WPP creative talent
WPP creative talent
Introducing cross-disciplinary creatives from across the WPP network making waves in the industry
At WPP we know that what differentiates us from our competitors is our creativity and so we prize the talent that we have within our network.
Emerging technologies are creating new opportunities to bring brands to life through engaging, unexpected and interactive experiences. Creative teams are now as likely to include creative technologists and experience designers as they are copywriters, graphic designers and art directors.
Those with more “traditional” creative job titles are also embracing a multi-disciplinary approach: they spend as much time exploring the technologies that will help create closer connections between brands and their consumers as they do the art and copy.
While art and copy were traditionally taken to mean “creativity”, today the jobs and skills required are much more diverse. We spoke to some of our up-and-coming creatives from around the world to find out more about their career paths and campaigns, and for their views on what technologies to pay attention to in future.
Yolanta Boti, Creative, Ogilvy UK
Yolanta started her career as a session musician after graduating with a music degree. After attending an app design course, she came across Ogilvy and decided to join their creative internship programme The Pipe. Three years later, she still works at Ogilvy and values the opportunities she has had, including time spent volunteering with Many Ogilvy Hands in Nepal last year.
Her work on the Sugar Smart World Campaign for Change4Life, a public health programme in the UK saw her team tasked with teaching children about the hidden sugar in their breakfast cereals, yoghurts, fizzy drinks and puddings. They created a visually-stimulating world with imaginary lands to represent different food types: Breakfast Town, Yoghurt Peak, Gulp City and Pudding Farm. Each town was overrun by Sugar Cube Invaders and shared with 4 million school children in the UK to help them learn how much sugar is in their everyday food.
Mauricio Dias, Creative Copywriter, AKQA São Paulo
Mauricio worked for agencies in three other Brazilian cities before joining AKQA São Paulo. In his current role, it is the opportunity to work with global clients and deliver high-quality creative work that most excites him.
His recent work to create The Offside Museum for Google has been a particular highlight: between 1921 – 1979, women’s football was banned at varying times in many countries around the world. Via offsidemuseum.com, members of the public are invited to help fill in gaps in the history of the game.
John Mars, Senior Creative Technologist, Deeplocal
It was while studying architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design that John first became interested in the intermingling of design and technology and learnt how to develop software and code. Completing a Masters of Tangible Interaction Design before working for Disney’s Imagineering research arm, John joined Deeplocal where he has the freedom to develop cutting-edge technology without compromise.
His recent project for Google Cloud was to create a range of interactive experiences for their new Cloud Space in California. The goal was to bring the often ephemeral and overly technical aspects of cloud computing down to a more tangible level, to make cloud software more easily understandable to non-technical audiences.
This resulted in a model data centre filled with virtual reality, moving lights, anamorphic perspective furniture and a giant wall-sized display of characters that interacted with visitors.
Katherina Tudball, Creative Director, Superunion UK
One of the proudest achievements of Kath’s creative career has been working on BBC Two’s recent rebrand. The project took home a Silver award at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and was created in close collaboration with the BBC Creative and a dozen renowned digital artists and animators from around the world. Over 30 mood animations were created, employing various animation techniques including stop frame, live action and CGI.
On the relationship between creativity and technology, Kath feels that technology is providing unprecedented opportunities for people from all over the world to connect, collaborate and explore ideas. However, while augmented by new technologies, creativity will continue to be about the power of ideas, craft and emotional connection.
David Yulo, Creative Director, Wavemaker Philippines
It took David several years of exploration before landing upon a creative path. After graduating from a management course, he took a gap year during which he tried tutoring, working as a Starbucks Barista and studying Spanish in Salamanca.
He is now thriving in his Creative Director role at Wavemaker. Being part of the WPP network has led to him recently being sent to Poland to learn from their content team, and visiting Wavemaker in Bangkok to share insights on how best to develop content-led campaigns.
In terms of technology, David is excited about the potential of AI and believes it is important to stay up-to-date with changes being made to Facebook, YouTube and Instagram because in the Philippines all news, entertainment and shopping revolves around these platforms.
Dipa Thanki, Senior Designer, Wunderman Thompson UK
Dipa started as an eCommerce re-toucher for the fashion retailer ASOS before moving on to art direction and digital redesign for fashion and cosmetics brands.
However, she credits her current stint working for Wunderman Thompson UK as supercharging her career, providing her with the opportunity to build her personal brand as a designer, as well as her design experience.
She is proudest of her work on a campaign for International Women’s Day called Fund Female. For one week, staff at Wunderman Thompson were challenged to only spend money at female owned businesses. Dipa worked on a brand, website and detailed directory to bring the campaign to life.
Hiroyuki Furuta, Art Director, Geometry Japan
Since graduating from vocational art college in Japan in 2010, Hiroyuki progressed quickly as a creative.
He is proudest of his recent work to announce the launch date for the third series of Netflix programme Stranger Things.
The first three days of January, often called “San Ga Nichi” are considered the most important holidays for the Japanese. Japanese new year’s greeting postcards called Nengajo are delivered during the new year period and reading Nengajo is one of the most important events during San Ga Nichi.
With this tradition in mind, it was decided that the release date for Stranger Things 3 be during the new year period. To convey the beauty of Japanese culture, Sakasafuji (Upside Down Fuji) the reflection of Mount Fuji on the lake was pictured on Nengajo postcards.
Orsi Szladovics, Associate Creative Director, Wavemaker Hungary
Orsi has always loved telling stories which is why after a number of copywriting jobs in other companies, she is happy to have found Wavemaker. She likes how the team thinks up a good campaign – by finding stories that are relevant and interesting to people, rather than focusing just on the brand messages that need to be conveyed. To achieve this, the creative and technology teams work closely together.
She joined in January of this year and has already worked on a campaign that won two Cannes Lions in 2019. The Open Shelves campaign for the Writers’ shop helped a small independent bookshop in Budapest boost online sales by 910%, compared to the same period in 2018.
Jack Smyth, Global Strategy Partner, Mindshare
Jack recently moved with Mindshare from Australia to the UK, but his career took an even greater turn earlier on when his love of social media led him to leave his job as a lawyer for a career in media strategy.
Technology has continued to be an area of focus and he cites his work for Fox Sports in Australia as a recent campaign he is particularly proud of.
For the campaign, the Mindshare team trained a machine-learning model to predict when wickets would fall five minutes before it happened on the pitch. This model was then connected to cutting-edge AI technology to create wicket warnings in live media, ensuring millions of fans never missed the moments that mattered in every game.
Vladimir Zikmund, Senior Digital Creative, VMLY&R Prague
Vladimir joined VMLY&R last year and has since had the opportunity to represent the agency in the Cannes Young Lions competition after working on a campaign that was put forward for an award at Cannes 2019.
The campaign he is proudest of to-date was for beer brand Pilsner Urquell. For the first time, the brand was the official beer of the Czech Republic’s most well-known film festival.
The team realised that as an iconic Czech brand, Pilsner Urquell had appeared in both classic and newer films. The team identified these iconic scenes and recreated them in adverts, using the strapline “First time being part of KVIFF (Karlovy Vary International Film Festival), but always part of great movies”.
