The Comms Council’s Effies steering committee has announced the appointment of Chris Baker, founder at Bacon Strategy & Research London, will be this year’s international judge for the 2017 Effie Awards (held in association with TVNZ).

The sudden drain of Aussie & Kiwi creative talent from glamour shop Droga5 New York is starting to look like a flood. Yesterday, Lisa Fedyszyn & Jonathan McMahon announced they were returning Auckland to join Ogilvy. Later, they were joined by senior creative Rory Mckechnie, who is returning to DDB NZ as CD.

Ogilvy is set to bolster its creative firepower with the hiring of multi award-winning Aussie/Kiwi expats Lisa Fedyszyn and Jonathan McMahon, who have left Droga5 New York.

News is emerging about the sudden death last week of Crux Auckland strategy director Peter Hodge, aged only 37.

The only global creative prize awarded by advertising & comms journos, the Epica Awards, has issued its 2017 call for entries – with two new categories.

KPEX (aka the Kiwi Premium Advertising Exchange) is inviting agencies, media, and research outfits to a one-hour session aimed at promoting better understanding of digital media, run by KPEX ceo Richard Thompson.

We can say goodbye to any credible future awards coming from EY after some of NZ’s best journos pulled out of the company’s Business Journalism Awards amid startling conflict-of-interest claims.

Kiwibank has ended its agency-of-record partnership with Assignment Group, and will now keep its agency options open.