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NEWS / EVENTS
MEET JAMES, OUR HEAD OF CREATIVE
From Her Majesty’s home to the mighty Waikato, our Head of Creative, James Cleary, has travelled the globe and brought his creative skills back to our corner of the world.
After graduating with a fine arts degree from the University of Canterbury, James’ career started in a “tiny ad agency” in Christchurch that worked on some big accounts, including PAK’n SAVE and Lincoln University.
He later relocated to Auckland, where he worked in a design-centric studio that did work for brands such as Charlie’s fruit juice and Auckland Zoo – which included several “very cool” installations – before moving to London.
It was here that James gained extensive experience and exposure. He first took up a role in an independent ad agency with a focus on fashion advertising, where he worked with clients such as Levis and Netflix (before it was the famous subscription service it is today).
James was an art director for a number of years at creative communications agency Exposure, where he honed his art direction skills. He then went on to freelance at two contrasting agencies: One huge agency called Grey, which had Vodafone and HSBC on their books, and one smaller independent called Forever Beta. Both were known for innovative, considered creative that turned heads.
When James was looking to make the move back to New Zealand, his colleague at Forever Beta suggested he give Chris at KingSt a call – and, as they say, the rest is history.
Since joining KingSt, some of James’ favourite clients to work on have been tourism (Rotorua Economic Development and Hamilton & Waikato Tourism), education (University of Waikato), technology (Ultrafast Fibre) and agriculture (LIC).
James says it’s exciting to see where you can push the boundaries – particularly in the agri sector – to bring a fresh perspective and new ideas to the way creative is communicated.
When James is out of the office, he finds creative inspo in nature, and has a love for surfing and mountain biking. When he’s working on a project, he says a lot of what fuels the creativity is getting to know the people in the businesses – for example with University of Waikato. For a particular campaign which heroed real students’ stories, James met Ashleigh Ngow, who was studying a Bachelor of Environmental Planning. Ashleigh’s passion and positive outlook for how we could be better caretakers of our planet was truly inspiring for James, and says it was a unique privilege to be part of her story.
The people within the KingSt team are a big part of James’ source of creativity too. He says what makes KingSt great is its culture – everyone works so closely together with a lack of ego, meaning everyone contributes and keeps the creative spirit of the agency alive.
Need creative that creates cut-through? Get in touch with the team today.