Agency TBWA takes out full-page Herald ad to poke fun at industry chaos

Ad agency TBWA is taking the unusual step of advertising 'no changes'. Photo / NZH

One of the country's best-known agencies has taken out a full-page Herald advertisement to poke fun at the current chaos in the industry.

At a time of major change across a number of larger agencies in town, the ad from agency TBWA points out there have been no changes to their current leadership team.

In the ad, TBWA, which trumpets itself as the "Disruption Agency", notes that "although we believe disruption gives our clients' businesses an unfair advantage, we'd like everyone to know that when it comes to people, it's about stability".

The ad then goes on to say that the agency's chief executive Catherine Harris and chief creative officer Shane Bradnick are still available on their usual numbers.

A full-page Herald ad from agency TBWA. Photo / NZH

The ad comes off the back of a busy period of executive changes, which culminated last week with moves at top of three major agencies and one at the holding company level.

The long list of recent executive changes includes WPP chief executive Jens Monsees' departure, the move of DDB chief executive Justin Mowday and chief creative officer Damon Stapleton, the end of FCB boss Paul Shale's tenure, Mark Cochrane being appointed as the new boss of Saatchi & Saatchi, Angela Watson as managing director of Colenso BBDO, Strahan Wallis as CEO of the Clemenger Group, former FCB chief creative officer Tony Clewett's move to Federation and the departure of Stanley St chief creative officer Regan Grafton for Culture & Theory.

Suffice to say, it's been an outrageously busy period in the advertising industry off the back of the Covid-19 period.

While the tongue-in-cheek ad from TBWA is pointed at the ad industry, the wild slew of recent executive changes isn't limited to one sector.

Last week also saw Ryman CEO Gordon MacLeod follow Adrian Littlewood (Auckland International Airport) and Tony Gibson (Ports of Auckland) in making their exits known.

MacLeod completes a clean sweep of the Retirement Village CEOs in a short space of time, following Arvida's Bill McDonald earlier this week, Oceania's Earl Gasparich (to Metlifecare) in March and Summerset's Julian Cook late last year.

Earlier this month, David McLean announced he is retiring from Westpac in June. Other CEOs to hand in their notice recently include Paul Altson (Cavalier Corp), Rob Everett (FMA), Mark Cairns (Port of Tauranga) and Leon Clement (Synlait).

It appears that while many businesses and executives paused on making big changes over the course of the last year, the steady return to something that resembles normality has led many to decide it was now okay to act.

It does, however, make you wonder who might go next.