New creative leadership for Shift

STW Group’s brand and engagement company, Shift, has announced the two key senior appointments of Dale Rhodes, founder of Rhodes Shapter as creative director and Nick Beckhurst as executive creative director - design.

The appointment reunites Rhodes with Shift’s strategy director, Richard Sauerman, who were both founding partners in the award winning advertising company Neon Pigeon.

Managing Director of Shift, Iain Good, said Rhodes was a talented creative with outstanding credentials in many forms of communication.
“He also believes in the power of brands to drive both internal and external change for companies and social change in communities,” he said. “He is passionate about the core ingredients that we believe are the future for Shift.”

Rhodes has been responsible for some of Australia's best-known and most successful brand conversations - from The Northern Territory "It'll never, never leave you", to "Bloody Volvo Driver", which changed Volvo's brand conversation and saw sales double within twelve months.

The appointment of Beckhurst, previously managing director of his own brand identity and design studio, Nice Idea, will formalise an existing working relationship merging the Nice Idea studio with SHIFT and working alongside existing ECD Raj Rabindranath.

Good, said of Beckhurst’s appointment that it was a natural evolution of Shift's core in-house capabilities.
“Having worked closely with Nick we know that our strategy outputs work incredibly well with his premium design capabilities,” he said. “We are in complete agreement about the role design can play in amplifying a brand DNA at every touchpoint. In bringing Nice Idea and Shift together, the common industry battle between the identity creation and graphic guideline of design agencies versus the ongoing communications output of communications agencies, has been removed. This is consistent with our desire to breakdown industry barriers that do not create efficient client outcomes and promote the core brand DNA.”