Rob Davis retired, Peter Hodge died, and Graham Medcalf still runs a one-man shop in Auckland. So what happened to Admission – the eminent Auckland agency in which they once played vital roles?
M+AD caught up with Graham Medcalf, who brought us up to date …
In February 2014 advertising agency Admission split the digital and non-digital (traditional) sides of the business.
The digital business was re-launched as Vanilla Brief, with Rob Davis continuing as the major shareholder and with Peter Hodge at the helm. Vanilla Brief then expanded into the Australian market.
Admission business director Graham Medcalf established Red Advertising with all the non-digital (traditional) clients including: Creating Communities and the retirement village clients Lendlease (Parklane, Mayfair, Knightsbridge, Peninsula Club and Ocean Shores villages); Ferry Enterprises (Highgrove and Greenview Park villages) and Whitby Lakes.
Medcalf remains the sole owner of Red Advertising today, continuing to provide advertising services for Creating Communities and retirement village clients Ferry Enterprises (Highgrove and Greenview Park villages) and Whitby Lakes, plus recently acquired new clients Settlers Albany and Fairview Lifestyle Village. Lend Lease sold to Arena Living in 2016 and recently moved to a new agency.
Rob Davis retired in 2016 at which time Peter Hodge re-launched Vanilla Brief as Riot Riot in August 2016.
Peter Hodge sadly passed away suddenly in July this year.
Riot Riot continues to be run by general manager Josh Heares who had spearheaded the Riot Riot business in Australia before returning to New Zealand.
The M+AD connection
Graham Medcalf was previously general manager at J Walter Thompson NZ, and editor at Profile Publishing’s NZ Marketing Magazine (where he worked alongside M+AD ed David Gapes, who was then editor of AdMedia magazine). Profile is now defunct.
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