Everingham leaves Marketforce

Paul Everingham has left the state's second largest advertising agency after less than six months at the helm as chief executive.

An outsider from a political lobbying background, Mr Everingham replaced long-term Marketforce chief John Driscoll, who joined Seven West Media as chief executive in September 2017.

Mr Everingham had previously run lobbying firm GRA Everingham, which he left in December 2016 after building it from scratch over a decade and selling a major share to Clemenger, the majority owner of Marketforce.

His move into the advertising industry saw him become chief executive of both Marketforce and the WA business of OMD, Australia’s largest media planning and buying group.

Mr Everingham told Business News last September he was aiming to spark change in the local advertising industry.

“A lot of the agencies I’ve seen around Perth are stuck in siloed thinking,” Mr Everingham said at the time.

“They think they can hide their digital fees from customers, when really they are marking up their man-hours by 20 per cent, or they’re not telling the government the whole truth about the cost of their digital.

“Being an outsider, I can flush that sort of rubbish out of the system and bring transparency.”

He anticipated his fresh perspective would be an advantage.

“It’s an interesting time to have a look at the industry with a completely independent, objective set of eyes like I’ve got,” he told Business News.

“Agencies across the world, their revenue growth has been diminishing, so whatever the incumbents have been doing hasn’t been all that successful.”

With Mr Everingham’s departure, the senior executives at Marketforce include chief creative officer Pat Lennox and ECD Ben Green, while Angela Nutton is managing director of OMD WA.