Big Village Australia (formerly ENGINE Australia), a local arm of a global advertising, technology and data company, has gone into administration.
The reason the business, reported to have 70 employees in Australia, failed is not yet known.
It is the second agency to go into administration over the summer break. McCorkell and Associates, a North Sydney agency founded in 1992, was wound up the week before Christmas, with assets moved to a new company with a similar name.
With Big Village Australia Pty Ltd, documents filed with corporate regulator ASIC show insolvency specialists Matthew Hutton and Rob Smith of McGrathNicol appointed administrators.
CEO Craig Young, who is an active non-executive director, including a board member of Redfern Legal Centre, resigned as a director of Big Village Australia just before Christmas, on December 23, 2022.
The company went into administration a month later on January 26, a public holiday.
Big Village came into being on June 17 last year when ENGINE in the US, Europe and Australia rebranded.
Its pitch was to unite “adtech, media, insights and creative under one roof to solve the industry's biggest pain points and advance advertising forward for a new era”.
The Big Village in July last year was appointed by the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) to develop and operate Australia’s first National Gambling Self-Exclusion Register.
The then CEO Craig Young said: “We are delighted to be able to help bring the Government’s vision for a national gambling self-exclusion register to life and look forward to bringing our experience delivering GAMSTOP (UK) to help Australians.
“This initiative allows Big Village to bring together our in-depth research expertise with our leading-edge digital service design and technology practices in order to create meaningful social change.
“With the development of the register, Australia will be at the forefront of global best practices in preventing harm from problem gambling.”
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