Yole accepts invitation from Gatecrasher

FORMER Marketforce advertising general manager Paul Yole has joined Gatecrasher as an account director and strategic planner.

The move to the young agency reunites Mr Yole with his former Marketforce colleagues Lori Canalini, Adam Barker and Tony Scampoli.

This time he said he would not be involved with day-to-day administration or management tasks.

“At Marketforce I found I was doing more administration than advertising,” Mr Yole said.

Besides dealing with actual advertising, his role will also involve marketing the fledgling agency.

Mr Yole said he believed Gatecrasher, while still a small player, would grow to take a more serious role in the market.

“Advertising is about people and with Adam and Lori as creatives you have some very good people,” he said.

Mr Yole left WA’s largest advertising agency in May after taking a redundancy package. Shortly after leaving Marketforce he started a consultancy called Pilot.

He said he would be keeping Pilot running alongside his three-day a week commitment to Gatecrasher.

Mr Yole was also the Yole in Bowtell Clarke and Yole, an agency he helped form in 1988 and left in 1994.

Mr Canalini and Mr Barker were joint creative directors of Market-force and resigned those positions in August 2001 to form Gatecrasher. Mr Scampoli joined them as client services director.

While Gatecrasher is only 15 months old it has grown to boast billings of $6 million and a broad cross section of clients.

It has a number of new campaigns ready for release, including a television campaign for 96FM launched this week, the new Make Smoking History television campaign for the Cancer Foundation, due for a February release, and fatigue and restraints campaigns for the Office of Road Safety.

Mr Yole said the current woes facing the advertising industry were unlikely to have much of an effect on Gatecrasher’s operations.

“The past couple of years have been very difficult for Perth advertising agencies,” he said. “Gatecrasher will be different because it is a young agency and growing.

“It will be quite an interesting time in the advertising market because 303 has had a metamorphosis and become like a young growing agency itself.”

Mr Yole said there was some light at the end of the tunnel for the industry despite the current gloom.

“I have a sense that companies are spending money on long-term planning at the moment,” he said.