
Spikes tap Kiwi quartet
Four Kiwi agency executives has been appointed to juries at this year’s Spikes Asia. Previously Unavailable founder James Hurman will be president of the Creative Effectiveness jury, Y&R CD Tom Paine will sit on the Direct and Promo & Activation jury, MediaCom ceo Nigel Douglas will sit on the Media jury, and Sherson Willis director Trish Sherson will sit on the PR jury.
Gamer Sensei is eSports’ hottest new startup
Y&R’s Jag wins Silver & Bronze Lions
Y&R continued up its prizewinning path at Cannes last night, scoring a Silver Lion and a Bronze Lion in the Design category.
Cannes taps 15 female creatives for gender balance project

See It Be It, the Cannes Lions initiative to remedy the industry’s underrepresentation of female creatives, has chosen 15 “high potential” women from over 500 applicants to discuss the issue at the festival. None of the 15 are from Australia or NZ.
Happy birthday, Fish
The folks at iconic Kiwi production house Flying Fish – the people behind an astonishing stream of TVCs that mirror the path of NZ history over the past 30 years – are in celebration mode.
The day I saw the light

It’s not easy to become truly great at advertising. But it may be a tiny bit easier when your first career experiences are at BBH and Abbott Mead Vickers. In fact, Mike Nicholson – the freshly-appointed ECD of Brave in London – has a CV that looks like a litany of the world’s greatest agencies, plus the magic word “Google”.
Lament for missing Kiwis

Trumpeting a path to Axis glory
At a sell-out event at the Axis Awards at the Viaduct Events Centre in Auckland last night, emceed by very funny comedienne Urzila Carlson, 800 advertising types came together to celebrate the industry’s best creative work from the past year. The big winners were Saatchi, Y&R, and Colenso/Proximity.
Whybin & Parris Goebel launch ANZ Student Banking campaign

Partnering with Goebel, ANZ and Whybin turned a first-year student’s original song into a music video “fit for the likes of J-Lo and Justin Bieber”.