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Cummins & Partners closes Adelaide office with staff moving across to rebranded local agency

Creative agency Cummins & Partners has closed its Adelaide office and moved its remaining staff into the offices of local agency Hybrid.

As part of the deal, Hybrid, which launched six years ago, has rebranded as Cummins Hybrid creating what the agency labels as “arguably Australia’s largest independent agency network”.

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The new Cummins Hybrid branding

The merged agency will be led by Hybrid’s managing director Rob Porcaro, while Hybrid ECD Craig Jackson will lead the creative offering. Cummins’ South Australia’s managing director Bronwen Gwynn-Jones has taken the title of managing partner within the new operation.

At the time of posting, Cummins & Partners had not answered Mumbrella’s questions about which clients or how many staff had moved across, other than an email saying it was “all” of them.

The previous Cummins & Partners office on Angas Street is now locked up, with post left on the doorstep.

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Cummins & Partners Adelaide’s former headquarters

According to a statement on the new Cummins Hybrid website, the new arrangement is a “merger”, although at the time of posting Cummins & Partners had not answered Mumbrella’s questions on what stake the national agency has in the new local operation.

According to the website: “The agency leverages off the Creative: Media fusion that Cummins & Partners have become synonymous with and consistently awarded for, whilst complimenting this with the innovation, digital and design strengths of the Hybrid team.”

Porcaro said: “When we launched Hybrid in Adelaide, we had grand ambitions that were based around our desire to be fiercely entrepreneurial with the freedom of an independent.”

“Our vision included reimagining the agency model and we have had great success over that journey – winning pitches, building brands, and launching our own products and brands via our IP commercialisation and start-up investment company Hybrid O2.”

“But we believe that the time is right to be even more ambitious in our thinking as we now have the foundations in place that can act as a springboard to even greater success.”

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Cummins Hybrid (L-R): Craig Jackson, Bronwen Gwynn-Jones, Rob Porcaro, Chris Jeffares.

Chris Jeffares, Cummins & Partners’ Australian CEO said: “We constantly embrace change as our lifeblood, and we constantly want to create and embrace new opportunities. That’s what CumminsHybrid will create.”

The new agency’s clients include the Adelaide Convention Centre, Adelaide United, The Art Gallery of South Australia, BioGuard, Ballantyne, Brackenwood Vineyard, Bristol, Cancer Council, and the Government of South Australia.

The closure is the second major one for the Adelaide market in three years, with Clemenger BBDO exiting the city by folding its office into KWP in 2014.

Cummins & Partners, which is Mumbrella’s current agency of the year, had a tough finish to 2016, resigning from the Vodafone account – the biggest client of the agency’s Sydney operation. Last year also saw the agency close its Canadian operation.

2018 update: Exactly one year after the “merger”the brand returned simply to Hybrid, with Porcaro saying it was “always” the plan.

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