Digital agency Lavender has made two senior hires, appointing M&C Saatchi's Richard Smith as digital creative director and 303Lowe's Brian Dargan as head of strategy.
Smith joins this week and hails from M&C Saatchi, where he spent three years heading up digital design at the company's production arm, Make. In his new role, Smith will work with Lavender executive creative director Marco Eychenne across all of Lavender's accounts including St. George Bank, Telstra, American Express, NBN Co and Le Coq Sportif.
Smith previously worked on the launch of Commonwealth Bank's cardless cash campaign, 'Where's my Wallet' and other CommBank campaigns. Prior to his work at M&C Saatchi, Smith worked at WiTH collective and BMF.
At Lavender, Dargan will head up the digital, 1:1, data and social strategy in his new role.
He was formerly head of digital at 303Lowe and has held a previous role as strategy director at The White Agency.
Dargan, who has experience in architecture, has also worked as strategy director at JWT's digital arm in Singapore, XM, head of planning at Digitas London and managing partner and planning director of Draftfcb London.
“I love Brian's passion. More, I love that he was an architect before he got into digital; that background means he builds what he dreams,” Lavender founder Will Lavender said.
“Brian's exhilarating mind will challenge and extend us.”
Smith said he is proud of the time he had at M&C Saatchi and that he joined Lavender for the chance to work directly with Eychenne and Lavender. “This was too good an opportunity to pass on,” he added.
“The company's blend of intelligent creative, data and technology are perfectly placed to embrace the new challenges for advertising and innovation ahead.”
Today's appointments follow news that M&C Saatchi had poached Lavender's Victoria Currio for its customer engagement business Lida.
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