Enigma lures Brendan Swansborough from Leo Burnett Sydney for senior account director role

Newcastle Uni alumni, Brendan Swansborough has joined Enigma as senior account director to work on a selection of key accounts after spending the best part of a decade at some of the worlds most well respected advertising agencies including Anomaly New York, Saatchi & Saatchi and Leo Burnett Sydney.

Swansborough, a massive advocate for the commercial effectiveness of creativity has been central to the creation of many iconic campaigns, including two consecutive Budweiser NFL Superbowl ads, ‘Brotherhood’ in 2013 and ‘Hero’s Welcome’ in 2014, which ranked #1 and #3 on USA Today Annual Superbowl Ad Metre. More recently, he was a part of the Samsung team at Leo Burnett who produced two of Australia’s most awarded campaigns, the BrainBAND Innovation Project and  “Celebrity Tantrum” for the Samsung Tab S2, which between them have won 9 Cannes Lions, 8 Spikes and 2 Effies so far.

He admits that the opportunity to come back home and join Enigma was, in the end, just too good to pass up.

Says Swansborough: “To be honest, I wasn’t looking to move back to Newie but after seeing some of the ideas Enigma has in the pipeline and understanding their client’s appetite to do great work, the opportunity to live in Newcastle and do what I love became a compelling thought, and then a no brainer. Having done the time in big agencies in big cities, with Enigma there is unique opportunity to offer Client’s a genuinely different perspective. It reminds me of some great agencies located in smaller American cities.”

Enigma has grown consistently year on year with a team of 60 people, having made several key hires in both Newcastle and Sydney offices in 2016.

Says Lisa Sutton Gardner, managing director, Enigma: “We believe that operating as one agency with offices in two very different cities gives us unique clarity on clients problems and the lives of those that interact with their brands. And it’s those clients that we’ve grown with. Our job is to make their brands famous, which is what we get up every morning to do. Brendan is a key hire for us and we’re excited to be further bolstering our firepower here in Enigma heartland.

2016 has been a bumper year for Newcastle’s largest agency with several new business wins including CSR Bradford, Merlin Entertainment, Transport NSW and Newcastle Knights as well as the production of major campaigns for several long term clients.