on Much Moore’s www.icecreamland.co.nz site and distinction awards for the Twinings website (www.twinings.co.nz) and The Retail Institute’s edugame www.servicestar.co.nz.

The Communicator Awards honour creative excellence for communications professionals, receive thousands of entries from around the world and are judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts.

Hanton departs

Just a couple of weeks ago we ran into Pauline Hanton, who left her sales manager post at Adshel last year to take up a role with Hypermedia, a shopper marketing start-up linked to Ogilvy’s managing director Greg Partington. Despite getting a release a couple of weeks back that said she had been given a new role as head of sales for both Hypermedia and its new demonstration arm Demoworks, we’d heard rumours she was leaving, so we asked if that was true. No way, she said. Well, it turns out it is true, something blamed on a disagreement with Partington.

She is yet to return calls.

Updated: “The official line is that it just didn’t work out,” Hanton says. She still thinks Hypermedia was a good opportunity, especially with the shareholding on offer, but that shareholding wasn’t realised.

She says she returned from leave recently and decided it shouldn’t be quite that difficult and that “there was more to life than this”.

Fractious relationships were always a possibility given Partington’s reputation, but she says despite rumours about her leaving the role earlier on in the piece, she has only made her decision in the past few days. And in a similar fashion to when she left Adshel, she was amazed how fast the word got round.

She doesn’t have anything on the horizon at this stage, although she’s been talking to a few outfits, so she’s just planning on soaking up the glorious Auckland weather for while.

“But reality will probably bite next week,” she says.

Crockett like it’s hot

Ex-Telecommer Matt Crockett has been named as APN News and Media’s chief development officer, a new position that will see him report directly to chief executive Brett Chenoweth.

Crockett will head back to his homeland to lead corporate strategy, new business development and “all major new digital initiatives” for the media behemoth.

“We are repositioning APN for growth. Mr Crockett will play a pivotal role driving strategic growth and business improvement initiatives across the company,” Chenoweth says. “Matt is an impressive senior executive. He has extensive experience in developing and executing successful strategies for companies in Australia and New Zealand in a range of industries. He will be a valuable addition to the leadership team.”

Crockett worked at Telecom for seven years and was most recently chief executive of the Wholesale and International Division, a job he pulled the pin on in June last year after three successful years in the role. Under his leadership it became one of Telecom New Zealand’s fastest growing and highest performing business units.

He also held a number of senior positions covering fixed line, mobile and internet businesses, including Xtra (and its key relationships with MSN and later Yahoo!7).

Crockett, who worked at McKinsey and Company prior to Telecom, is currently a director of Orion Health.

Barnes, Catmur adds full-time digital friend

Former Renaissance digital chief Greg Elisara has taken up the role of head of digital at Barnes, Catmur & Friends.

“We’ve worked with a number of digital ‘Friends’ recently but the volume of digital work has increased to the extent that it made sense to have a dedicated resource within the agency,” says managing partner Daniel Barnes. “Initially Greg had a design background but over the last few years has been increasingly concerned with the business aspect of digital, which we think is vital for someone in his role.”

And not wanting to be left out, Paul Catmur also piped up.

“Digital is part of what we do everyday, an additional channel that the whole agency appreciates and works with rather than treating as an alien life-force. We’ve brought Greg in to bolster our knowledge and to give us an internal production capability. He’s a great guy, though is obviously suffering from being shut in dark rooms for too long.”

Three more musketeers

In response to significant growth, Yahoo!Xtra has added three new members to the roster, appointing Nick Paschalis, Andrew Atkinson and Michael Buhagiar to its direct sales team.

“We have had an extremely strong start to our year and could see that we needed more people on the ground to support our growing sales activity”, says Laura Maxwell-Hansen, general manager. “These new appointments will allow us to build on that momentum and provide the service that has resulted in Yahoo!Xtra’s success over the last year.”

Nick Paschalis

Paschalis, previously the sales manager at Media One and key account manager at Fairfax Suburban newspapers for 12 years before he joined the Yahoo!Xtra team, has been appointed to head of direct sales.

Michael Buhagiar

Andrew Atkinson

Atkinson previously worked at TVNZ as the business sales manager – digital and Michael Buhagiar previously worked at Parkside Media as advertising manager. Both come to Yahoo!Xtra as senior account managers.

Framp it up

Kylie Framp has joined Freeman’s Bay indie Republik as account director and will work on the Waterfront Auckland, Rentokil Initial and Visique accounts.

She has moved on from Ogilvy where she worked on the transition to the Auckland super city and before that she worked at Y&R on Microsoft and Independent Liquor.

The nationwide chain, which has over 70 stores across New Zealand, invited six agencies to pitch in order to find an agency that would “approach the Visique brand with passion and proactivity, understand the needs of the business and share their journey and their culture”.

“We believe they will bring fresh eyes and ideas to our brand identity and our marketing campaigns,” says Pete Campbell, general manager at Visique. “The last twelve months have already seen some great steps forward for the Visique brand, introducing a new, more consumer focused tagline ‘Believe your eyes’ and consolidating Visique’s position as the country’s only 100 percent Kiwi-owned nationwide network of optometrists. Our look and feel has been refreshed and we are excited about building upon this work with Republik.”

Of course, the arrival of UK eyewear giant Specsavers into the New Zealand market in 2008 (Visique’s other main competitor OPSM recently launched an international brand campaign) has meant “it is currently a changing marketplace in the world of optometry, and the entry of competition has grown the category’s awareness”. But Campbell says it is still the largest network of optometrists in New Zealand, and the brand will be tapping into the 100% Kiwi-owned factor.

“We are confident about Visique’s position in the marketplace and in the network’s bright future,” he says.

Rentokil Initial’s Asia Pacific marketing director Sharmini Masilamani said Republik “continually show the bigger markets around the world how things should be done, so it made perfect sense to broaden their responsibilities across the APAC region”.

“In addition, our global marketing team based in Maidenhead UK, have engaged Republik to develop creative, execute and deploy a campaign to run across five separate European markets. This is a pilot programme and, if successful, it will be rolled out across Europe as a whole. It is indeed exciting times for Republik.”

There was no single incumbent, as the business was being handled by a number of agencies and consultants.

“It is the right time to rationalise and formalise a partnership with an agency that has a track record in knowing and understands our business,” says Masilamani.

Not surprisingly, Republik director Craig Abbott is fairly happy about the new arrangement.

“Rentokil Initial has always offered the agency a real opportunity to do some great work, with an awesome bunch of people… In an industry where international business is increasingly handled by large, global agencies, it’s great to be leading the charge and bucking the trend,” he says.

Republik will continue to fully service the Rentokil Initial business here in New Zealand and will continue to manage the Australian and now the APAC business from their Freeman’s Bay office. Additional account service resource is currently being sought.

Kelvin Hussey, CallPlus’ general manager, says new product growth has seen the business portfolio grow dramatically over the last year. And the growth necessitated the appointment of Republik.

There were no other agencies involved in the pitch.

“We needed an agency that understood technology and had proven B2B marketing experience,” Hussey says. “Republik proved they had a clear understanding of our business and they had a team that we really connected with.”

Previous to Republik’s appointment CallPlus, which offers advanced online reporting and a full range of business telecommunication products and services, managed things themselves, using numerous agencies on a project basis.

Republik’s Craig Abbott says the two companies have a few similarities: both are 100 percent New Zealand owned and have experienced success during challenging times by doing things a little smarter.

But that’s not all! The Freeman’s Bay indie resigned the TSB Bank business in December following the bank’s decision to review its agency options and has also announced the addition of three brand spanking new Republikan’s.

Michelle Schultze, ex ACP, joins the studio to boost the Mac operating team and account service has been strengthened with the appointment of Kim Shoemark as account manager.

Shoemark, who has recently returned to NZ after two years in the UK, will work on the Peugeot, Rentokil Initial and NZ Safety accounts.  And due to recent project work for Intel APAC based in Hong Kong and the general rise of digital, Ryan Pellet, previously of the Internet Bureau, will lead digital planning.

It’s a case of underdogs of the word unite. Orcon is the fourth largest telecommunications provider in the country and was first to unbundle broadband for Kiwis. Special is a lean creative agency that doesn’t have a receptionist or art in its lobby, but was named the ‘hottest’ independent agency this year by Australasian marketing mag Campaign Brief.

The account win coincides with the arrival of Special’s new managing partner, ex-Colenso group account director Michael Redwood. “Orcon has a great product, a smart team and ambitious plans for expansion as a telco. They are nimble and unconventional, and that suits Special perfectly.”

Orcon’s head of brand and communications, Duncan Blair, is suitably impressed. “Special blew us away with their insight and creativity. We feel they are the perfect partner to help tell our story.”