Advertising agency The Surgery relaunches as Hunter
Melbourne-based independent ad agency The Surgery has been relaunched as a digitally-led creative start up called Hunter.
The Surgery founder, Simon Hakim, has set up the agency with partner and creative director Matt Gibbins.
Gibbins joined The Surgery as creative director at the beginning of last year and was a founding partner and creative director of Albion London. He replaced The Surgery co-founder Vito Tassone who left at the end of 2008.
Hakim said it has spent last year transitioning the agency from The Surgery to Hunter following Tassone’s departure, with clients Lease Plan and Grolsch beer moving their accounts into the new agency.
“There was a lot of baggage that came with The Surgery. People were used to a certain style of work. The experience that Matt brings is very much in the digital arena and what Albion started as,” Hakim said.
At Albion, Gibbins oversaw clients such as Skype which developed the advertising and branding for the internet-based telephony service after it was acquired by eBay.
The London agency initially launched as a digital shop and has now developed into a digitally-led integrated agency model which Hunter is aiming to emulate.
Gibbins is based in Hunter’s Auckland office, while Hakim is based in Melbourne. There are up to 12 staff across the two offices, with plans to set up a presence in London.
“It doesn’t matter where people are located, we all work on all the projects. We’ve also been working on some strategy with a client in London, but we are yet to reveal who that is,” Hakim said.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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