Technicolor has hired David Patton, former global president of Y&R, as global president, customer experience and advertising.
The French company, which was previously known as Thomson, acquired MPC in 2004 and The Mill in 2015. Advertising and film production services accounted for a fifth of Technicolor's €4bn (£3.4bn) revenues last year, with the remainder coming from DVD and connected home services.
Patton will join Technicolor’s executive committee and report to Tim Sarnoff, deputy chief executive and president of Technicolor's production services division. He started in the role today and his WPP contract expired on 31 March.
The appointment will help Technicolor take advantage of the new technologies changing the advertising and customer experience world, according to chief executive Frederic Rose.
Patton spent more than 10 years at WPP, taking up his most recent role of global president of Y&R in October 2016. The role disappeared as part of the merger of Y&R and VML in September last year, with VML global president Eric Campbell becoming president at VMLY&R.
Before Y&R, Patton spent six years as EMEA chief executive and president at Grey, following three years in charge of its London office. He moved agency side in 2007 after 15 years in marketing, including a stint at Sony, where he was celebrated for commissioning Fallon’s award-winning "Balls" ad.
Patton said: "The whole creative industry is going through massive transformation creating new-business opportunities and championing new collaborative ways of working – all this fuelling increased demand for compelling customer engagements through deeper and more meaningful creative experiences increasingly driven by technology.
"With deep expertise across VFX, UX, animation, mixed reality, gaming, live events and retail experience, Technicolor is uniquely placed to deliver seamlessly integrated world-class creativity to all its partners."
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