Creative impact is what brands are looking to achieve in the market today to grab customers’ attention. And that’s just what Lincoln Bjorkman intends to deliver as the new global chief creative officer of Wunderman, beginning today. “I’m looking forward to working across Wunderman on global creative initiatives that will not only raise the bar, but deliver creative impact in the marketplace,” he said in a statement.
As global chief creative officer, Bjorkman will develop and convey Wunderman’s overarching global creative strategy. Additionally, he’ll design and manage the creative process across the agency’s 60-country global network, comprising more than 170 offices.
Bjorkman, named last year as one of the “25 Most Creative People in Advertising” by Business Insider, will report to Wunderman Chairman and CEO Daniel Morel. According to Morel, Bjorkman understands that the true value of engaging creative content is its ability to create connections with customers, and “that brands are increasingly turning to data and digital to dramatically improve their bottom-line results.” This is essential, Morel said during a call this morning with Direct Marketing News, because Wunderman “has been growing on the back of using data—tripling in size over the past eight years.”
“People produce content—call it what you want: a deal with ESPN, marketing communications, TV spots, etc.—you can do it and put it out there more and more using digital, mobile, etc., because it’s cheap and you can send tons of email and banners in a shotgun approach and maybe something will hit,” Morel added. “If you do it more intelligently, if you use context—that is, knowledge of the customer, of behaviors and transactions, of emotions—then you can craft a message for that person; you can know a person is of a certain age and is traveling in a certain city and the weather there is warn, and suddenly magic happens. Then content gets its full value because it has context. So when embarking on hiring top creative talent, we’re keep in mind that content with context is critical.”
Morel said his appointment of Bjorkman highlights the agency’s dedication to responding to market changes while maintaining creative leadership. “Tapping into a creative who is well versed in the world of television and pixel-rich content is critical to developing engrossing digital pieces,” Morel said in a statement, noting that engaging customers today through digital channels takes “rich, sophisticated, creative content that increasingly resembles TV.”
In addition to his role as global chief creative officer, Bjorkman is a member of the Wunderman Executive Board and will lead the agency’s Global Creative Council. Prior to joining Wunderman, Bjorkman served as EVP, chief creative director, North America, for DigitasLBi, running its six North American offices, as well as overseeing the America Express account—one of the agency’s largest. Along with having received creative numerous awards over the course of his career, he shares a U.S. Patent for digital work created on behalf of American Express. Earlier in his career, Bjorkman was executive creative director and Young & Rubicam, where he was a cofounder of Y&R’s Brand Buzz.
