Mojo Snares Craig Davis As Chief Creative Officer

MEDIA RELEASE

Mojo Snares Craig Davis As Chief Creative Officer And Gets Ready To Take On The World

June 25, 2009

Publicis Mojo is on track to realise its ambition to be a world-class communications company with the announcement today that it has appointed one of the world's best creative talents, Craig Davis, as Co-Chairman and Chief Creative Officer for Australia and New Zealand.

Davis, an Australian, was most recently the global Chief Creative Officer at JWT. In this role, he established JWT's Worldwide Creative Council and introduced a provocative communications philosophy around the value of time that helps measure, benchmark and improve creative output across all media.

Under his leadership, JWT won an unprecedented 39 Cannes Lions and effectiveness awards in all major markets last year.

Publicis Mojo Chairman Graeme Wills said Davis's appointment is an integral to its plans to compete on the world stage.

"Craig's appointment sends a clear signal to the industry both here and internationally.

Our ability to attract world-class talent like Craig is a credit to Mojo's standing and our ambition to be a truly international player," Wills said.

Davis said his decision to join Publicis Mojo was driven by his desire to live with his young family in Australia but still be in the middle of world-leading creative work.

"I believe in zero geography - that you can live in Australia and work in the world. Mojo is an amazing brand and has a determination to compete and win against the world's best, and that's exactly what I want to do," Davis said.

Davis will work with the creative leadership of all four Mojo offices to take the agency's ambition forward. Mojo's Executive Creative Director Micah Walker, who joined the agency last year from one of the world's best creative agencies, Fallon in London, will work closely with Davis. Davis is already hunting for a new ECD for Mojo Melbourne and expects to make an announcement shortly.

Davis graduated from AWARD School in Sydney and after establishing his own advertising agency, moved to Singapore as Executive Creative Director of Saatchi & Saatchi. Within a year he was promoted to Regional ECD Asia/Africa and moved to Hong Kong.

Under his leadership Saatchi won Regional Agency of the Year, International Agency of the Year at Cannes and Network of the Year titles from both Ad Age and Adweek. In 2003, Davis was named one of the world's Top 100 advertising people by Ad Age and Advertising Person of the Year by Campaign Brief.

He joined JWT London as Chief Creative Officer for Europe, Middle East and Africa and, within a year, was given global responsibilities for the creative leadership of JWT's 10,000 strong network.

Davis helped JWT win the global HSBC and Nokia businesses and produce some remarkable "brands as entertainment" work for Ford, Unilever, Shell, Freixenet and Wilkinson Sword.

He has been selected as a juror for every major international advertising festival including One Show, Clio, D&AD and the Cannes Titanium jury, and has made the Campaign "A List" five consecutive years.

His client experience includes Ford, Toyota, Sony, HSBC, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Shell, Nokia, Vodafone, Kraft, Nestle, Diageo, Bank of China, Netease, Hewlett Packard, DTC and Johnson & Johnson.

Davis was also the first ever guest editor of the Gunn Report, worked as an advisor to the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, was President of the Cannes Film and Press juries in 2008 and delivered the keynote address to the World Export Development Forum in Switzerland last November.

And on the side he also became the fastest Australian to complete a marathon at the North Pole.

ends

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