Today in News We Somehow Missed, the New York office of 72andSunny announced on Friday that it had hired Justine Armour as its newest group creative director.
Armour joined the MDC Partners shop earlier this month after spending nearly five years at Wieden + Kennedy Portland. Her most recent and perhaps most prominent work during that time was W+K’s debut #StressTest campaign for Secret, which addressed the persistent male/female wage gap before touching on the controversies around bathroom access for transgender people.
Campaign Brief, which is based in Armour’s native Australia, got the scoop on her leaving W+K back in September but could not state that her “yet-to-be-revealed” role would be with 72andSunny. In a Q&A preceding that post, she talked about leaving her previous gig at Sydney’s Publicis Mojo and an incident in which an exec at an unnamed agency that just might be part of the McCann network sent her across town to deliver an empty package to a client with a crush (ugh).
The release positions her hire as proof of the New York office’s continued success, citing its recent work for Seventh Generation (which starred Maya Rudolph) and CÎROC (which starred P. Diddy).
“It feels like I’ve joined 72andSunny at a great time,” said Armour in the release. “There is a real spirit of optimism and collaboration here, and I’m so excited to be a part of the team that makes this office the best place to work in New York.”
The office’s ECD Guillermo Vega said, “Justine is an inspiring creative voice who’s a great fit for 72andSunny. She’s brave, generous and above all, she shares our passion for making work that matters in culture. She’s joining us at an exciting time and we’re happy to have her on board.”
There’s no question that the new GCD will have a lot of work to do as 72andSunny New York will handle at least a portion of the massive General Mills account that officially went to the MDC network today.
Here’s another interesting snippet from the Campaign Brief interview: “For better or worse, Agency culture is quite politically correct over here [in the U.S.]. What that means is fewer awkward moments where you’re looking at the floor or waiting for some innuendo to pass.”
Score one against Australia, then.