BMF has made four new appointments to add to its creativity and effectiveness, content and social capabilities. Alister McCann and Joe Mallett join as senior creatives, Hannah McHard as head of effectiveness and Phoebe Carden as content and social strategist.

Joe Mallet joins from Lucky Generals London. Mallet cut his teeth at Mother London and has worked on world-class brands such as PlayStation, Hostelworld, the co-op supermarket, and most recently Amazon’s Super Bowl commercial featuring Scarlett Johansson. Mallet’s work has been recognised at D&AD, British Arrows, New York Festival, and Kinsale Sharks.

Alister McCann has worked at AnalogFolk, CX Lavender, The Works, M&C Saatchi, and The Green House on brands such as Westfield Australia, Westpac, CommBank, McDonalds, Optus, Woolworths, Curtin University, Coke Zero and Coors Beer. Most recently, McCann scored a Gold APAC Effie for his work on Hyundai’s 4-second Reviews while also winning the Most Effective Campaign for Return-on-Investment at the AIM Awards for Rekorderlig Cider’s Rekorder-Land.

McHard joins BMF as head of effectiveness, following a four-year stint as insights and strategy manager at ALDI Australia. During her time there, McHard was part of the team that won the Effie Award for Most Effective Advertiser three years in a row and the B&T Marketing Team of the Year Award. In addition, McHard – who has also held a 14-year position at Kantar, played a key role in helping both ALDI Australia and BMF take home three Ad Campaign of the Year Awards, a Grand Effie Award, and a Spikes Asia Grand Prix. As head of effectiveness, McHard will harness data, analytics, and insights, to further BMF’s culture of effectiveness.

Carden has been appointed after working as a content social strategist and writer for Disney, the ABC, Optus, Universal Sony, and NSW Health. In her new position, Carden will work in a hybrid role with both BMF and its content production arm, Bantam, whose client list includes ALDI Australia, MONA, TAL, Gumtree, RMIT University, and UN Women. With the recent wins of Lounge Lovers and George Weston Foods’ [AD1] social account, Carden will drive both Bantam’s and BMF’s social capabilities and identify new opportunities to inform brand and content strategy, working across key clients.

Alex Derwin, chief creative officer at BMF Australia, stated, “Alister and Joe have only just got through the door and they’re already making a big impact, not only on our client’s business but on the culture of collaboration and kindness that BMF is so proud of. With their talent and experience in non-traditional thinking, both here and overseas, they’re going to do great things and we’re all very happy they’ve decided to call BMF home.”

Christina Aventi, chief strategy officer at BMF, added, “We’re thrilled to have Phoebe and Hannah join our motley crew of planners. Both are believers in creativity and effectiveness in equal measure and will help us navigate the metrics that matter in a world of data overload. Phoebe will be working closely with Irina, Executive Director, Digital and Direct Strategy across our clients and our content unit Bantam. Hannah will be working across ALDI and government and any client that expresses an interest in unlocking even greater effectiveness in their communications (like everyone?). In a tight talent market, we feel really lucky to have these two dynamos join us.”

Cover image l-r: Joe Mallett, Hannah McHard, Alister McCann, Phoebe Carden