RED Havas has won the Australian account for noted online genealogy website Ancestry.com.

Under the new deal, RED Havas will bring together staff from its Sydney and Melbourne offices, to build up Ancestry.com’s brand awareness among Australians through PR and influencer activities, with support from Ancestry’s ANZ and UK divisions.

Ancestry ANZ has used its social media channels over the past several months to share content about people trying to retrace their origins, including snippets from SBS’ Every Family Has a Secret documentary series. Ancestry.com international programming chief Brad Argent is already in the country to promote AncestryDNA, Ancestry’s DNA testing and digital family history platform. 

“It’s an exciting win for the Agency as family history has strong cultural relevance in Australia, providing a rich territory for creativity. In addition, Ancestry perfectly aligns with our approach to engender a meaningful connection bet

Effectiveness agency AFFINITY has welcomed new directors to its leadership circle.  

Lisa Christie (pictured, right) is onboard as the new group media director. She has over 30 years of experience handling strategy and brand planning for major consumer brands such as Suncorp, Sony, and CBA. She’s a co-founder of IKON Communications and runs her own consultancy.

Giorgia Butler (pictured, left) is on the team as senior strategist and brand director. A brand planner with 20 years’ experience, plus three Effie nods and an IPA award, Butler is well known at running campaigns for companies such as Telstra, Nestle, and Samsung. She has held strategy director posts with the former Y&R, Ogilvy Australia, and the Houston Group.

Russell Smyth (pictured, centre) is AFFINITY’s new creative director. He comes to the agency equipped with over 20 years of creative experience, 15 of them total gained from long sojourns with Ogilvy & Mather and The Campaign Palace.

The RED Havas agency has welcomed new hires. 

The agency announced that Reema Babakhan is now onboard as head of the travel, tourism, sports and leisure practice. She recently returned to Australia after over seven years in London, England, with her work positions including deputy communications head at Synergy Global and director with Ogilvy UK.

Aiza Rusli is a new account director taking on consumer and corporate clients. She recently exited Kite Communications after nearly five years of service, moving up the ladder from account executive to account director.  

Candi Hindocha is signing up as account director for tech clients. She finished roughly five years with IMPACT Agency, leaving last month as account director and head of insights. 

Alex Erasmus, current head of strategy at the RED Havas Sydney office, is now national strategy chief. He will be in charge of mapping out the agency’s direction across its offices in Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbour

Communications agency whiteGREY has teamed up with Melbourne renewable energy vendor Powershop on a new campaign called “Free Power Mode.” 

The new campaign (pictured) is meant to promote Powershop’s new option to give customers a full day’s worth of electricity if its wind farms experience strong wind conditions. The promotions will be completed over PR, social media, and radio/video broadcasts, among others. 

“Free Power Mode is a great customer initiative by Powershop that celebrates renewable energy across Australia. To bring it to life this fun, tactical campaign can be deployed in response to the wind,” said whiteGREY ECDs Joe Hill and Garret Fitzgerald.

Thrive PR has established a special department to handle communications work for Asian clients seeking to join the Australian and New Zealand markets.

The new Asian Communications team will initially focus on cultivating Chinese clients, then expand to other Asian brands aiming to tap multi-ethnic communities in the ANZ region.

To manage the new section, the agency turned to Diana Pong. Having been with Thrive since February 2019, Pong has around 20 years’ experience under her belt, which includes director-level posts at Text100, The PR Group, and Edelman in Hong Kong. 

She is well-positioned for the job, having done business with companies such as WeChat, ZTE, and Dell, and she’s also a native speaker/writer in Cantonese and Mandarin. 

Chloe Lu joins the team on running social media marketing functions. She is skilled in noted Chinese social media apps such as Weibo and WeChat.  

“Our Asian Communications offering further differentiates our a

The Sefiani Communications Group has won the communications rights for international asset trading and investment platform eToro.

The agency remit includes building eToro's presence in Australia and promoting its services to prospective investors in Australia, as well as helping people expand their financial knowledge. 

Established in January 2007, eToro functions as a social media-type network of users with tools to participate in the global business markets, from resource trading to crypto. Based in Cyprus, Israel, and the UK, the company recently opened an Australian branch.

eToro Australia managing director Robert Francis said Sefiani’s experience in handling finance- and assets-based clients were key to winning the deal.

“Today, Etoro has more than 11m registered users globally who belong to an active online investment community where members share their knowledge and insights. Etoro is an industry disruptor and has placed a new level of investor

Bondi Junction PR agency Polkadot Communications has landed the account win with European beauty products distributor Look Fantastic, reported Mumbrella.

The account will have Polkadot run social and owned media campaigns to build up the brand for the Australian market. The work will also include improving Look Fantastic’s visibility in search engine results.

A part of The Hut Group Beauty Retail Network, Look Fantastic is known for carrying products from over 660 premium beauty brands.

“With deep beauty and lifestyle credentials over our 13-year agency history, it’s our honour to work with such a well-known global brand. We have been in deep discussions with the Look Fantastic for some time now so it’s exciting to be able to activate our creative concepts,” said Polkadot Communications director Dionne Taylor.