Shake-up at Stanley St creative, senior School Road resignation and dentsu tipped for TVNZ account

It’s me Shady Lowdown back with the latest news from around Adland. Including high-level moving’s and shakings in the creative department at Stanley St, an editor resignation at School Road, and big media account wins for dentsu and OMD.

In my first HotPress column I revealed that the very desirable TVNZ media account was up for pitch. Several sources are now telling me that dentsu is front-runner. 

Previously TVNZ had declined comment on the account being up for grabs. This time the StopPress editorial team reached out to Rob Harvey, CEO at dentsu who says that he’s not in a position to comment at this stage.

Another big media account recently out for pitch is 2degrees, of which OMD is said to have won. Although, a source at 2degrees says that no contracts have been signed regarding the media account. 

With IKON losing 2degrees, will the WPP agency and Mindshare merge? And what about Wavemaker? Perhaps something for the StopPress Team to investigate further?

Related to all this media movement, the Discovery Senior Director of Marketing (Australia) was in town this week and is believed to have met with its media agency partner PHD. Purely a meet-and-greet I’m told.

My bet is that next year’s Beacon Awards is going to look quite different to the most recent edition.

Creative differences

Big news this week is that Regan Grafton, current Chief Creative Officer at Stanley St is to leave his post. The reasons for Grafton’s departure are not yet known, but StopPress has reached to him for further comment. 

Sadly, I can’t reveal any further details at this stage, so you’ll have to look out for my next column, or offical statement.

Another Stanley St source has confirmed that there are a few other (more junior) creatives moving on and that a new senior creative team is on its way.

School Road Publishing, part of the Stanley St family is also losing a high-level staff member. Wendyl Nissen, Editor at Thrive is said to be leaving her post. Perhaps the pressure is getting to her as a simple page through the magazines out of School Road don’t paint a good picture for advertising revenue.

Where are they now?

I’ve been thinking of getting a special feature of this column going: ‘Where are they now?’ Unearthing agency people who have left senior positions in well-known agencies only to disappear from Adland (well at least my radar). Like what happened to Troy Fuller (CEO) and Mick Stalker (ECD) who use to run 99? 

Rumour is that ex-colleague Tom Roydhouse and mates are starting up their own agency. Wonder who their founding clients will be?

Perhaps you know of a few who have gone rogue and can tell me where they are? Reach out, let me know.

Hope you enjoyed this week’s T.

See you soon,

HotPress is the latest opinion column exclusive to StopPress and filled with juicy titbits sure to spark hot debate.

*To get in touch and share your thoughts, opinions (and hot goss) with Shady Lowdown, email HotPress@StopPress.co.nz

*Happy to respect anonymity.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this piece are speculative and may or may not hold ground when properly fact-checked. This column is written in the spirit of community collegiality, constructive opinion/ debate and of course entertainment.

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