David Nobay Set to Depart Marcel to Launch Imperfect Circle with Fin Design & Effects
David Nobay,
founder and creative chairman of Marcel Sydney, is leaving the agency
this month to launch Imperfect Circle with Fin Design & Effects.
Nobay led the inception of the Publicis Groupe agency in November 2015;
bringing along Tiger Beer as a foundation client, on the back of the
closure of Droga5 Sydney. However, last year Tiger Beer announced it
would be transferring its account within the Publicis Groupe from Sydney
to Singapore.
Commenting on Nobay's pending
departure, Nick Law, the Aussie expat global CCO of Publicis Groupe,
told CB: "Nobby's a great bloke, who has consistently created great
work. Amazingly, after all the years I've known him, he's managed to
shed a ton of weight without losing his infamous talent and energy! I
look forward to buying him a Perrier somewhere in the world as he
continues his extraordinary career."
Says Nobay: "Like most of us, I still can't claim to
predict what the future looks like for advertising. But I'm pretty sure
what it doesn't: It's not rigid; not locked into geography or channel.
To thrive again, it has to be more gymnastic. None of which is exactly
rocket-science!"
The result is, what Nobay
describes as, a "Creative Consultancy model"; designed to facilitate
genuinely collaborative projects; primarily around Arts and Media.
Over
the last decade, Nobay has become increasingly known for his artistic
forays outside traditional advertising; including penning his first
stage play "Moving Parts", directed for NIDA by Steve Rogers in 2012, as
well as his painting exhibitions and, more recently, the project
"Artbreaks" created for the ABC Arts Channel and built around his
original poetry by Australian directors, including Warwick Thornton.
He
coined the new venture "MyFavouriteChild" late last year and was on the
hunt for partners, when a chance meeting over Christmas with Emma
Daines, founder of VFX powerhouse, Fin, quickly escalated the
conversation.
As Daines explains: "Nobby and I
have collaborated on film projects for years. He's great fun to work
with and we share an obsession with craft, too. For some time, I've been
musing about bringing in a Creative Partner to help Fin re-imagine a
stand-alone creative group to work across our current offices in Sydney,
Melbourne and Shanghai, as well as our upcoming offices in Singapore
and LA. We wanted it focused on immersive technology, but with a very
different creative slant. As soon as we started talking to Nobby, we
knew we had found our partner."
The result is
Imperfect Circle; a name that nods to the new creative company's focus
on imbuing their tech-driven creations with a transparently human touch.
In
return, Fin has taken an equity stake in Nobay's MyFavouriteChild
consultancy.
