Creative becomes CD, founder now ECD

AUCKLAND, Today: Independent agency Motion Sickness has promoted Jordan Stent to creative director. Agency founder Sam Stuchbury will now step up as executive creative director.

Stutchbury says the moves is part of a planned upscaling of the business to ensure it has the capacity to meet its growing client roster.

“This restructure shows we’ve got the firepower and the capacity to keep up the momentum, and continue developing strong creative work,” he said. “It provides additional creative leadership within the agency.”

Stent has worked for Motion Sickness for six years, beginning as a junior creative when the business was just a quarter of its size. Stutchbury said “things fell into place over the past 12 months, and will provide a stronger point of guidance to the business’s rapidly growing team”.

“With an increasing degree of autonomy on projects within the team, the growth in my role has felt like a real natural progression – it’s a big testament to the opportunities within the agency to foster young creative potential,” he said.

“The past year or so has been a real storm for us. We’ve bolstered the team with some bright new talent, and we’re particularly fortunate to have our hand on producing some globally-recognised campaigns with meaningful and effective outcomes.

“The train has been running full-speed; we’re carving a unique space for ourselves in the industry, the calibre of work coming out of Motion Sickness is only getting stronger, and we’re beginning to build recognition as an agency that can hold its own locally and abroad.”

“Building the business creatively has always been my baby, and I’ve always been apprehensive about relinquishing some control.”

Motion Sickness have added to their reputation, with several campaigns recently winning at the Clios, Ad Stars, and the Gerety Awards.

Stuchbury said: “We’re growing quickly and there are more people in the team to manage creatively. This new structure, along with our new hires, has allowed us to out-run the growth and deliver for our new clients.

“We’ve also now been able to build in extra capacity to allow time for proactive work and new opportunities that come along.”

But relinquishing control hasn’t been easy, he concedes.

“Building the business creatively has always been my baby, and I’ve always been apprehensive about relinquishing some control.

“But I’ve worked alongside Jordan for almost six years, and we’ve built a great rapport and trust in each other. Jordan has an innate sense of style and taste that can’t be taught, and an irritatingly good attention to detail.”

New hires
The two new hires, Dora Fedaeff (social strategy) and Sylvia Humphries (creative) are now ensconced in the business, and Motion Sickness is hiring for two new roles – a social media strategist and copywriter.

The agency now has 17 staff.

• www.motionsickness.co.nz