Award-winning experiential marketing agency Sense has appointed Dan Parkinson as Planning Director to oversee the work and development of its growing London-based Planning Team.

Parkinson’s career in marketing spans 12 years, with the past eight spent focusing on brands and design. He joined Sense from Coley Porter Bell, where he worked across a number of national and international brands.

Heading up Sense’s planning team, Parkinson will work directly with client brands to gain a deep understanding of the challenges they face with the aim of formulating inspiring strategies that will deliver effective, engaging and exciting work.

Nick Adams, Founder and Managing Director of Sense, says: “We’re always looking to grow our skills base in both UK and US with the best possible talent and Dan will be a valuable addition. Planning is a cornerstone to our proposition and plays some part in every campaign we create. Dan will play a key role in developing our planning team and leading creative strategy. Experiential is growing in stature as a marketing discipline and attracting increasing investment and we’re delighted to have Dan on board to help us deliver more outstanding award-winning campaigns.”

Dan Parkinson comments: “So far in my career, I’ve enjoyed the privilege of working on the definition and expression of some of the world’s iconic brands. I’m now really looking forward to contributing to how those brands behave in the real world, which is what drew me to Sense. This a fantastic opportunity to shape strategy and develop the planning team at an independent agency that already has a great client base and an exciting portfolio of award-winning work. Ultimately, the more strategic we are as an agency, the stronger the partnership that we can build with our clients, and the better the campaigns. Getting to do work that starts real conversations with real people was the hook for me.”

With locations in London and New York, Sense is a brand experience agency specialising in real world thinking and ideas. Sense manages experiential marketing campaigns from strategy to evaluation for clients including The Economist, Coca-Cola, Activision, Mars, Canon, Molson Coors, and Mattel. It won the IPM Awards 2017 Grand Prix for its #H2O activation, part of its ‘Discomfort Future’ campaign on behalf of The Economist. This saw potential subscribers offered free coffee apparently made from recycled water from a portable toilet, to highlight the issue of water scarcity around the world. It won two Golds and was selected by the IPM awards judges as the best of the best.

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Stack has appointed James Champ to the role of planning director.

Champ joins Stack, part of the MSQ Partners group of agencies, to lead the agency’s planning department and to boost its strategic offer across all clients.

Previously planning director at Rapier, Champ was also the planning director at The Communications Agency and the head of planning at iris. At Stack he will join the senior management team led by the chief executive Ben Stephens.

Reporting to Stephens, Champ brings a wealth of client experience across categories including American Express, NatWest and First Direct in financial services, The Balvenie in alcoholic drinks, and Land Rover in automotive. His career highlights include winning the DMA Grand Prix for First Direct.

Champ’s appointment further strengthens the Stack team following the hiring in 2015 of Caroline Kimber, the data strategy director, and Robin Murray, the creative services director, both from VCCPme.

Ben Stephens said: ‘’James brings superb multi-disciplinary experience to Stack to meet the diverse needs of our growing client base. He also completes our senior hirings, having re-shaped the agency and the management team during 2015.”

Stack’s clients include Peugeot-Citroen and Beiersdorf. Recent account wins include Estee Lauder, Chiltern Railways, and Lotus Cars. The agency was formed by the merger of integrated agency Wax Communications and customer engagement agency CMW.

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Independent creative brand experience agency RPM has hired Jocelyn Turlan as Integrated Strategist and Gloria Cheng as Senior Shopper Strategist, both with immediate effect.

Turlan (right in picture) and Cheng will be working across RPM’s clients including Heineken, Virgin Holidays, Diageo and Sky.  Both will report to Head of Strategy John Viccars.

Turlan boasts a wealth of strategic knowledge from time at agencies including Proximity London where he worked on Bacardi digital and content strategy. Prior to this, he managed digital strategy at luxury agency BalistikArt for brands such as Guerlain, Dior, Technomarine, Le Ritz and Valentino. His experience across UK, Canada and France has furnished him with a deep global perspective, a strong digital background and a keen interest in brand strategy.

Specialising in shopper marketing and direct marketing, Cheng has worked on an array of brands throughout her 10 years in the industry including Heineken, Mondelez, Microsoft, Nestle, AB InBev, Pernod Ricard and RBS Business Banking. She has gained her specialist experience from agencies such as Wunderman, The Communications Agency and most recently i2c.

John Viccars, Head of Strategy at RPM, says: “Our strategic capability has really developed in recent years as we continue to build our owned behavioural insight tools and global research partnerships. These new hires demonstrate our ability as a team to transcend multiple contexts, as well as providing brand and commercial strategic intellect.”

RPM has had a very successful 2015, with significant revenue growth and new business account wins including Johnnie Walker, Berocca (Bayer), Hammer, Ikano Bank and Wahaca.

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