The new division will be led by Richard Johnstone, who joined last year as managing partner of content last year and reports to the agency’s chief executive Jon Sharpe.
Joining from Omnicom’s content agency Drum, where he worked as content strategist and editorial director for two years, Johnstone has worked with brands such as John Lewis, Rimmel Coty and Notonthehighstreet.com.
Johnstone has a background in magazines, having worked as publishing director at Marie Claire between 2006 and 2011 and starting his career in sales role for Emap at Bauer Media and Maxim at Dennis.
Clients at launch include the Premier League, Oxfam and Lombard Odier, which have tasked the division with creating targeted branded content across media owners such as Vice, the Financial Times, Facebook, Channel 4 and Hearst magazines.
To staff the new division, Y&R has also hired Jill Wanless, deputy editor of Hello! Fashion joins as editorial director; John Scott, former senior strategist at Drum, joins as strategy director; Gracie Page, a former Drum digital producer, joins as creative technologist and Sarah George, former marketing and partnerships manager at Harper Collins, joins as business and partnership manager.
Sharpe said: "Too often branded content is at best an afterthought or worst a guessing game. Y&R London is proud to have such a stellar line-up of talent that will bring credibility, expertise and insight into exploding the impact and relevance of our clients and campaigns to their target markets."
Y&R London rebranded from Rainey Kelly Campbell Roalfe/Y&R last month.
.jpg)
.jpeg)
