21.06.2010 | New Faces
Wieden + Kennedy London announces today a new, senior addition to the creative department – Dan Hon. Dan’s expertise lies in games, play and story-telling: he believes that we can learn from all different types of play to create more engaging experiences for consumers. He joins the agency to work across a range of clients including Nike and Honda and will be based primarily in London but will have a wider network remit in the coming months.
As media and technology continue to evolve rapidly, it has become evident that agencies need to attract creative people with diverse talents and broad skills in order to engage further with audiences. Dan’s appointment reflects this.
Dan said, "I'm incredibly excited to have the opportunity to join one of the industry's most respected and creative agencies. The world of advertising, media and entertainment is changing in such a fundamental way, and to be part of an agency that's embracing that change and open to new ideas is fantastic. I'm really
looking forward to infusing W+K with a sense of play and games in London and Portland."
Dan joins Wieden + Kennedy following three years at Six To Start www.sixtostart.com, an award winning entertainment company he co-founded with his brother in September 2007. His work there included ‘We Tell Stories’ for Penguin, which re-imagined how a publisher could adapt to producing internet native fiction. The project was received to great critical and commercial acclaim, winning the awards for both Innovation and Best of Show at South by Southwest Interactive 2009. The company's work also includes Spooks: Code 9 - Liberty News for BBC THREE; Smokescreen, winner of Best Game at South by Southwest Interactive 2010; and most recently, Misfits for E4.
Dan speaks extensively on ARGs, transmedia, cross-platform entertainment and video games and has served as a jury member for the BAFTA Videogames and RTS Education Awards. A winner of the 4Talent Multiplatform award for new talent, and one of Broadcast's Hot Shots in 2009, Dan has most recently spoken at and served on the board of The Media Festival, and spoken at b.tween, Hello Digital, Sheffield Doc/Fest, WildScreen, South by Southwest and the London Games Festival. Previously, Dan helped create Perplex City, an international alternate reality game, at VC-backed startup Mind Candy.
Dan is also one of Wired UK’s ‘Wired 100’.
W+K Director of Operations, Nic Owen said, ‘Story telling will always be at the heart of what Wieden + Kennedy does, it’s just the context, depth and ways in which we tell them that has changed. Dan will help us make our stories richer and more exciting - we’re really pleased to have him.’
22.04.2010 | New Faces
Wieden + Kennedy London announces today a series of new, senior additions to the creative department - including the appointment of new interactive creative director Andy Cameron who joins the agency after 8 years as creative director at Fabrica http://www.fabrica.it/.
As media and technology continue to change rapidly, it has become evident that agencies need to attract creative people with diverse talents and broad skills in order to engage further with audiences. W+K’s new hirings reflect this. The agency is attracting the best talent in the world to create non-traditional solutions for the business problems of its clients and to bridge the gap between the traditional and the digital.
Andy Cameron, new interactive creative director, describes himself as an artist but is also a designer, curator, writer and educator www.andycameron.info/about. He created the Hypermedia Research Centre at the University of Westminster in 1993 and went on to co-found the influential antirom design collective in 1995.
He was also one of the co-founders of Romandson Interactive, the interactive design practice. In 2001, he was appointed visiting artist, and subsequently creative director in interaction design at Fabrica, the Benetton
research centre in Italy. Andy’s initiatives for Fabrica include the recent ‘It’s My Time’ campaign – a global casting competition launched by Benetton using social media to find 20 new faces from across the world to become Benetton advertising models. Andy also co-created Venetian Mirror – a monumental interactive art installation made at Fabrica – for this year’s Decode exhibition at the V&A. He also provided creative direction for a second Fabrica piece at Decode – Exquisite Clock – by the young Brazilian artist Joao Wilbert.
Andy Cameron, Interactive Creative Director said, ‘Fabrica and Benetton: it’s a hard act to follow. The centre in Treviso and the amazing people there will always have a special place in my heart, but it has been 8 years and its time to move on. The industry is changing and where better to be part of this revolution than Wieden + Kennedy – the best creative shop in the world. The leadership of the agency – Tony and Kim in London and the global team in Portland – have convinced me they are serious about change and I’m going to take them at their word. I will do my very best to find innovative new models for clients to communicate across new channels in new ways. We want Wieden + Kennedy London to become the destination of choice for the best young creative talent in digital, interactive and networked communication from around the world – and together we’re going to reinvent this industry’.
Tony Davidson, Executive Creative Director said, ‘I love the fact that Andy is not from the school of advertising. The more diverse the talent at Wieden + Kennedy, the more alternative solutions we can provide. Andy has a different skill set from Kim and I, but what we do have in common is a hunger to change, disrupt and experiment. We need to challenge and ask ourselves what an independent creative organisation like this can really do.’
Rob Doubal and Lolly Thomson www.givemeanidea.com join Wieden + Kennedy London from their position as creative directors at Mother. They are a team whose work spans all platforms. They are originators whose thinking is expansive and innovative. Their work includes the Coca-Cola ‘yeah yeah yeah la la la’ campaign, the famous ‘London Ink’ installation – the creation of two giant, tattooed sculptures that appeared in London for two weeks to promote a series about tattoo artists for The Discovery Channel which won global acclaim.
They have produced award-winning campaigns for Orange, Coca-Cola and Powerade as well as designing album and book covers. Rob Doubal said, ‘We’ve always admired the work of W + K London, and it’s a really interesting time to be joining a really great group of people. We’re super excited about the job and over the moon that it cuts down our commute from Liverpool Street station by 300 yards’.
Oli Beale and Alex Holder http://oliandalex.com/ join W+K from WCRS. They were placed in Campaign magazine’s ‘Top 10 Young Creatives’ list in 2006 and were ‘Faces to Watch’ in 2007. They have created several award-winning campaigns, for clients that include Brylcreem, Samaritans, The Navy, BMW and Playstation. Oli Beale said ‘W&K seem like a bunch of seriously nice people doing lots of seriously interesting things and we're seriously excited about getting involved.’
Duncan Bone is another creative hire whose talent spans many platforms. www.duncanbone.com. His work includes interactive design, motion graphics, photography and film. He has worked on varied projects ranging from a Vodka brand launch at the Cannes Film Festival to a feature film shot in Cuba, directed by Lucy Mulloy. He also worked with leading fashion photographers John Lindquist and Can Evgin on two fashion films.
Paul Skinner is an interaction designer and creative technologist who worked on brands such as Shell, Marks & Spencer and the Eden Project while at Digit. He works across all clients at Wieden + Kennedy, helping to engage brands with technologies new and old in meaningful ways. In his own words, ‘Sometimes a new technology will inform an idea, and sometimes it’s a case of “How the hell do we do that!?” From there we can then prototype, on-screen or with sensors and electronics’.
Scott Dungate is a senior creative, originally hailing from Australia, but with experience in Asian markets, such as China, where he joined the W+K family working on Nike. Scott moved to the UK a year ago and now heads up creative on Nokia mobile computing, having worked freelance on the business since his arrival at W+K London. Scott said, 'I might be a little biased, but I think Nokia, with it's business grounded in such an interesting and exciting business sector, holds the most creative potential in the agency.'
New Additions To Management Team
Interactive Creative Director Andy Cameron will join the W+K London management team. Two further additions have been made to that team: Paul Colman, Joint Head of Planning) and Nic Owen, Group Account Director on Nike and Nokia UK, who is promoted to joint Operations Director.
‘This is a recognition of the contribution these guys have made to the agency and their importance to the next phase of W+K. It’s also a reflection of the agency’s growth, which means we need people to step up and take on more management responsibility,’ said Managing Director Neil Christie.
17.03.2009 | New Faces
W+K London announced today that Executive Creative Directors Tony Davidson and Kim Papworth have been appointed agency partners.
They join Dan Wieden, Dave Luhr, Susan Hoffman, Bill Davenport and John Jay as agency partners of the Global Wieden + Kennedy network. This is the first partnership addition since John Jay joined in 1996 and the first time any agency partners have been appointed outside of the global headquarters in Portland, Oregon.
Dan Wieden, Chief Executive Officer for W+K said, “If you want to be a partner at W+K, you’ve got to be some kind of saint and some kind of crazy. No-one exemplifies that more profoundly than Tony and Kim. They have raised the bar, broken rules, lifted hearts and shocked the world. There is no office, anywhere, more loved and respected than W+K London”.
Tony and Kim began their partnership in 1985 after meeting at Boase Massimi Pollitt. Celebrated work for Volkswagen, Sony, War on Want and Crookes Healthcare soon followed and in 1994 they moved to Leagas Delaney to work on The Guardian, Pepe, Adidas and the BBC. In 1997 they moved to Bartle Bogle Hegarty where they created the Levi’s Flat Eric’ phenomenon.
Since their arrival at W+K London in 2000, Tony and Kim have rejuvenated the creative output of the agency, developing such notable campaigns as Nike’s Run London, the digital world for Aiwa, and Honda’s Power of Dreams. They were ranked number five in the Financial Times creative business 100 (the highest in the advertising industry) in 2007 and swept the board at the world’s awards festivals for Honda’s Power of Dreams campaigns, which included two coveted Black D&AD pencils and the Grand Prix at Cannes. Under their leadership, the agency achieved a pitch conversion rate of 80% or higher in 2005, 2006 and 2007, and was named Campaign magazine’s 'best agency to work at' in 2007 and 2008.
“To be made the first partners of Wieden+Kennedy outside the U.S. is a great honor,” commented Tony Davidson. “For us it is recognition for everyone who has helped make the London office a success. We couldn’t have done it without them or our clients.”
19.09.2006 | New Faces
Tony Davidson, joint executive creative director of Wieden + Kennedy London, has been elected D&AD president from the position of deputy president.
Davidson was elected at the board of trustees meeting in London on Sunday 17th September and his inaugural speech outlined how he will work with the charity to further promote its work internationally. He said: "D&AD is respected globally for both its professional and student awards. I want to help strengthen those global connections and build the profile of all of its education programmes''.
Davidson was first acquainted with D&AD when he used
to participate in one of the organisation's advertising
workshops in his student days. He first appeared in the
D&AD Annual in 1987 and has won 16 Yellow and two
Black Pencils as creative director.
