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Junior and Cru merge to form JuniorCru signalling desire for expansion

JuniorCruQueensland creative agency Junior and its digital agency partner Cru have officially merged, rebranding as JuniorCru and eyeing expansion beyond its Brisbane base.

The merger sees the agency combining creative, strategy and technology services, with 62 full time staff, with Junior’s Russ Vine taking on the managing director role  and co-founder title with Cru’s general manager Ben Stokes taking a co-founder title and director of innovation position.

Vine also revealed the agency is now looking beyond its traditional Queensland home for clients, and said Junior had been working with Japanese clothes retailer Uniqlo, which recently launched its first Australian store in Melbourne, for the past 18-month as its creative agency.

The two agencies first started working together in February 2013 when Junior acquired a stake in Cru.

“The idea of Junior and Cru living together was because as two separate companies we’d identified what clients needed these days was a combination of both. Having taken the step of moving the two companies into one office space and telling clients you can access this as a single resource, it’s just worked really well,” Vine said.

“From an operations point of view, it’s quicker and easier and faster for both us and our clients to be a single resource.”

The new agency has seen account management and project management merged into a single project management resource, along with the creative departments of both Junior and Cru combined to create a more multi-skilled department.

“The creative resource is a mix of traditional art directors and copy writers but also digital design and UX, and really going forward the point of the creative resources will be multi-skilled, they won’t belong to one side or the other,” Vine said.

“Digital isn’t a separate channel and treating it as such is becoming increasingly redundant.”

The newly formed single agency has also developed a ‘CX’ or ‘Consumer Experience’ approach to comms planning.

“This moves us away from campaign based solutions and into an era where we are assisting brands with day to day operations, customer service tools and ‘always on’ brand experiences as much as we are developing or sending live traditional marketing messages,” said Vine.

“We are also setting our sights on horizons much wider than just the Queensland/Brisbane market. We are fiercely proud of what we do that runs locally and the merge has been in part about becoming better equipped for survival in the local market by developing as wide a skill set as possible.

“But at 60 plus staff and as the product of not one but two agencies previously renowned as amongst the best Queensland has to offer, we are finding ourselves more than capable of playing on a more national and international stage. ”

Vine highlighted that the agency’s biggest client is based in Melbourne, while the client the agency produces the most web content for is a major corporate run out of Sydney.

“The client list includes major local clients like Queensland Government, Griffith University and Brisbane Roar, for whom we are producing some of our most innovative and integrated work blending TV with web with social with mobile/apps. But there is also reference to ‘big’ national and international brands like Virgin Australia, Lend Lease and Colonial First State,” said Vine.

JuniorCru also touts Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo as a client, having worked for the fashion brand for nearly 18 months after being hired to assist with their launch into the Australian market in December 2012.

“We had been introduced to Uniqlo as a potentially useful resource by a Japanese agency, whom we have worked with on and off across a number of projects, going back to the launch in Australia of the Isuzu D-Max in 2010,” said Vine.

Junior acquired the business following a competitive pitch, with duties including a full audit of the Australian fashion retail sector as well as overseeing initial comms plans for launch of the brand’s flagship Melbourne store. Vine said: “It’s been a real honour for us to work with a brand of that kind of global standing.”

Uniqlo’s creative account is currently out at pitch, with the retailer seeking a Melbourne creative agency partner to work with having recently appointed VML to handle the brand’s digital work.

“It’s not our place to comment or speculate about recent stories that they have not previously retained agencies locally or that they are looking to appoint a Melbourne agency moving forward,” said Vine.

“We can only state that we have enjoyed working with them to this point and we are proud to have played a role in what has been a successful launch into Australia.”

Most recently Junior worked on the Queensland government’s ‘Sun Mum’ campaign which aimed to get young Queenslanders concerned about sun safety.

Miranda Ward

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