Two new faces at Touchcast: Clemenger Group digital agency Touchcast (offices in Auckland and Wellington) has appointed Conan O’Sullivan to its Auckland office in the newly created role of experience director.
O’Sullivan is a Kiwi who comes from a senior role at Google Creative Lab in London, and brings creative, design and experiential weight to the company’s Auckland office.
Along with Google Creative Lab, O’Sullivan has led multi-disciplined teams across creative, design and UX to work on global online education products and systems. At Google, he developed worldwide campaigns/activations for Google Science Fair, and innovative activations YouTube Space Lab and YouTube Your Film Festival.
“The role of experience director reflects the company’s pivot towards much broader connected experiences and compliments the skills and expertise already in place across UX, service design, technology and content,” said Touchcast MD Andrew Hawley.
Touchcast Auckland general manager Will Joyce said: “Conan will be ideally placed to bridge and help lead the diverse skillsets we have here, and be a great partner to our clients. From his broad global experience gained from Toaster in London, to his creative directorship at EF Labs in Shanghai, Conan’s experience will be a great addition to our growing Auckland office. ”
O’Sullivan’s appointment comes soon after the hire of Mark Coleman s as technical lead in Auckland “after an extensive search over the past six months”.
“Much like the experience director role, Touchcast’s technical lead is a crucial contributor in the development of human experiences,” Joyce said. “Mark himself is a unique character, able to navigate the intersection of humanity and the technology that permeates our everyday interactions.
“With a background in media communications and audio visual production, Mark has been working extensively on bespoke solutions over the past last 10 years, from architecture and development, to technical direction and strategy across a multitude of technology platforms and production methodologies.
“While a local, Mark has had extensive experience both here and in the UK, working on great brands such as Disney, Microsoft, Virgin Media, Westfield and BNZ to name a few. In joining Touchcast, he will lead an accomplished team further enhancing an already impressive DevOps infrastructure, and human experience skillset.”
Five redundancies: RAPP managing director Robert Limb has confirmed that five jobs – including CD Tim Wood – are to go in the creative department at the agency, following the loss of the Spark account.
Managing director Limb said Wood has been an integral team member, and he was sorry to see him go.
“RAPP is in good shape and buoyed by our recent win of Air New Zealand Airpoints,” Limb told M+AD.
“And I do expect to be hiring again in the next two months.”
MediaWorks head of marketing & publicity resigns: Amanda Wilson, who has worked at the company since the launch of C4 12 years ago, says her departure is not related to the raft of executive changes currently being engineered by Mark Weldon and Julie Christie.
“Ten years is long enough in one job,” she said. “It is time to seek something else.”
