Former Colenso BBDO COO Paul Courtney launches new creative and production studio AO Studios based at The Tuesday Club

Paul Courtney (PC), former chief operating officer of Colenso BBDO, has just launched a new creative and production studio AO Studios, designed to help agencies and marketers get their ideas made.

It’s been built off the back of his 20-plus years of agency production experience, making and delivering some of New Zealand’s most iconic marketing and communications campaigns. A few of them happened to have won some awards and accolades across the world: Axis, Cannes Lions, D&AD Pencils and everything in between.

Partnering Courtney (pictured above) from day one will be Scott Chapman (below left) and his faithful sidekick Chico Mandez. Chapman, former head of integrated production at Colenso BBDO, is well respected in the industry and known for producing some of the most interesting ideas to come out of Colenso, like DB Brewtroleum, Spark Play and the Covid-19 Bloomfield Banger.

Together they have built an amazing bench of talented producers, designers, art directors, writers, editors, soundies, Mac ops and others they can call on when casting for projects and briefs large and small, whether potential award winners or business as usual.

AO Studios has developed a space at The Tuesday Club on Airedale Street and will also be operating a remote team that stretches across NZ and the globe, allowing them to work in different time zones when needed.

Says Courtney: “Our advertising and marketing world is changing fast so this is a great moment to take advantage of the way clients and talent want to work these days. Clients are happy to work with bespoke teams created for their projects, and talent are looking for flexibility and variety. We’ve designed AO Studios to lean into this world.”

Says Scott: “I’m excited to see what ideas come into the studio team and the things we get to make. There’s certainly some talented clients, agencies and partners out there who we’re looking forward to working with.”