Ben’s CV

Read the short resumé

Fri, 2 Dec 2011 12:33:35 +1000

Time poor? Connection slow? Here’s a short printable resume in PDF form. (Click on the image to download it). If you have more time to browse, click on the headings below for a detailed account of positions held, responsibilities and achievements.

Case Study - Queensland Prawns

Thu, 1 Dec 2011 12:47:47 +1000

This is a video case study of the creative and strategic thinking behind the Queensland Prawns for Queensland Week campaign.
As any powerpoint presentation should be self explanatory, all that is left to to is ask you to press play on the above.
The presentation features a reference to a youtube video - which I skipped through when recording the narration. That video is embedded below. Watch it now or play it when you see the image below in the presentation above.

2007 - 2012 Adpower - Strategic Consultancy and Creative.

Mon, 5 May 2008 15:09:10 +1000

Between scaling down the agency and starting the kite tour, we created a campaign that helped revive the Cairns prawn trawling fleet.
It doubled the wholesale price of a prawn species in 3 months by increasing retail consumer demand and creating a brand.
For less than the cost of replacing an auxiliary engine on a single vessel, we helped the entire fleet return to viability.
The problem
Rising fuel and labour costs were putting huge pressures on the FNQ prawn trawler fleet.
The wholesale price of their product had plummeted due to the market flooding with imported Vannemai prawns.
The cheap prawn didn’t affect the prices of King Prawns or Tiger prawns as much because seen side by side with the Vannemai, there is an appreciable difference in size and colouration.
The Endeavour Prawn though, suffered for its looks.
Although it has sweet tasty meat, it’s not much to look at and the heads go black easily. Next to an imported prawn priced $10 per kilo less, you can forgive anyone for not buying them. Sure we all love to support Australian products, but people just couldn’t see the value in this one.
Unfortunately this species represented 60% of the catch for the Far North’s fleet. But we had an ace up our sleeve - in 2007 at a national conference in Adelaide, the Endeavour was voted the best tasting wild caught prawn in Australian waters.
Knowing the product could stand up to the promise made it very easy to believe in.
The process
Before we produced any creative, we wrote a marketing strategy and presented that to the Primary Industries Minister and the top 20 Queensland operators to secure the funding. When the funds arrived we produced the campaign to run over three months in the Cairns test market. As prawns in general had never been advertised before, it was a genuine chance to see the effect of advertising as the sole variable in the marketing mix. To the right is some of the creative, which included POS, posters and press. You can view the TV commercial at the Endeavour Prawns website.
So, for a grand total of $80 000 the client received 4 press and magazine ads, 2 different POS posters, display cabinet stickers, food safe stands to identify the product in situ, a TVC, a website and a very healthy 3 month media schedule on TV, newspapers and in magazines.
The results?
The wholesale price for the 21-30 count prawns was around $4 when the campaign began. 3 months later that price had increased to $8-$9 in the market area. A genuine doubling of the wholesale price. The cold stocks from the previous year’s catch that went unsold were also cleared out. The success of the campaign made the news here.
To this day, people still walk into fishmongers in Cairns asking for the product by name. It has genuinely made the transition from species into brand.
But the Endeavour was only the beginning of the love affair between Adpower, prawns and any client connected to the ocean.
Today I handle the social media side of things for a Kitesurfing brand, a big wave surfer, a stand-up paddleboard company and of course, Queensland Prawns.

1994-2007 Founder & Managing Director AdPower.

Thu, 22 Sep 1994 19:11:49 +1000

A company demands all your knowledge, creativity, intuition and energy. It needs to be nurtured in different ways as it passes through infancy, adolescence and maturity.
And then it takes a very special act of resolve to close it down in order to build it up all over again.
So after 25 000 pieces of creative and employing 60 people over 13 amazing years, what exactly did Adpower Cairns represent?

1997-2002 Creative Director. HRD/Savi Advertising Papua New Guinea

Tue, 28 Jun 1994 10:28:43 +1000

Concurrently with the role of running Adpower, I worked on a fly-in / fly-out basis as writer/creative director of Papua New Guinea’s largest agency at the time, HRD Savi. Major accounts include Westpac, Nestlé Coffee and Milk brands, Mortein sprays and coils, Colgate-Palmolive (toothpaste, detergent and soaps), Solo, Reckitt and Colman, DHL, and for the UNFPA there were HIV/Aids awareness campaigns.
It was a fantastic learning experience on a number of fronts. When there are 700 languages, not just dialects, in a population of 4 million, you learn how to communicate en-mass non verbally. Not only were there scripts for TV, radio and press, there were also live scripts for a travelling theatre group that journeyed from village to village performing where media could not reach.
It was also a wonderful lesson in making sure to thoroughly research the market to make culturally appropriate communications. For example, the Johnson’s Baby Oil commercial lost effectiveness after a couple of years because people became mistrustful over time when the baby in the commercial didn’t grow up. Research isn’t the enemy of creativity, it should be its faithful compadre.
I thoroughly recommend any creative to make a journey to a developing country and spend some time working on communications there in order to get a thorough understanding for the need of simplicity and brevity. (Unlike, of course, this particular post).

1993 Copywriter. Grey Canberra

Mon, 9 Aug 1993 11:34:59 +1000

I spent 12 months writing and producing lots and lots of TV. Working on the agency’s largest retail account gave me great insight into electronic production. I made over 53 TV commercials in that year. Major accounts included The Royal Australian Mint, Triffits Furniture, ACT Electricity and Water, The Garden, Capital Chemists.

1992 AFA Graduate Trainee. Clemenger BBDO Sydney

Mon, 17 Feb 1992 14:31:50 +1100

Australia and the advertising industry were in recession, still the AFA Graduate Trainee Placement Program of ’92 placed 11 of the nation’s most talented graduates into Sydney agencies. Then they found a spot for me. I went to Clemenger BBDO for 12 months. Working in every agency department at the St Leonards offices, I was involved creatively in campaigns for Lotto and Sega as well as 3 months each in the account service and media departments.
I learned a lot and made a few mistakes. The biggest one being accidentally setting a bin on fire in the art studio.
The experience put me close to some of the big name talents at the time, creators of legendary ads and I drank it in, loving every moment.
I completed Award school that year, finishing in the national top 5.