New-look McCann hires ten staff
Ad agency McCann, which made public its desire to re-focus on youth and digital after it merged with Smart in a reverse takeover in September, has announced ten new hires in its Melbourne office.
Renee Stewart joins from Wunderman to take on a newly creative role – digital director – and will work across clients including Brown Brothers, Holden, L’Oreal, Oporto, Specsavers and the Federal Government.
The agency is currently interviewing for a national head of digital and a national head of planning, and is looking for more digital talent.
Also joining are Adrian Mills from GPY&R Melbourne as group account director and Caroline MacMillan as account director from Bastion. Creative teams Millie Burke and Darby Hudson, Kimberley Duval and Ryan Purcell have also come on board. Salena Kennedy joins as studio manager.
McCann ECD John Mescall said:
“In our industry, the biggest and best competitive advantage one agency can have over another is the quality and commitment of its people. And as an agency with a diverse range of clients, each with their own unique and challenging business needs, bringing in talented people with strong creative points of difference is crucial. Our task of reinventing McCann as a more progressive and less traditional agency may be well underway, but the key to achieving this lies in finding the best agency talent across Australia and New Zealand – wherever they may be. Our new Melbourne team is just the first chapter of this process.”
The news comes just as McCann Sydney’s ECD Michael Raso moved to Ogilvy.
You want fries with that?
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Hmm, so if I had to pick which ones were the creative team…
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Gutsy move in this environment
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If you had “digital at the core” surely you’d have started with a head of digital.
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Looks like they are following their ageist outlook mentioned in their bosses article here on mumbrella
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Come on . . at least there are five girls in the mix . .
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A pretty traditional classroom pose if you ask me.
Headmaster to the side.
Kids in three rows.
All fresh faced and bushy tailed.
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Dunlop Volleys, red socks and shorts – he’s the wacky, out there guy, or he needs a pay rise … Democrats for Reagan T-shirt and shoulder-length curls – he’s the whimsical, touchy-feely guy for the retro ads … Deus baseball cap and flano shirt – that’s so last week, dude! … and it appears black is the new … umh, black.
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Enjoy today.
Your boss has already put on record you all have a shelf life….a Best Before Date.
When I started in the biz, a senior told me that everyone starts their time at Macanns with a Bang!
That’s the sound of the slow bullet as it catches up to you.
This was true 25 years ago. And even more so today.
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What a surprise – no mature age appointees?
I guess their boss is practising what he preaches
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Ann,
let’s be clear, these aren’t additional headcount moves – the CD has gone as have a few junior suits as well as the three most senior McCann execs in the re-structure.
If I was any old-McCann person in there I’d be expecting to be called into a meeting room at some point over the next few months
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Good luck to these individuals, when Smart took over McCann’s they decided to get rid of some talented individuals with a wealth of knowledge to hire a range of pre-schoolers to take over….the pressure is on for the new team who has no previous knowledge..sink or swim! And to Ben to thinks that firing the old and taking in with the new…good luck to you especially when a long running client such as L’Oreal refers to a project that took place 5 years ago! Not a very SMART move! This agency will never be McCanns!
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hmmm,
What the hell were those ‘talented individuals with a wealth of knowledge’ working on?
How can getting rid of highly paid, highly idle, equipped with a wealth of knowledge from working on clients the agency doesn’t have, while retaining the individuals who already work on Smart’s clients be a bad move?
I bet ‘this agency’ never bloody WANTS to be the old McCanns. Who would?
And let’s face it…replacing a French voice over or copy with English to already created TVCs and Print, hardly requires overpaid creatives’ wealth of knowledge.
It’s not personal – it’s a necessary business decision…and no I don’t work there – I just see the logic.
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