CLEMS WELLINGTON SNARES PLIMMER AND BLEACKLEY

Clemenger BBDO Wellington has hired one of Australasia’s top creative teams, John Plimmer and Chris Bleackley.
Plimmer has been ranked Australasia’s number one creative on Campaign Brief’s Australasian league tables in the past and Bleackley has been regularly in the top ten.
For the past two years Plimmer and Bleackley have been freelancing out of Wellington creative collective Cake. Prior to that, they were at Saatchi & Saatchi Wellington, where Plimmer was Executive Creative Director responsible for both Wellington and Auckland offices.
The pair have show reels containing some all time classic Kiwi ads. Plimmer’s includes Toyota 'Bugger', Bleackley’s includes the iconic Annie Leibowitz poster for Wellington’s City Gallery.
Working as a team, the duo were responsible for winning Australsia’s largest pitch, the $40 million Westpac account. Their work currently running includes the popular Bugger sequel 'Bulls' (a.k.a. Sheep Shagger), and the Maggi talking vege campaign.
Both Plimmer and Bleackley have won numerous awards in all the major shows around the world, including Cannes, One Show and D&AD. But both agree that the most satisfying awards to win are the “People’s Choice Awards” – where the public rank the ads that have moved them most.
Plimmer and Bleackley say they had offers from a number of big agencies, but chose Clemenger BBDO Wellington because they wanted to work with CEO/ECD Philip Andrew (aka Duster).
Chris Bleackley said: “Freelancing for a couple of years has been a bit like window shopping. We’ve seen inside a lot of agencies and they’re all good. They’ve all got great, creative people. We just thought what Duster was doing was most interesting.”
John Plimmer said: “It’s rare to have a creative running an agency. Duster knows what it takes to do great work and he’s creating an agency with a total focus on creating outstanding ideas. We wanted to be part of what he’s building.”
Says Clems Wellington CEO and ECD, Philip (Duster) Andrew: “It will be brilliant having another team with John and Chris’s talent in the agency. They’ll add another dimension to an already talented line up.”