London-based integrated marketing agency LIFE has signed agency veteran Maurice Van De Ven as its new executive creative director.
We last heard from Van De Ven in 2013, when WPP’s media agency MEC hired him to serve as its first-ever ECD, during which time he helped start the shop’s first “conceptual ideas division.” After leaving that position, he worked on content for Danish broadcaster VPRO, an interesting change from his agency background.
Most of that background involves creative roles at agencies: Van De Ven was head of branded content at Amsterdam’s KesselsKramer, creative director at Mother London (where he worked on campaigns for Greenpeace and many others) and, most prominently, global creative director at StrawberryFrog in Amsterdam, where he handled the Pampers account.
On his new position, from the release:
“Van De Ven will provide leadership and take responsibility for the creative direction of all agency accounts as LIFE launches ‘Create Consequence’ – the agency’s new point of view.”
What does this mean? The agency will now be placing strategic and creative leadership “at the top of the agenda with its decision making judged by the brand’s P&L.”
In the new role, Van De Ven will report to LIFE managing directors David Poole and Ian Humphris, the latter of whom says:
“We’re building a creative power house and are attracting clients who want more strategic creative work. We want our work to count and we want to work with clients that give a shit–not all do.”
While LIFE is officially an “integrated marketing agency,” it has produced ads for such clients as Chicago Town Pizza and other fast-moving consumer goods brands.