Reed Collins departs JWT Sydney for summer break – job options will be explored in early 2013

Reed Collins, the former national chief creative officer of The Campaign Palace, which morphed into JWT Sydney (Y&R group in Melbourne) back in June, has left to take a well-earned break until early 2013.

Collins told CB he plans to spend the summer in Sydney and is currently enjoying watching the cricket on telly. He spent a few weeks last month in the States – including Chicago – but says he definitely has no plans to return to his old gig as executive creative director at Leo Burnett Chicago, as falsely reported by AgencySpy in the US and later by Mumbrella in Australia.

Collins told CB he is considering options in Australia, Asia and the US, but nothing is even close to eventuating. Next week he will be judging the international YoungGuns Awards, which are being held in Bondi.

Collins’ last campaign at The Palace was the highly praised work for NSW Rural Fire Service, which has high hopes for awards next year.

Collins actually started his stellar 15 career career in the darkroom at Campaign Brief in Perth in the early 90s. Collins then had casual stints at Shout and JMA Ogilvy & Mather in Perth.

He then headed east and got his first break at Mojo in Sydney. When Hunt Lascaris\TBWA Johannesburg founder John Hunt paid a visit to Australia in the mid 90s, Collins (with then partner Richard Bullock, also ex Perth) pestered him for a job and weeks later the pair headed to South Africa – where they first met Tony Granger, then the agency’s creative director.

After a few years in SA, the pair headed to Lowe Howard-Spink London and Cliff Freeman & Partners New York, before Bullock headed to 180 Amsterdam (he’s now directing with Hungryman & Prodigy, spending half the year in South Africa, the other half in Perth) and Collins to Leo Burnett Chicago, where he since has risen to executive creative director.

Among other awards in his career, Collins won a Gold Lion at Cannes in 2001 while at Cliff Freeman & Partners, New York for the brilliant Fox Sports campaign, and a Bronze Lion in 2007 for the hilarious Altoids campaign via Leo Burnett, Chicago.

Collins has won every international award several times over, across a wide range of categories, including Cannes and One Show Gold, One Show Best of Show and D&AD pencils. Collins was the most awarded creative in the world for his Fox Sports campaign, according to 2001 Gunn Report. In addition, he has work displayed in the permanent collection at Museum of Modern Art in NYC.

Collins’ portfolio includes acclaimed work for Staples, Hollywood Video, Qantas, BMW, P&G, Olympus, Stella Artois, Smirnoff, Fox Sports, Kellogg’s, Altoids, Greenpeace, Samsung, McDonalds and Nintendo.