Rob Spencer appointed EP at The Guild
November 4 2010, 3:41 pm | | 32 Comments
The Guild has jubilant news. They would like to announce that well known, and well respected, Producer, Rob Spencer joins as EP on December 1.
His main brief will be to build the Sydney presence of the company, with The Guild recently moving into great new offices in Walsh Bay.
Rob will re-introduce The Guild’s directors, Mat Humphrey, CraigMacLean, Emma Freeman and Derek Richards to the Sydney market.
And hebrings to The Guild a list of International directors for localrepresentation – further details to follow.
“It has always been part of our plan to develop our Sydney presence”says Helene Nicol, “but the priority was finding the right person. And Rob is just the perfect fit – all of us at The Guild are veryexcited about the future”
32 Comments
Great stuff…
That’s a Plush job…….
Considering all that Rob was able to do for the production industry in his time at Plush, I’m sure his colleagues will welcome him with open arms.
I’m sure the Guild will be plush with success.
Well done Rob! The Guild will prosper with your lead.
Poacher turned gamekeeper, now poacher again. What a wonderful business we work in.
Nice one Roberto!
great stuff mate, youve earned a rest from the crap they all put you through, heres to a a more creatively fruitful future
Agree with 7.45am.
So many years at Plush must have been a bloody tough gig without much thanks and a lot of crap.
Enjoy – you deserve it Rob
Nice black Tshirt, cheers. Frank T
Congrats Rob,
Just wondering if your Guild directors would be interested in working with my production company. I’ve got some good contacts and am sure you would be well versed in knowing how to share the mark-up. I’ll speak with my Board and get back to you.
Does the editor of this blog permit the use of the word ‘cunt’ on the site?
Fab news Rob. Agree with 11.03 am. In this compromised industry you were always as generous as was possible. Thank you and good luck
Have the Guild had their head buried in the sand for the last few years….Plush damaged the entire production business in Australia.
Tough comment 4.27. Everyone has a right to make a living.
5:37 – Not at the expense of everyone else they don’t.
Comment 5.37 more like… get your head out of your own arse! People like you damage the industry.
5.37: You have your finger totally on the pulse. So it was Rob’s fault all along, of course, now it all makes total sense.
I bet Sir Martin Sorrell must be pissed at him.
WPP have never been in worse shape and it looks like we have now found the culprit.
Shame on you Rob for making TVC commercials with the budgets that where given to you by the WPP owned agencies. You have single handedly destroyed the Australian production business.
Typical Australian tall poppy syndrome from some losers here.
One of the very best blokes in the industry.
7:44 and 7:46 – Tall poppy syndrome? Rubbish and more rubbish.
In the days of real solidarity among people with a common creative interest, a common economic interest, a common moral sense, an individual going to work for the likes of Plush, the agencies’ answer to the perception that production companies could be brought to their knees by an anti-competitive, in-house shill, would have been considered an act of treason. In truth, had the production companies bound together a few years ago and refused to service WPP agencies until the organization that Rob fronted was disbanded, refused to loan out their directors for a split fee with the agencies’ own shop, or if Rob and all the others with the necessary production expertise had refused to work for the WPP agencies under such a scheme, which was a blatant attack on their own production industry, then this destruction could have never done the damage it did in the end. So, we’re all to blame, I suppose.
But to ask the industry now to stand by and pretend that Rob had no role in all this mayhem, just a man doing an unpleasant job, and to welcome him back into the very industry that he was a part of trying to destroy, well that’s a bit much.
Ask the producers of the dozen companies that have folded in the past two years whether the specter of Plush and 166 had anything to do with the destruction of their businesses.
Here’s a hypothetical. In any business environment, if your client suddenly established an organization set up to do what you’ve been doing for them for years, only this new shop, in-house with your client, still needed the creative expertise you control (your directors) in order to do business, like any of your competitors, but instead of building their own competitive roster, demanded that you continue to do what you’ve always done, if you want to work for these clients in the future, then demanded as well that you pay half of your profits to this new shop that’s been placed in the middle of the process, and that is owned by your client, how would you feel about the people involved with that dastardly attack?
Just saying.
It was a dirty job, someone had to do it, he did it…and most folks still think he’s a great bloke. Good luck Rob.
11.22 – Your comments are in bad taste.
Why have so many other production companies also survived and flourished while Plush have been around?
You cannot blame the demise of any production company as a result of Plush.
Their demise would be mostly self inflicted, added to with the fact that so many client service people at advertising agencies these days are so weak and do not know how to push ideas and costs through to clients.
And your hypothetical, well it is no different for advertising agencies who think they can save costs on post-production and install their own dodgy set-ups and force Directors to post with them internally, rather than with creative and established post production facilities.
Basically everyone looks after themselves.
Rob is a genuine good guy of the industry, he had a job to do, and did it extremely well.
He is a big coup for the Guild.
3.40 PM It sounds like you are ‘Guild’ing the lily…….
It was a dirty job, and someone didn’t have to do it, but he did.
As for everyone just looking after themselves, thankfully not everyone is quite that cynical, but as we’ve seen, it only takes one or two individuals to act in their own self-interests and against those of their colleagues in order to poison the well for everyone.
What’s in bad taste, 3:40, is acting as an apologist for the inexcusable, ‘genuine good guy’ notwithstanding.
He knew what he was doing and frankly served his own interests over those of the industry that had given him a good living and the colleagues that had counted him a ‘mate’
Grow up you bunch of whingers. Its basic commerce. Should the industry try and run the companies that push shit like Brand Power, Now, What’s new? etc out of town??? They’re also having a dramatic impact on agency revenues. The short answer is no. Its a free market, there should be room for everyone to compete – and if you cant then get the fuck out.
It’s naive to say that Plush didn’t have an impact on the local industry. Cutting the profits of a high overheads company – like a production house – was always going to mean that some didn’t survive.
Rob’s an intelligent man and I think he had the foresight to know what a business model like Plush would mean for the industry, and he did it anyway. We all make choices, and this was his.
Business models change and evolve over time, market forces alter also, and this industry we work in is not going to remain stagnant at any point.
Yes, a group of agencies decided to make a cut of the production industry. It worked.
Now what I’m interested in seeing, is when clients and production houses start working together direct. It’s only a matter of time. Agencies are turning into a useless middle man themselves.
All you folks that have the shits might like to blame the real killers of production budgets: media fragmentation and the digital revolution. When theres a million mediums to service instead of just a few, the big slice gets carved up to fill the new mediums. The cake will only ever be as big as a decreed percentage of client revenue. It just has to be shared by all the new partygoers. Parties are never as fun when you’re hungry. But it’s still a party – better than being a banker or an insurance guy. Oh, and part two – digital revolution. There are no real barriers to entry now. $100k for a 35mm camera body and many times that for lenses was a big barrier in times gone by. $4k for a Canon 5D, or $18k for a RED isn’t a barrier but a turnstile. Same goes for post gear. $2m for a spirit grading suite and Da Vinci desk, or $800k for a Flame just 6 years ago has now given way to far cheaper resources. So, how about you step back, put on a wide angle lens and check out the real killers. You can call it Rob or WPP if it makes you feel bit less helpless – it’s always nice to put a face to an enemy. But every other industry on the planet calls it marketplace evolution. And, frankly, we are all helpless against it. Have a good look at Adcorp since it’s listing on the ASX in 1999 I think it was. A good company run by smart people. A marketplace evolution (maturation of online recruitment advertising) opened the barriers to entry for recruitment advertising and there was far less revenue to go around to all players, Adcorp included. (PS: stabilised balance sheet, not bad value if you can buy around .190 with a 12 month target of .225 ish).
A course of action for the TVC production industry? The only possible course of action is to enact a legislative change. Made in Australia. They have it in many countries, Malaysia is our closest neighbour that has this policy AND where it is enforced properly. This is our way forward. The local marketplace is smaller as a revenue base then ever in the last few years due to fragmentation (exacerbated by the GFC). I think we are all looking globally, but the AUD is a silver bullet we cant dodge. So, the answer is legislate to protect the local industry. Did someone say SPAA???
Rob Spencer killed the industry? Yeah right.
It’ll be interesting to see how the Guild goes…..clearly a bad move on their part.
Brilliant idea 1:57. Just so I understand you though, you have a problem assigning any blame to the men who took on the task of price fixing the cost of commercial production for the most retail and least creative of the world’s agency groups, and then demanding kickbacks to their dummy production house (producer driven, no real roster of directors) as the ante for working with the WPP agencies, thereby putting severe downward pressure on the entire production industry as a whole.
On the other hand, you think the real solution to the problem, one that these men had no real hand in creating according to you, but was really just the result of the GFC and the fragmentation of the marketplace as a result of the digital revolution, smaller resources, etc., should be solved by erecting trade barriers and taking a protectionist stance to foreign production, pressuring the agencies to buy Australian.
You and Joe Hockey should get together for some in-depth conversations, over a nice lunch of course.
BTW, ad revenues are currently the largest they have ever been in real dollars, because the digital revolution has aided marketing to higher sales yes, but while still requiring the broadcast big vision to capture the imagination of the consumers. The costs of producing commercials, however, is at an all-time low, thanks in part to new technology, but aided significantly by those who bled many shops to death, and forced others to take far less than was previously the standard, forcing wages to the bottom with their repugnant schemes aimed at making the agencies and their holding companies richer in the process.
I don’t know what’s worse, the architects and engineers of the Plush mob or their later-day apologists here on the blog.
6:55. In your words “pressuring the agencies to buy Australian”. Yes indeed. When you see a winning formula, follow it and go bigger. Seems to have worked for Plush and WPP. Whats your solution? You seem to have a grudge against Plush, Rob Spencer, Joe Hockey, lunch, WPP, and maybe architects. I am happy to, as suggested, adorn the folks that thought up vertical integration some blame. I think it was the Egyptians. They were going to buy some big stone blocks from the Mongols, but decided they could get it cheaper by grabbing some slaves and bringing it in-house. So, lets adorn a degree of blame to them. Everyone else on your hate list is really just a symptom of the big cancer of the ages – capitalism, and it’s cornerstone requirement, democracy. And what, pray tell, has democracy done for any of us?
I bet the new bloke at Plush is looking forward to the welcome from everyone.