TBWA\Worldwide has appointed Ben Williams global chief creative experience officer. Williams joins from R/GA, where he was responsible for driving the creative output for advertising, digital product, service, and experience initiatives.
“The industry has become preoccupied with capturing demand, separating brand and business, and creating experiences rooted in ‘best practice’ that are contributing to a sea of sameness. Disruption is more ambitious, unlocking opportunities for brands to develop transformative platforms that can influence every part of their company,” said Troy Ruhanen, CEO, TBWA\Worldwide.
“One of the reasons why we’ve been named one of the world’s most innovative companies three years in a row is that we continually evolve our talent. And so when seeking our next global creative leader, we wanted to find someone who understood the power of Disruption and would see its potential in the context of our ever-expanding creative canvas, separating our clients from the conventions of their categories and placing them in a category of one.”
Williams will lead TBWA’s global creative core, a group of CCOs from the collective’s top agencies, which includes Chief Innovation Officer Luke Eid, Chief Strategy Officer Agathe Guerrier, Global Creative Chair John Hunt and others. He will begin in January 2022, initially based in New York, with a move to Los Angeles later in the year.
Earlier this year, TBWA evolved its Disruption methodology to multiply its impact, both upstream on clients’ businesses and downstream on all brand experiences in an upgrade called DisruptionX.
Williams will partner with TBWA’s creative leaders around the world to set the vision for how Disruption is creatively expressed across every touchpoint of a brand, ranging from advertising to events, interactive commerce platforms to product design, and physical stores to services. He’ll also explore and build experiences across the 25 emerging spaces identified within TBWA’s global innovation platform NEXT.
“The Disruption Company rang true to me as a creative. I believe creativity has the power to solve business and human challenges in today’s world—not just marketing or communication problems—and yet few recognize its full potential,” said Williams.
“Throughout my career, I’ve worked to disrupt the expected, the status quo, and do that through design, technology, experience, commerce and advertising. To be able to do those things within a company that sees Disruption as the antidote to incrementalism is exciting. We share a vision for the future of creativity and the scale and measurable impact our work can have in the world. I can’t wait to get started.”
