Josh Edge joins Meerkats Perth as Creative Director in first of several new hires planned

Meerkats Perth has announced the first in a number of new hires for the agency with Josh Edge (far left) being appointed as Creative Director. The appointment is the first made by new Chief Creative Officer Martin Beecroft (near left), who has taken on the role to shape the new era of Meerkats creative offering.

It comes two weeks after former co-CDs Dan Bradley and Paul Coghlan exited the agency, with Coghlan having joined JWT Perth last week..

“We are incredibly excited to welcome Josh as the new Creative Director of Meerkats,” said Beecroft. “I have known and respected Josh’s creative talent, passion for amazing work and his ability to be an incredible creative inspiration for many years. He and I have often talked about one day working together and this is the perfect start. I believe pairing Josh with our award-winning strategy team, who have been the spearheads of our best work, is going to really shake things up and result in some game-changing opportunities for both Josh and the Kats.”

“We are excited about the level of energy he’s going to bring to the agency as a whole. Josh is the perfect fit for the demands of our clients and the diverse business problems we solve everyday. His multi-disciplinary experience is the exactly what we’ve been looking for and it’s a testament to the future plans we have for Meerkats that we’ve been able to attract a great talent such as Josh.”

Edge leaves Longtail after 5 years as Creative Director of both the Perth and Sydney offices. During his time there, he has helped build Longtail into a national independent agency, working on brands including Lotterywest, Amnesty International Australia, ECU, St John Ambulance, Macquarie University and Kellogg’s. Prior to 2011 he was Senior Copywriter at The Brand Agency, where he worked on award-winning campaigns for Curtin University, Perth Zoo, Bankwest and Drug Aware.

“I’ve always thought that whenever you sign up for a leadership role at an agency, you should leave the place in a better state than when you started,” said Edge. “Leaving Longtail after such a strong run of business wins was a tough call, but I’m proud of the success and the culture that we built there. I honestly can’t wait to get started on a brand new creative challenge at Meerkats, and the incredible team that they’re continuing to build there. Somebody, smarter than me, once said that there is no growth without change, and it’s inspiring that Martin, Gav, Mel and the team are embracing that so wholeheartedly”.

Meerkats has recently restructured with the new leadership team of Gavin Bain CEO, Mel Wiese, Chief Strategy Officer and Martin Beecroft as CCO.

“We are on a mission to build a creative, design and production unit to match our strong strategy, client service and technical nouse,” said Bain. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to build a team of incredible talent. We’ve had a lot of interest and Josh is the first major step to achieving the ambition we all have here.”

Over hiscareer, Edge has won local and international awards including D&AD, London International, Clio, AWARD, APG Gold Award, Silver Sirens, Gold Effie, PADC, Campaign Brief Awards, the National AMI Marketing Program of the Year and a pair of $20,000 Radio Writers Awards. He was also part of the team that created Perth’s most awarded radio campaign ever – Perth Zoo ‘Find Your Animal’ – with Kurt Beaudoin and Rikki Burns.