McCann snares ex-Wunderman’s Brent Clarke for managing director of MRM role to push new path for its data, CRM and digital technical capabilities

McCann Australia, the world’s most awarded creative agency of 2013, has now set an aggressive new path for its data, CRM and digital technical capability in 2014, poaching Wunderman national head of digital Brent Clarke for the role of managing director of MRM Australia.

Says Ben Lilley, McCann Worldgroup CEO: “Brent has a deep technical understanding of digital strategy, data and CRM and a strong track record in winning new business. In fact, having pitched against him numerous times at Wunderman – and lost – we realized our best option was to get Brent on our side of the table. He is a potent competitor and a data and digital supremo at the absolute top of his game.”

McCann Worldgroup relaunched MRM into Australia in 2012 and the specialist business has helped underpin the agency’s strong digital turnaround since, delivering a swathe of new digital wins and seeing McCann also become Australia’s most awarded digital agency in 2013. Clarke has now been brought in to spearhead the development of a deeper technical MRM offering across CRM, data, digital innovation and platform development in 2014.

Says Lilley: “It’s been an incredible year for McCann Australia. Over the past 12 months, we’ve added a raft of exciting new clients like Google, Bendigo Bank, Lion and some amazing government projects. We’ve also won more than 200 trophies for 15 different campaigns, across Metro Trains, Google, Specsavers, V/Line and the Government, as well as key recognition for our Australian work on global clients like Mastercard and L’Oreal. Our reinvigorated digital offering has been a huge part of this success. Going into 2014 we now need to deepen this offering. Data and CRM strategy are top of mind for virtually every one of our clients.”

Says Clarke: “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be joining McCann Worldgroup and the global MRM business. The creative and digital transformation of McCann over the past 2 years has been nothing short of remarkable. Now it’s my turn to help expand the breadth and depth of McCann’s digital, data, CRM and technical platform expertise through a more pure-play MRM Australia. The timing couldn’t be more perfect to join such a dynamic and rapidly growing business.”

Over his three years as national head of digital at Wunderman, Clarke has built an enviable reputation for his successes across Coca-Cola, Microsoft, YUM! Restaurants, Nokia, Nestle, Pernod Ricard, Ford, Schick and Pringles. Most notably, Clarke worked extensively on Coke’s Cannes Winning ‘Share a Coke’ Campaign (Summer 2011), and ‘Share a Song’ (2012). He also saw Wunderman appointed as one of only two ‘Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer’s’ in Australia in 2012, and retained the accreditation in 2013.