Gyro London’s Danish Chan returns to Australia to join McCann Australia as senior planner

McCann Australia has boosted its planning department with the appointment of ex-Gyro London senior planner Danish Chan (left) in a senior planner role, based in Melbourne.

Chan returns to Australia after four years in London, where he worked on L’Oreal and Virgin Atlantic. He will work across clients nationally in keeping with McCann’s national agency structure.

Says Karl Bates, national planning director at McCann: “Planning is on fire at McCann Australia. The expansion of our planning team is a direct result of McCann’s growing strategic engagement across all our clients’ business as well as an increase in brand strategy projects.

“However, in looking to strengthen our team – now and in the future – we don’t want just any planner. Their skills and experience have to reflect the way our world now works, which is why integrated is the way to go.

“Danish is a true integrated planner. The planner of tomorrow needs to be an expert in digital communications as much as an expert in brand planning – in Danish we’ve found the perfect combination of digital and comms expert. He makes a great addition to the team and will play an invaluable role in McCann’s ongoing mission to lead the strategic planning discipline to a new level.”

At Gyro, Chan led the relaunch of L’Oreal’s loyalty program, including a social media launch campaign with a truly integrated digital campaign connecting Facebook, traditional CRM activity and the latest in digital creative solutions to increase share of basket.

Prior to his spell at Gyro, Chan worked at Quantum Melbourne, the research and planning arm of Clemenger BBDO.