Little Black Book (LBB) has launched in the Asia Pacific region having opened an office in Sydney, Australia, headed by AsiaPac editor Larissa Meikle and managing director Matt Hayward.
Sydney-born Larissa joins LBB from Catfish Media where she was director, whilst Matt most recently worked as MD/EP at Eclectic Music Machine.
On joining LBB, Larissa comments: “I’ve long been a fan of the LBB model. With editors based throughout the world the team’s passion and commitment for creativity is totally infectious. I just can’t imagine another role that I would be more excited to take on. LBB lets me off the leash to pursue my passion as a creative admirer and writer.
It’s time for AsiaPac to truly embrace this unique industry platform that celebrates the global by accentuating the local – I can’t wait to fly the LBB flag down under!”
Larissa was raised in Newcastle, Australia, where she launched music magazine Reverb, before taking over the editorial reigns of Australian Creative Magazine where she fell head over heels for the advertising industry. Larissa has also worked as editorial director of Australian design bible Justus Magazine.
Matt Hayward comments: "I love what Matt Cooper and his team is doing with LBB. It's forward thinking, unique and something that the global advertising industry is crying out for. So, when Matt contacted me and asked me if I'd like to come on board as MD for the AsiaPac region, it didn't take too long for me to get back to him with a resounding ‘Yes!’
After almost twenty years of working in the audio post production side of our industry, I feel this is a really exciting opportunity to expand my knowledge and at the same time meet some very interesting and highly creative people from within our industry. I am also looking forward to the challenge of helping grow the LBB brand in the AsiaPac region, and along the way promote the creativity of our institutions and companies, shining a spotlight on all their great work.”
Matt cut his teeth as a freelance composer, scoring music for TVCs for various agencies in Australia, New Zealand and Asia. He then moved into audio post-production with his own facility called Sound Reservoir, before moving to Eclectic Music Machine as MD/EP.
LBB is currently read in 148 countries by 100,000 unique visitors per month and celebrates both local and global creativity across all platforms and areas of the advertising industry.
Matt Cooper, founder of LBB, says: “We are dead excited to be opening our Australian office of LBB. As a global business we have a really buttoned down plan of how to make sure we cover all markets properly, and the Sydney office will be our entry point to covering AsiaPac more and more. It’s a very busy area for us and we want to capitalise on what we’ve started, and being in the time zone will help. We think the amazing creative work coming out of the region needs to be found by others, it doesn’t seem right that it’s just seen locally or by those who attend global awards. As we know from global award wins, Australia is producing some amazing work and we want to write more about the agencies working on it. It is also very clear to us that there is a great group of production companies in the area that are working more and more outside of their region and we want to help promote what they are doing to the world. What makes LBB unique is that we cover work from across the industry - including agencies, brands, production companies, post houses, music and sound companies and many more - and we feel that we need to be on the ground to really do so.
We are super proud to be starting the business in Australia in a very similar way to the way we started in London. Larissa has a great track record and understands all areas of the business, and she’s as comfortable with an agency as she is a production company. Matt comes from the business and has run businesses within advertising, and this is key to LBB. He knows the local business and the people and really understands what they need. We feel the team is perfect and will work really well with HQ in London and other regions that we’re opening in.”