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Australia-based STW Communications Group Ltd is to officially merge with the Australian and New Zealand businesses of London-based WPP plc (“WPP”) following STW shareholder approval at an Extraordinary General Meeting held in Sydney yesterday. The official merger effectively completes a process that began in 2010.

D&AD has released a teaser of the new brand identity for the D&AD Festival. “This,” says D&AD President (and Havas London ECD) “gives a glimpse of the fantastic work that is to come.

D&AD has added two more headliners – design supremo Sir Paul Smith and President Obama’s design CD Ashleigh Axios – to this year’s speaker line-up, “making a fantastic top five”.

“The Christian religion was basically founded over a meal with a few wines,” says Auckland ad legend Mike Hutcheson (now at the Image Centre). “We founded HKM Advertising over a lunch – the deal was closed at Sails. We started at 12.30, and at 7.30 we were still going. We wrote the original agreement on the back of a napkin.”

The merger between Australia’s STW Group and global network WPP has been approved by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission in the wake of the WPP’s move to take a controlling interest in the Australian-based business it has partnered for 17 years.

One of Australasia’s largest agency groups has emerged from the merger of Australian brand STW and the global WPP holding group.

WPP global head Sir Martin Sorrell says too much marketing emphasis has been placed on digital and that the pendulum will swing back towards traditional print and TV.

Providing the digital home for the International Festival of Creativity, the Cannes Lions Archive has re-launched with improved functionality and a brand new design, “bringing the spirit of creativity to people across the globe”.

The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity has announced that former US vice president Al Gore will be awarded the Cannes LionHeart Award at this year’s festival. 

JWT worldwide, about to celebrate 150 years in the ad biz, looks set to mark the occasion by returning to its traditional name, the J. Walter Thomson Company.