��������pk10

Wunderman Thompson has poached Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s Tom Drew to be its executive creative director. 

Drew will join in March and report to Steve Aldridge, UK chief creative officer. He will oversee Wunderman Thompson’s creative output across clients such as HSBC, Duracell, Ribena and KitKat. 

The WPP agency – formed from the merger of J Walter Thompson and Wunderman in 2018 – has been without an ECD since September 2019, when Lucas Peon, who had held the role since 2017, left for The Gate.

Aldridge, former co-founder of Partners Andrews Aldridge, has served as CCO since March 2019.

Drew has worked at BBH for 10 years as a creative director on Audi, Virgin Media and Tesco. His work on the latter helped drive a 36% increase in the supermarket’s share price and significant improvements in its brand perception in 2019, and was also recognised when BBH and Tesco won the IPA Effectiveness Grand Prix last year.

Drew said: “I was drawn to Wunderman Thompson by Steve. He's a legend. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to work with him to reshape the agency to its full creative potential; Wunderman Thompson has all the tools to make its amazing brands even bigger and better.

“It’s the end of an era but the start of something really pretty special.”

This is Wunderman Thompson’s latest leadership change since October, when the agency hired Sid McGrath, former chief strategy officer at Karmarama, in the same role. 

Aldridge added: “Tom’s a huge talent and his work speaks for itself. You can see the impact his ability, leadership and unique vision has had on some of the UK’s biggest brands. Tom will help us deliver another step-change in our creative development, unlock new opportunities with our clients, win new business and bring in the best creative talent.”

On Friday (22 January), Wunderman Thompson picked up the 2020 DMA Awards Grand Prix for its “Unscripted” campaign for BT Sport.