The Hallway hires former Host digital planning director Pascal Winkler for head of connect role

Independent Sydney agency The Hallway has hired one of Australia’s most respected strategy directors to lead its new Connect offering.

Pascal Winkler joins in a newly created role of head of connect, after six years at Host as

digital planning director, where he helped the agency deliver award-winning work for Air New Zealand, Levi’s and Coca Cola.

The appointment underpins The Hallway’s restructure to a more powerful yet simplified operating model: Create & Connect. The Create offering, led by ECD and Partner Simon Lee, will continue to focus on creating affective ideas across all channels. The Connect team is now able to deliver these solutions in more targeted, measurable and efficient ways.

As head of connect, Winkler will lead communications strategy and Social, PR, Programmatic Media and Search across The Hallway’s client base which includes Google, Disney, UNSW, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Mutti and NSW Government.

Winkler used to work with The Hallway’s entrepreneurial CEO, Jules Hall, at NetX, and the two are excited to be pairing up once again.

Says Winkler: “I see independent agencies move a lot faster in adapting to the way marketing is changing, and I have always admired how The Hallway has remained nimble and disruptive, constantly refining and evolving their approach to advertising and communications. I wanted to join an entrepreneurial team who truly are ‘right brain analytical’ and easily combine award-winning creativity with effective analytical marketing.”

Adds Hall: “Pascal is an awesomely talented strategist, a lovely human, and I’m really happy to be working with him again.”

Hall says the new model cements the agency’s approach to communications, rather than reinventing it. “Increasingly data is the springboard for creativity and we have always believed the real power is in elegantly combining the two without sacrificing quality. The real benefits of the Connect approach is our ability to deliver data-driven creative solutions faster, combined with the ability to optimise our work based on real-time insights.”

The Hallway has long housed PR and Social inhouse, is a Google Certified Partner, and with Winkler at the helm, the agency has expanded its reach into Programmatic Media.

Winkler has recently been speaking at a number of conferences on why The Hallway see the increasingly programmatic nature of media as a massive creative opportunity.

“The creative canvas has got bigger and more complex,” say Winkler, “which probably is still a bit daunting for many creatives. But to us, this bigger canvas is clearly a chance to expand a narrative across executions and media, as well as a way to better control what story the consumer is being told. If you understand and embrace the technology, you’ll create much better, richer work.”

The agency has been exploring the potential of blending creativity with data and dynamic delivery over the past few years. In 2015 ADMA awarded The Hallway the AC&E Grand Prix and the Pinnacle Award for Innovation for their work on Google Search.