Morris, an art director, and Sinclair, a copywriter, are the first hirings by Damon Collins and Tony Barry since their appointment as Lowe鈥檚 joint creative directors at the end of last year.
Their arrival is part of plans to bring extra resource and creative potency to the agency, which has been working to put itself back on course after last year鈥檚 departure of the 拢43 million Orange account and a substantial amount of Vauxhall business.
"This is a very important hiring for Tony and me because Ed and James are our replacements," Collins said. "When we became creative directors we took ourselves out of the equation. We鈥檙e still trying to produce ads but it鈥檚 hard."
Morris and Sinclair, best known for their 鈥渄ouble life鈥 Sony PlayStation commercial while at TBWA, surprised the industry when they parted company with TBWA in November just 18 months after rejoining the agency from BMP DDB.
The pair had a 鈥渞oaming鈥 role at TBWA, that enabled them to choose the accounts on which they wanted to work. But the arrangement is thought to have proved mutually unsatisfactory.
Collins said the pair would not be working in a similar way at Lowe but they would have input across a range of accounts. Their first brief is for a Diet Coke campaign.
"There aren鈥檛 that many star creatives who remain as hungry as placement teams 鈥 but that鈥檚 what Ed and James are," Collins added. "There are only a handful of people like them around."
The duo became partners in 1992 at the then Miller & Leeves WAHT. They later moved to Bainsfair Sharkey Trott, where they lived through three mergers 鈥 with BDDP, GGT and, finally, TBWA Simons Palmer.
Sinclair said: "Tony and Damon have brought a hungry hotshop mentality to a grown-up agency. It feels like the right place at the right time."
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