EditorialThe Professionals

AdMedia,  Mar 18, 2004  by David Gapes

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AdMedia's Fairfax Agency of the Year awards are always a tense exercise for me. Trying to gauge 'the best' from a field of very clever people and companies, while rewarding, is not my idea of a stroll in the park. Give me a tough deadline any time.

This year for the first time, we asked seasoned professionals to take charge. Our judges - Cindy Mitchener, Graham Medcalf, and Peter Spencer - are ad people with experience at the highest levels. The result was an illuminating few hours of informed and dispassionate decision-making, where all I had to do was take notes - and admiringly watch experts at work.

The results of these deliberations can be found on pages 12-14.

We'd like also to welcome two new regular contributing writers to AdMedia this year. Andrea Malcolm is an Auckland journalist who's written for Pharmacy Today, NZ Doctor, Computerworld, nzoom, TVNZ, PC World, FFWD, Unlimited, the Sunday Star-Times, and Fleetline News Service London. This issue contains the fruits of her first AdMedia assignment - studies of the food magazine business and farm news titles.

Steven Shaw comes to us from a musical background that includes alt-pop bands Smooth and Heavy Jones Trio plus touring & session work for Garageland and the Chills. He's written for Rip It Up and Pulp, contributed to AdMedia's 50 Years of NZ Advertising issue, and was relieving editor at Onfilm while that mag's ed had a baby.

The event that triggered their arrival was the departure of David McNickel, another muso-turned-journo, who won us many friends over the years with his astute coverage of just about every aspect of the ad industry in NZ. He's now become editor of iStart magazine.

david@admedia.co.nz

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