• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 13, 2013

After sprouting a new appendageyesterday Clemenger BBDO is in the news again because it has stolen Australia’s Transport Accident Commission ad assignment from Grey Melbourne which has had the account for 24 years. Twenty-four years, people! For the most part that just doesn’t happen in modern advertising. So kudos to Grey Melbourne for retaining the account for so long. And I guess kudos is due Clemenger as well since it must have taken some kind of mighty feat to wrench control of the account away from Grey. That extra arm probably helped.

In today’s Dumped and Divorced news, Alex Van Gestel, who has spent less than one year as managing director of McKinney's new New York office, is out and has been replaced by former JWT'er Peter Nicholson and head of strategic services Yusuf Chuku. And, in other D&D news, R/GA Chief Strategy Officer William Charnock is also out. Charnock had been with the agency for four years. Also long-time PR Generalissimo at Draftfcb, Wally Petersen, is gone. He’s been replaced by Karen Spiegel, shifting from R/GA, in a move orchestrated by the agency’s new global CEO Carter Murray. Spiegel, like Murray, is based in New York. Petersen was based in Chicago.   

Data, data, data. Oh, and let's not forget Big Data. Everyone wants it. Everyone's after it. And companies are signing deal after deal after deal to get their hands on the ridiculous amount of audience data that has been captured over the past several years. The latest deal is between Yahoo and Starcom. The agreement will provide Starcom with exclusive access to "first party" data from the portal. Of the new arrangement, Starcom CEO Lisa Donahue said, "Yahoo sits on data based on all of its platforms. Our clients sit on data about their own consumers. So instead of hoping that consumers find content, let's use the data to create and push online video content out to consumers." Well now doesn't that sound mighty logical.

Well here's something nice. Canadian agency Anomaly has partnered with Oasis Skateboard Factory, an organization that encourages kids to re-engage with high school (fancy lingo for "get your ass back on the bus") for a program that will teach kids skateboard design and street art. Of the hook up with Anomaly, Oasis Skateboard Factory Founder Craig Morrison said, "We are eagerly looking forward to connecting our students to high-profile, real-world learning opportunities through this partnership. We're also excited about getting Anomaly's help to build our school’s profile. We welcome the opportunity to work with an agency that shares our values and our culture, and wants to share its considerable talents with our community to make a difference." The partnership will include a Mentorship Program for each student, as well as a Learning Series aimed to help the students develop entrepreneurial and brand-building skills so they can successfully market their skateboard products. Additionally, Anomaly will be commissioning the students to create an original art installation for its Toronto office.  ;