Outdoor ad company unaware of death as it welcomed Helena Cribb; PM: ‘People aren’t watching the six o’clock news any more’; Mystery solved over One NZ ad campaign amid agency changes; Paul Henry on Lachlan Murdoch; but first, new developments in Stripe Studios saga as Govt agency investigates boss.
The head of a group of failed TV production companies – they are in receivership with matters referred to the Serious Fraud Office – has been linked to a new alias and new shows in the United States.
He is also now under investigation by a government business agency - MBIE’s integrity and enforcement unit.
Stripe Studios boss Alex Breingan has been linked to a new name, Darci Penn, on the film industry website IMDB.
Penn’s original biography stated she was female – “a dynamic television and film producer hailing from Los Angeles celebrated for her innovative contributions to both non-scripted TV and scripted film”.
“With a unique ability to craft compelling narratives, Darci has become a notable figure in the entertainment industry, known for her original formats and deeply personal storytelling.”
But aside from the IMDB website biography, the name Darci Penn doesn’t appear to be that notable – there is no record of a Darci Penn having produced, directed and/or written any screenwork.
Over the past week, the Darci Penn biography was updated with Breingan’s own CV with 30 credited titles, including shows he produced under the Stripe Studios umbrella in New Zealand.
It states that Darci Penn is also known as Alex Breingan, Alex B, and another, earlier reported alias, A.J. James.
The biography says Darci Penn has nine projects in development, including a feature film, Doing it for the Money – “the true story of an all-American nightmare” – and Queens of the Court, “the real story of the lives, loves and dramas [of] California’s hottest new Pickleball club”.
Breingan, who has a property in Auckland, has been spotted visiting Los Angeles in recent months.
He has not returned messages from the Herald.
Breingan is the managing director of Auckland-based Stripe Media, which – along with 12 related companies – has been placed in receivership.
Creditors of the companies – including Kiwibank, financing firm Fulcrum Media Finance and American TV stars David Hasselhoff and Iliza Shlesinger – are owed more than $20 million and the receiver claims its investigations have uncovered “irregularities” in the company’s finances.
The receiver says these alleged “irregularities” have been referred to “relevant authorities” – this follows the New Zealand Film Commission (NZFC) referring its own concerns about Stripe to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) last year.
The SFO has confirmed it received a complaint from the NZFC but has refused to say whether it is investigating any matters in relation to Stripe.
Breingan is also now under investigation by MBIE’s (the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment) integrity and enforcement team (IET), the Government agency confirmed to Media Insider yesterday.
“[IET] is currently investigating Alexander James Breingan’s suitability for prohibition pursuant to section 385 of the Companies Act 1993,” said Vanessa Cook, national manager, criminal proceeds integrity and enforcement.
That section “allows for the prohibition of directors who have had at least one company fail due to mismanagement”.
Cook said Breingan was the director of 13 companies currently in receivership.
“Mr Breingan is not currently disqualified from being appointed as a director of a company,” said Cook.
“Section 151 of the Companies Act 1993 sets out the grounds that render an individual disqualified from being a director of a company.
“The receivers of the above-listed companies have an ongoing obligation to advise the Registrar of Companies (the registrar), along with any applicable agency, including the New Zealand police, of any serious offending they identify in the course of liquidating a company.
“While Mr Breingan is already under consideration for prohibition, in the event further breaches of the Companies Act are brought to the attention of the registrar, enforcement action will be considered in accordance with our enforcement approach.”
Outdoor advertising company JCDecaux has removed a social media post in which it welcomed to the company a woman who was – at the time – subject to a police investigation over the alleged hit-and-run death of a North Shore man.
Advertising industry worker Helena Cribb last week pleaded guilty to two charges - carelessly driving and causing a death while under the influence, and failing to stop - after the death of Jason Collins last December. She will be sentenced later this year.
It is a particularly tragic case.
“After nearly 10 months of agony, we are relieved to see a guilty plea,” Jason Collins’ widow Gemma said last week. “However, nothing can erase the pain of losing Jason, our beloved husband and father, especially when his life was cruelly dismissed as if he were nothing more than a ‘pothole.’ This has devastated our family beyond words.”
Cribb, who was working for the Dentsu advertising agency at the time, had been driving home from the Auckland CBD to Albany, after drinking at the Dentsu Christmas party. According to the police summary of facts, observers described her as “highly intoxicated” earlier in the evening.
Denstu chief executive Rob Harvey told the Herald: “This is a tragic incident and we have the deepest sympathy for the families involved. We take our responsibilities and the wellbeing of our team very seriously, and have been supporting our staff throughout and in full co-operation with the police during this investigation.”
While Cribb was under police investigation, she left Dentsu and was hired by JCDecaux.
In a LinkedIn post earlier this year, the company wrote it was “excited” Cribb was joining the team.
“Helena is joining the NZ sales team as an account coordinator and will be working behind the scenes to ensure our campaigns run smoothly. We are delighted to have her on board,” said the post.
It has since been removed.
JCDecaux did not wish to comment, but sources have told Media Insider the company had been unaware of Jason Collins’ death.
By the time Cribb’s name suppression had lifted in late June, she was no longer working for JCDecaux. In court documents, she was listed as an “assistant”.
According to the police summary of facts, Cribb went to a colleague’s house at 1.30pm on the afternoon of the Dentsu Christmas party.
It is understood the work function started from about 3pm, with official transport to a licensed premises. She went to a second licensed premises later in the evening.
She was drinking alcohol through the afternoon and evening.
“Her work colleagues and one of the licensed premises managers described her as ‘drunk’, ‘very highly intoxicated’, ‘slurring her words’ and ‘aggressive’ over the course of that evening,” said the police summary of facts.
TVNZ won’t be enamoured that its Government shareholder – in the form of Prime Minister Christopher Luxon – has cast aside its still-sizeable 6pm television news audience.
Luxon made a throwaway comment on Newstalk ZB yesterday that “people aren’t watching the six o’clock news any more”.
He was talking to Wellington Mornings host Nick Mills and explaining his use of TikTok and other social media channels.
“The reason I do that is because the media environment’s really fragmented in New Zealand. And actually what’s happening now is people aren’t watching the six o’clock news any more,” said Luxon.
“In fact, [in] all demographics, it’s people watching online video. That’s where they’re getting their news and their information from.
“Yes, we’ve got a press gallery in Wellington and the Parliament. They sort of get very obsessed on the political stuff.
“You’ve got other journalists, you’ve got commercial radio. Often I have really good conversations on mental health, for example, on commercial radio stations.
“But I also think talking directly to New Zealanders when they’re increasingly online... it’s great. It’s another way of reaching people.
“I’m just of the view that you should use all the media channels, all the media outlets to try and tell your story and what you’re trying to do, and communicate with people. That’s a great thing. In New Zealand, politicians should be pretty accessible.”
TVNZ’s 1 News at Six regularly draws an average broadcast audience of more than 600,000 people each evening; Three News has been drawing an average audience of just under 200,000. Thousands more watch the bulletins on demand later or will stream them live.
While those TV numbers have certainly dropped over the years, people’s interest in news is still huge.
The two biggest locally-owned websites in New Zealand are news sites – Stuff (with an audience of 2.21 million audience in August) and the NZ Herald (2.14 million). The monthly unique audience for RNZ’s website has now grown to 1.56m and 1 News’ website audience is now at 913,000.
Meanwhile, the Herald has the biggest number of news app launches and is the biggest newspaper.
It is one of the biggest creative advertising accounts in the country and it’s fair to say there has been a lot of mystery swirling around it in recent months.
One New Zealand – formerly Vodafone – has been through a few agency changes over the past 12 years.
FCB won the account in 2012 (it had been with Colenso BBDO before that) and held it until 2018, when DDB took over. Part of the attraction would undoubtedly have been, at DDB, the presence of two industry geniuses, Justin Mowday and Damon Stapleton.
In order to accommodate Vodafone, DDB gave up competitor 2Degrees.
“A lot of DDB staff enjoyed working for 2Degrees because you could have a lot of fun with them,” said one industry source. “Vodafone was more of a big-spending retail brand. For the decision-makers, it was seen as a better financial option.”
A difficult call was made to the 2Degrees CEO at the time. “He wasn’t happy.”
But it wasn’t to be all smooth sailing for DDB as firstly Mowday and Stapleton left the agency in 2021 to set up the New Zealand arm of The Monkeys.
Things then turned a little “unorthodox” with the Vodafone account in 2022, as the company began its campaign to rebrand to One NZ.
DDB wasn’t the sole agency – instead, a coalition of the willing came together, as One NZ used experts from at least eight different agencies.
“To deliver on the brand promise, I wanted to create an environment where we would welcome the smartest creative minds, the best specialists, work collaboratively and challenge ourselves to deliver, big audacious work,” One NZ brand and marketing head Georgia Mahaffie said at the time.
“Egos were parked – great ideas were developed and the best ones picked up and backed. We took a different approach and formed a wider team based on individuals instead of companies.”
Independent observers, however, were questioning the mechanics of such an arrangement.
“How is this even workable?” one source said, adding that any big brand with a strong retail requirement generally needed a large agency to accommodate the workload.
While DDB featured among the eight agencies, it probably realised its time was up.
“DDB would have felt like, ‘this is strange’,” said the source. “The writing would have been on the wall.”
Things have indeed come full circle – One NZ announced this week that FCB was back as its agency of record.
“We continue to enjoy the benefits of a collaborative approach with our creative agencies,” said One NZ spokesman Matt Flood. “While FCB is our largest and lead partner, we work with seven other agency partners for differing needs as the situation requires.”
Flood said One NZ was “really pleased with DDB and the contribution they made to our business as we made the move from Vodafone to One New Zealand”.
“Over time, following that successful rebranding, the job in front of us evolved and we decided it was the right moment to review our creative approach, refreshing it to help share our brand position of a better connected New Zealand.
“A big part of the transition was to create a stronger link in our creative and media strategies and we also love FCB’s Kiwi-centric creative, which celebrates the best of our country.”
The new One NZ campaign
With that announcement, we now know who’s behind the Let’s Get Connected campaign, and in particular, an ad featuring a highland cow and a young man, Jade - an adopted son searching for his biological parents.
Normally, advertising creatives sing their work from the rooftops. The Let’s Get Connected campaign – the cow ad has so far generated 1.2 million views on YouTube – initially had no creative credits when it started screening in May.
“We’re really excited about our new creative campaign and the buzz it has generated,” said Flood.
“Together with FCB, we agreed that the work should initially speak for itself, connecting New Zealanders with the people, places and things they love. We’re delighted that it’s hitting the mark with Kiwi across the country. It’s a great start to our partnership with FCB and we’re looking forward to continuing to explore the story of Jade’s journey.”
Meanwhile, a new television ad has started appearing with a very apt title given all the agency changes behind the scenes – “Switcheroo”.
Lion New Zealand has selected a new advertising agency – PHD – after a competitive pitch for one of New Zealand’s biggest media accounts.
Existing agency EssenceMediacom elected not to pitch.
Lion NZ described the review as “highly competitive” and said it was impressed by the “exceptional quality” presented by all participating agencies.
PHD would play a “pivotal role” in shaping Lion NZ’s media strategy, planning and buying for its key beer, wine, spirit, RTD and coffee brands.
“We’re thrilled to welcome PHD as our new media agency partner,” said Lion NZ marketing director Annemarie Browne. “Our goal is to elevate Lion’s brands’ presence and cultural impact with New Zealand audiences.”
One source earlier estimated the account involved media spend of around $15 million a year.
It involves marketing for all of Lion’s key brands including Steinlager, Speight’s, all Lion-owned brands such as Kirin Hyoketsu and Four Pillars, partner spirits and beer brands, and the company’s wine brands such as Wither Hills, Mt Difficulty and Lindauer.
“We are so happy to have the opportunity to partner with the Lion team and their portfolio of iconic brands,” said PHD chief executive Nikki Grafton. “Lion’s passion for market-leading innovation and smart media thinking is exciting and the PHD team cannot wait to get stuck in and deliver great work and business results together.”
PHD assumes responsibility for the account from November 1.
Continuing on the theme of pitches, this week we catch up with one of the marketing industry’s top names, Lion marketing director Annemarie Browne.
ABC in Australia is currently screening a fascinating three-part series on Lachlan Murdoch, the heir apparent – if a Nevada court agrees and can sort out the family’s Succession-style fight – to his media mogul father Rupert.
Our very own Paul Henry appears in the ABC documentary, outlining his observations and experiences of Lachlan Murdoch.
Henry was hired in 2012 as one of the hosts for a new breakfast TV show on Network Ten, then part-owned by Murdoch during a period when he was estranged from his father’s News Corp empire.
“I imagine that what Lachlan was seeing in me was a host who would sit there and be unpredictable,” said Henry.
The show, which debuted in February 2012, was canned in November of that year after poor ratings.
Henry tells the documentary makers of crisis management “at all levels of Ten” because of the falling ratings.
The tide was going out on free-to-air television, said Henry, and it was going out “very, very rapidly” at Ten.
Ten went into voluntary administration in 2017. It was later sold by administrators to CBS.
“I think he did crave an admiration from his father,” says Henry of Lachlan.
“I think he was looking to have a successful media empire of his own.
“I had the feeling that it was very important to Lachlan that he was seen as being successful. That Rupert, that his father, saw him as a success.”
Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.
Who's in line for influential TVNZ role?; $1 sales: Five NZME community newspapers saved.