AdLand Gossip

OK, so this was something that I wasn't going to do, but oh my goodness, WHAT IS GOING ON IN AGENCY LAND AT THE MOMENT?

Now, I seem to get a good deal of gossip thrown my way - thanks guys - and I had thought about setting up an anonymous blog and twitter account kinda like Mr AdLand Suit would be the way to go. (As a complete aside, if you are in agency land, read this guy's blog, it's pretty spectacular. Only follow him on twitter if you're fine with being slammed with X-Factor tweets on the weekend, its amusing at any rate) But work is busy, there are many many parties to attend in the next while, I have enough on my plate trying to keep up with my 2 current blogs to start a new one so it ain't gonna happen. Feeling sorry for me yet? Good.

So, being based in Wellington, this is going to have a Wellington skew on it, but, Wellingtonians spend much more time reading my blog than anyone else in NZ (Aucklanders - what's up with your attention span?) so it seems appropriate that it has a Wellington focus.

So, in case you have been living under a rock, this is what I know from the last few months:

Lets start with the banks:

• BNZ has moved its business to Sugar (congrats by the way to the Sugar guys, can you please turn those pigs into bacon? that would be awesome)
• NBNZ has gone from Clems to Draft FCB, with the media with Ogilvy. That was an interesting one actually. So OMD were fired by the client, and then Clems fired NBNZ as a client. Are relationships that bad? All the best to FCB - I'm assuming that the Dec 2010 release of the horse is still in place. Bye bye horse, at least no one is going to paint you anymore.
• ANZ has gone to DDB, sorry M&C
  
• And all of a sudden ASB is trying to claim they are a 'Kiwi Bank'. Ah, actually, you guys are Australian owned and we have a KiwiBank already. Fail.

And all of the people upheaval

• Andrew Stone & Mike O'Sullivan are leaving Saatchi's to set up their own shop?
• Clems have let go 12 (I think) people
• Carat are closing their Wellington and Christchurch offices
• Brent Smart is leaving Colenso BBDO to go to California
• Adam Good is to become the CEO of Aim Proximity

And then the real gossip

• Last Wellington IAB drinks (sorry - I hate the idea of the DSC and refuse to join, let alone rename what Thirsty Thursday was) there was a number of inappropriate comments from one individual. I'm talking numerous. I got a good deal, however a publisher also got much more than they bargained for whilst talking with this person.
• On top of the inappropriate comments, there was some inappropriate kissing as well. Now, I most certainly could be accused of inappropriate kissing in the past, however I at least TRY to be discreet about it. There was little discretion here and I can't help but wonder, was it a dare?
  
• Off IAB drinks and onto other gossip, I think many a visitor to Wellington could learn from the next story. Hookers in Wellington cannot be trusted - lets be fair, can hookers anywhere be trusted? - Whether the person in question was tied up, or not conscious, the hookers took their laptop (no doubt wallet too) so when it came to present the next day, this person claimed their gear had been nicked from Mojo - only problem being Mojo has CCTV and there was no footage of this person being in Mojo that morning. Shocker. Why lie about it? At the end of the day, I honestly don't think the people this person had to explain the situation to, wouldn't have understood. I'm quite certain worse things have happened in this beautiful little industry we are in. Own your mistakes, we all fuck up at some point. Sure, some fuck ups are bigger than others, but take responsibility, otherwise how are people meant to respect you?

Wow - that one got a little off topic, but nevermind.

So there is my round up for the last few months. If you really want to keep up to date, I would suggest daily check ins with Stoppress.co.nz or sign up for their emails. While I do enjoy Hazel's pieces, unfortunately they are all too often hidden by subscriber content and she does seem to be ever-so-slightly in a certain large agency's pocket... but that is just my opinion.

Right there you go. Gossip session over. Feel free to add anything I may have left off - you all get the luxury of being able to be anonymous! HOWEVER, I don't want to be done for defamation, so lets leave off names huh?

UPDATED 16/11:

There was a whisper that Total were moving in with OMD in Wellington - anyone got word on whether this is actually happening?

Updated again, Hazel, I take it all back. The lovely Hazel has spilled the beans on someone within the agency whose pocket I thought she might have been in. Great article - if you can get behind the paywall - detailing the fact she was sent a letter, via snail mail, about the whole escapade. The only parts of the story that I left out above was the fact that they left via the fire escape, setting off the alarm, and it would seem as though there is some confusion about the number of hookers involved.