Boris Johnson hires Kiwi social media gurus

Kiwi social media gurus Sean Topham (28) and Ben Guerin (24) will spearhead Boris Johnson's social media fight has his Conservative Party gears for a likely general election, Guerin tells the Herald.

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The pair's agency, Topham Guerin - which has offices in Auckland and London -has already begun work and produced Boris's personal promotion videos at the Tories' annual conference this year.

Topham and Guerin shot to fame earlier this year, when they were credited, in part, for Scott Morrison and the Liberals' surprise success in the Australian election earlier this year (see the Star Wars-themed sample of their work below).

Topham also worked on former National Party PM Bill English's campaign in 2017 – although he did not do the two most famous social media components of that campaign, the Walk-Run and the Spaghetti Pizza.

He also worked on the South Australian Liberal Party campaign in 2018 when Steven Marshall came to power, he did video production this year for the successful re-election campaign of the New South Wales Liberal Party under Gladys Berejiklian.

As Audrey Young earlier reported for the Herald, Topham - a former Young Nationals president - was drafted to the Liberals' re-election effort by campaign director Andrew Hirst - a former staffer at the controversial Crosby Textor.

Some of the work was in an individual capacity but in 2015 Topham formed his own digital and creative company in Auckland and was subsequently joined by Guerin to form Topham Guerin.

The agency's appointment to run social media for the probable UK election follows Johnson's recruitment of former Australian Liberal Party senior figure Isaac Levido to run the Conservatives campaign.

With general Brexit chaos and confusion, Topham Guerin will have their work cutout.

And they also coming from behind. Social media messaging is an area that Labour is seen to have long trounced the Tories, from the 2017 election campaign onwards, according to local media reports.

There seems to be a bit of a theme developing in Topham Guerin's work from English to Morrison to Johnson - helping an awkward middle-aged leader look more hip through clever social media.

But Guerin told the Herald while his agency is expanding into Australia and the UK, espeically with video content, "most of our work is outside politics."