The media executive makeover of the leadership of McCann Worldgroup, the family of agencies that includes McCann Erickson, Universal McCann and MRM, continues with the hiring of Erik Jansen and Ed Castillo.
Castillo, 38, most recently was director of account planning at PHD in New York, and Jansen, 39, was a managing partner at Naked Communications in New York. At Worldgroup, each assumes the new position of integrated strategy director, reporting to chief integration architect Daryl Lee.
Once led by account guys like John Dooner and Eric Keshin, Worldgroup in the past year has been taken over by media honchos. In April 2010, Mediabrands CEO Nick Brien replaced Dooner as worldwide CEO, and one of Brien’s first big appointments was Lee, who had been head of global strategy at UM. Lee has now expanded his integration team to include Castillo and Jansen.
The new hires will work on global clients shared among several Worldgroup units, including Mastercard, Coca-Cola, American Airlines and ExxonMobil. (The latter is currently in review, with the oil giant looking to consolidate its global creative and media roster. Total revenue in play is estimated at $40 million.)
Worldgroup units share some 15 global clients, so more integrated strategy directors will be needed as Brien preaches a group approach to pitching and managing business. By year’s end, Lee expects to have at least 10 such strategists.
Lee defined the new role as creating strategy that “integrates across the whole consumer experience,” adding that the goal is to “integrate around a problem, not an execution.” Explaining the demand among clients for this approach, Lee said: “They’re engaging McCann Worldgroup. They all want more efficiency, more effectiveness.”
In building his team, Lee seeks executives who have worked at different types of agencies and represent a hybrid of account planner, media planner and communications channel planner. His first two hires certainly reflect that brief.
Castillo’s clients at PHD included HBO, Discovery Channel, TLC and Hyatt. Earlier in his career, he co-founded an agency called North and was director of account planning at R&R Partners, the agency known for its “What happens here, stays here” campaign for Las Vegas tourism.
At Naked, a communications planning specialist, Jansen’s clients included Johnson & Johnson, Kimberly-Clark and Coca-Cola. Prior agency experience also includes MPG and Messner Vetere Berger McNamee Schmetterer (now Euro RSCG).
