ROWAN DEAN APPOINTED AS EURO RSCG’S NEW ECD

May 27 2006, 2:25 am | BY campaignbrief | 13 Comments

Brendan Tansey, CEO of Euro RSCG Australia, announced today the appointment of Rowan Dean to the position of Executive Creative Director.

Dean will be responsible for the creative leadership of Euro RSCG in Australia, taking over from Dale Rhodes, and will commence his new role on Monday, 29 May.

Euro’s search for their new ECD was quite different to most, beginning with a double page house ad aimed at not only recruiting for the position, but intended for clients too.

“As I said in the ad, we are not a traditional agency and we weren’t looking for a traditional creative. The appointment of Rowan is testament to that I believe,” says Tansey.

Born in Australia, Dean began his career in London in the 1980’s as a copywriter for Cherry Hedger Seymour where he created the multi-award winning campaign for the UK launch of Foster’s Lager. Featuring Paul Hogan, this campaign was hailed as the most successful alcohol launch in Britain.

During his time overseas Rowan won numerous awards including a Gold and Silver Lion, and Silver D&AD for his work on Hamlet Cigars and British Telecom. He also won a Silver D&AD for his copywriting on Shell.

In 1986 Dean switched from copywriting to directing and joined London production company Rose Hackney, as a Director. While there he won a Silver Lion for his German ‘Aids’ commercial.

Dean returned to Australia in 1988 and became a partner in production company, Ibbetson Cherry Dean. In 1995 he established his own production company, Rowan Dean Films, which apart from winning local and international awards on a wide range of brands for clients such as VB, Pizza Hut, Kellogg, Colgate and Mitsubishi, was also acknowledged as one of the most successful production companies in Australia.

From 2000 -2003 Rowan was Chairman of AWARD where, as well as refocusing the industry on the strength of ideas, he was responsible for initiating the AWARD-for-Clients programme; the first serious industry project aimed at determining and fostering the link between creativity and advertising effectiveness.

Dean is the only Australian director to win Silver at D&AD for copywriting, and also the only Australian copywriter to win Silver at Cannes for directing.

“The effectiveness of the creative idea across all facets of business is something I have always believed in. I am looking forward to working with Brendan Tansey because I believe that both he and I represent the full spectrum of integrated skills at the top level of the agency,” Rowan said.

Says Tansey: “Rowan is a huge talent but more importantly he cares about the same things we do – delivering great ideas for our clients and attracting the best talent to the agency. Our clients, and Euro will certainly benefit from the rich experience Rowan brings.”