MARKETERS

Seems the Ontario Science Centre will ramp up its hunt for new marketing partners this year. The Toronto-based educational venue recently brought on Yvonne Hunter, who will bolster a team dedicated to corporate sponsorships as senior development associate.

‘This is a new post for us,’ says associate director of development Jennifer Duchesne, who believes the centre has a lot to offer potential partners. ‘We get a million visitors each year and we have lots of collateral and opportunities for exposure. We recently signed Rogers Cable as a media partner.’

Hunter comes to the centre from HarperCollinsCanada, where she held the position of marketing and publicity manager. During her tenure there, she created several multi-partner marketing endeavours, including SKYword, an inflight audio book initiative with Air Canada, amazon.ca and other brands.

Duchesne says the Science Centre is looking for similar hook-ups for its ‘Summer of Thrills’ exhibit, which will focus on the science behind thrill seeking, as well as a display on animals in 2006. And there are also year-round opps for long-term deals. Current sponsors include Celestica and Pepsi.

AGENCIES

Michael Würstlin, a founding member of GWP Brand Engineering, has formed Toronto-based Würstlingroup with 25-year-veteran copywriter Trevor Pedler, who last owned portofino studios.

Würstlin, who is probably best known for helping create the ING Direct and Grocery Gateway brands, says he left GWP because it wasn’t growing in the manner that he believed it should. He created Würstlingroup to take ‘an opportunity we see that existing agencies can’t grapple with – one that focuses on ideas outside traditional media…. Nobody has set up shop in Canada to do that.’ Along with Würstlin and Pedler, Greg Freir (who worked with the former at GWP) and marketing strategist Donna McPhail, who co-founded the Strategic Solutions Group, round out the core team of senior staff. The shop, which Würstlin says will concentrate on ‘content creation,’ will tap a pool of experts in various media, such as cinema, theatre, sports and music.

CD Donna McCarthy and account director Laurie Clouston have left Target Marketing, of St. John’s, Nfld., to form their own agency in Newfoundland, called Dory Advertising. While at Target, both worked on the Air Canada and Irving Oil accounts. McCarthy says they plan to keep the agency small and says its name (a dory is a small boat) was actually a play on that of Toronto agency Taxi. Two creatives and one account person will be hired in coming weeks to work on clients Persona, Anthony Insurance and IBAN.

Simon Creet and Simon Duffy have joined Saatchi & Saatchi in Toronto as VP/ACDs, working mainly on the Toyota account. They previously spent two years at TBWAToronto, where as CDs they worked on the Nissan account. Jay Bertram, president at TBWAToronto, explains that while he was surprised by their decision to leave, he’s not worried about any repercussions, because ‘due to our strong culture, they’ve put great teams in place.’ He says the agency is currently searching North America, as well as Europe and Africa, for its next CD. Meanwhile, Saatchi also added creatives Sean Gallagher, Jeff McCallum and Austen Morrow on a contract basis.

Ania Russocki is leaving her post as president of Toronto’s GJP Advertising to become EVP/COO of Arnold, Toronto. Her new job begins Feb. 7. Russocki has worked at Leo Burnett and Spencer Francey Peters, and has also been client-side at Rogers AT&T Wireless. Meanwhile, John Farquhar has joined GJP as CD, after the agency bought Cyclops Communications, which Farquhar founded in 2003.