AUCKLAND, Today: Former Saatchi & Saatchi NZ CCO Toby Talbot is returning to the DDB network as chief creative officer for C14TORCE, the SEAT-dedicated agency in Barcelona.

AUCKLAND, Today: TVNZ reported EBITDAF of $26.3 million for the six months to 31 December 2019 – $0.5 million (2%) above the previous year.

AUCKLAND, Today: McDonald’s with agency partners Track NZ were the big winners at the 2019 NZ Direct Marketing Awards, hosted last night by the Marketing Association.

AUCKLAND, Today: Finally, decent coverage of Mark Ritson’s presentation in Auckland last week – thanks to a blog written by Hunch agency’s Michael Goldthorpe.

SYDNEY, Today: NZ news media publishers have scored nine finalist nominations across a range of categories for the 2020 Global Media Awards (run by the International News Media Association, and administered in this part of the world by Australia’s NewsMediaWorks).

NEW YORK, Wednesday: Omnicom Media Group agency OMD Worldwide had the best net new business performance of any global media network in 2019, as reported today by international indie research company COMvergence.

AUCKLAND, Today: New Zealand’s five biggest banks spent a collective $117 million on advertising last year – a 69% jump on 2017, according to a report by business writer Tamsyn Parker in today’s Herald (scroll down for the link).

AUCKLAND, Wednesday: More details are emerging about our mystery adman Richard King, who died *recently.