MARTIN YEOMAN & JAMIE HITCHCOCK

It was April last year Martin Yeoman and Jamie Hitchcock announced their departure from Assignment Group to start their own agency The Enthusiasts. They’ve since gone on to pick up project work for Ti Ora tea from JDE (formerly Brew Group), 2degrees, 1Above and Al Brown’s Fresh Catch, and clients including 3 Wise Men and Goodman Fielder. Now as the pair sit down with NZ Marketing, they reflect on the year that’s been and how their history in the industry is carving their future.

Going it alone

Martin and I had been at Assignment for seven years which is a healthy amount of time at an agency, and I’ve come from my own agency [Josh & Jamie] which we sold to Assignment pretty early on. I wasn’t necessarily 100 percent sure on selling to Assignment because it was so early and I remember Peter Cullinane, who is one of the original founders of Assignment, asking ‘what’s the problem?’. I told him ‘the hardest decision was leaving the big agency world and going out to start on your own and then to sell it really quickly and lose control’. He said: ‘Don’t worry about that, you can do