Brian Merrifield joins Ogilvy & Mather Sydney

April 9 2010, 5:27 pm | BY Kim Shaw | 16 Comments

brian_Merrifield.jpegFormer Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney CD of digital Brian Merrifieldhas joined Ogilvy & Mather Sydney’s digital department, reporting todigital creative director Chris James.

His title is still to be confirmed, buthe is teaming with former BMF digital strategist Damian Damjanovski who has also joinedthe agency.

In the Campaign Brief 2009 Creative Rankings, James and Merrifield were the toptwo interactive creative directors. They first met five years ago judging AWARDand James says Merrifield is the right cultural fit for what is animportant strategic hire for the agency.

Sixty per cent of Merrifield’s timewill be spent working on proactive briefs and 40 per cent on existing clientbriefs.

Says James: “I’d like to thinkthat projects such as Fiat EcoDrive and Nike+ are within the grasp ofthe Australian market, we just have to be able to spot theopportunities within our clients business’ and think about themdifferently. I’m pretty excited about working with Brian, I’ve known him for quitea while and we have similar creative values. I know his passion andexperience in delivering great creative ideas will be a massive assetto us moving forward.”

Merrifield joined Saatchi & Saatchi in March 1998 in the Wellingtonoffice’s newly formed digital team as a lead designer, having graduated fromWanganui School of Design. Working his way through theranks he become art director and was a pivotal member of the creative departmentthat saw Saatchi Digital win its first Cannes gold working on the adidas ‘BeatRugby’ campaign. He then helped the Wellington team create the adidas World Cup2002/2003 online campaign, also a success at Cannes.

The office was restructured when clients shifted their core operationsto Auckland and Merrifield became senior creative for interactive and helpedgrow the core team of five into a team of 28 over the next two years. After thesuccess of the Rubbish Film Festival at Cannes, Tom Eslinger was appointedglobal digital creative director and Merrifield took on more responsibilitylocally. Then, with the then-ECD Mike O’Sullivan, he helped shape theintegration of the digital offering into the mainstream agency.

In May 2007 Merrifield moved to Saatchi & Saatchi Sydney to be CD ofDigital where he produced work including the UN Voices campaign, which won a Bronze Lion at Cannes, a pencil at The One Show and a nomination at D&AD. Aftertaking off three months to travel, get engaged and de-stress, Merrifieldstarted contracting as a specialist digital creative at the Three Drunk Monkeyson clients including Telstra, Foxtel, Austar, BBC, Yahoo7!, Ubank and VAustralia.