Verizon Hires Apple’s Andrew McKechnie as CCO of Its New In-House Agency

By Erik Oster 

Verizon hired Andrew McKechnie as chief creative officer of its newly-formed in-house agency, effective immediately.

McKechnie will be tasked with creative leadership of the agency, with the goal of building its capabilities and bringing Verizon’s brand vision to life while reporting to Verizon chief marketing officer Diego Scotti.

“As we expand our bench of world-class marketing talent, we are thrilled for Andrew to bring his global expertise and fresh aesthetic to the Verizon brand, ” Scotti said in a statement. “Andrew and his team will help to drive demand for our products and services, as well as accelerate our efficiencies, speed to market and innovation.”

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McKechnie joins Verizon from Apple, where he served as global group creative director since March of 2014 (right around the time that the tech giant began moving work away from Media Arts Lab).

Before heading to Cupertino, he spent a year as group creative director on Reebok for DDB New York, where he also served as executive leader on the agency’s innovative talent development program, LaunchPad. He also served as global creative lead on LG Electronics and ECD on Land Rover North America at Y&R New York after launching his career in and creative lead on United States Olympic Committee.

The big question, really, is whether Verizon (which works with as many as 40 agencies at any given time) will take the Sprint route and do all production work internally as a cost-saving measure, eventually trimming its agency roster in the process. We all know what happened to Deutsch.

But McKechnie told us today that it’s too early to make such a call and that CMO Diego Scotti is dedicated to facilitating collaboration between all of Verizon’s agency partners—including its in-house unit.

For now, he’s focused on hiring new talent to expand his team based at Verizon headquarters in downtown Manhattan. In case you’re looking for work…

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