HotHouse Interactive closes doors after 20 years in business as STW’s Catalyst also closes
Digital agency HotHouse Interactive has closed its doors after just over 20 years in business after going into liquidation yesterday.
Mumbrella understand more than 40 HotHouse Interactive staff have been laid off after parent company Big River made the decision to send the company into liquidation.
While it has been speculated the collapse of the agency was linked to the loss of major client Toyota, a Toyota spokesperson told Mumbrella the agency were still under contract with them.
The news comes as STW Communications confirmed the closure of full-service agency Catalyst International following the retirement of industry veteran and founder John Skinner.
A spokesperson for Toyota said the car giant had not been told of the closure and had been working with the agency “until yesterday” adding: “HotHouse Interactive is still under contract with Toyota Australia and up until yesterday we have been working with them and discussing upcoming projects.
“Whilst the news is regrettable, it is not expected to impact on Toyota’s business. Toyota hosts its websites and has contingency plans in place to enable on-going maintenance of its sites.”
Mumbrella understands the decision to close the agency was made following the deferral of a number of big projects for Toyota, which coincided with a drop in the agency’s revenues.
It is unclear what will happen to HotHouse clients.
The agency was founded by Simon Van Wyk in March 1994, who departed the company in 1999 to set up e-commerce provider HighBall. In 2000, HighBall and HotHouse Interactive merged to form Big River Corporation with Van Wyk returning to HotHouse. Van Wyk has most recently been strategy and innovation director for the agency.
Both Van Wyk and HotHouse Interactive director Dion Weston declined to comment, while HotHouse CEO Rob Olver had not returned requests for comment at the time of publication.
HotHouse has worked on a number of brands in its 20 year history including Microsoft, Telstra, Ninemsn, Channel Seven and Coca-Cola.
Separately STW confirmed the closure of Catalyst, with a spokesperson telling Mumbrella: “After 50 years in the marketing communications industry John Skinner, founder and executive chairman of Catalyst retired from his fulltime position in late 2014.
“As a result, Catalyst has been merged with other specialist STW Group’s businesses, ensuring a wider, deeper set of capabilities are available to its major clients for the future. Catalyst staff who wished to remain in the industry, also transferred to other STW businesses.”
Miranda Ward
Miranda Ward worked for Mumbrella from 2013 to 2017, eventually becoming deputy editor. Miranda joined Mumbrella in September 2013 from Sky News.
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For a bit of Hothouse nostalgia, the trademark filing by Big River Corp has screenshots of the website going back to 1995 and some very 90s ‘information superhighway’ type articles. http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/.....og_686.pdf
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Yes HotLiners, I am sure the 40 or so people who have lost their jobs will be enthralled with that.
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Wow that seems very sudden. At least they waited till after Xmas to tell everyone… I guess but I would have preferred the break time to prepare my stuff for a new job than be surprised.
Seems weird to not have a comment but there’s probably legal reasons. Also weird that their site is shut down. Never seen that happen so quickly?
Lastly this is the part where we put the offer out to any Hothouse staff looking for work to contact us and other agencies.
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From the amount of resumes I received from Catalyst employees ‘wishing to still remain in the industry’ I strongly doubt that last comment is accurate. I would have assumed out of respect for those who lost their jobs this article could have published the truth. That is all.
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I worked at HH for 2 years and must say I am so very saddened by this news, and my sympathy goes out to all staff, Alumni, Simon Van Wyk, Rob Olver, and Dion Weston, along with all stakeholders. HotHouse was an exceptionally special place to work. The level of closeness of the team, and the team environment created many a long term friendship. Now, I am sure there will be inuendo, but I feel that it best to remember the good times, and the great feeling of working we such a wonderful team. Thoughts are with all affected.
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A lot of clients are beefing up their digital departments to bring production in-house, I used to work agency side but moved client side a couple of years ago and see this trend continuing….
Clients are much more digitally savvy than they used to be and low cost alternatives in open source code and overseas production is driving down costs.
Reminds me a bit of the early 2000’s when TVC production companies started going belly up as HD technology pushed production away from film and cost of production decreased.
Places like DIgital pictures, Silversceen and many others disappeared over night
That being said its hard when this happens so best of luck to all those involved
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Vanderlay has hit the nail on the head. ’50 years’ of industry experience, yet incapable of bowing out gracefully let alone truthfully.
All the best to those who have lost their jobs. I sincerely hope your resumes find their way to better and more respectful homes.
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