- Brian Morrissey

Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners is promoting Darren Herman to the newly created position of chief digital media officer.
 
Herman, 27, has held dual roles as head of digital media at The Media Kitchen and president of Varick Media Management, a demand-side platform he started 15 months ago. With his new role, Herman will give up operational duties at Varick, which is the MDC Partners play in buying ads across new real-time bidding exchanges.
 
"KBS+P is known for its big, sexy branding clients," Herman said. "We're moving into a world that's in branded response. We can take big budgets for brands and show them their media dollars are working for them."
 
In his new role, Herman will be in charge of digital media planning, buying, analytics and reporting. He reports to Barry Lowenthal, president of The Media Kitchen.
 
"It's a really important role because it's a visionary role," he said. "It's not a tactical media planning and buying job. It's the kid of job that helps us decide what's important to the agency and its clients."
 
The Media Kitchen handles digital media for clients like Starz, Vanguard, Armani Exchange and Vespa.
 
Herman will remain on the board of Varick and continue to be involved as it searches for a new top executive.
 
He credited Lori Senecal, who joined KBS+P as a partner and CEO last August, with pushing the agency to embrace the Web. In another notable personnel move, KBS+P brought in Razorfish ecd Marc Lucas as its new chief creative officer.
 
"Lori is trying to push digital, digital, digital at the agency," he said. "Digital is not the afterthought, it's part of every plan we're putting together."