Member Article

VaynerMedia London Appoints Allan Blair as Head of Strategy

VaynerMedia London has today announced the appointment of Allan Blair as the agency’s new Head of Strategy. Coming from Engine Creative London where he spent 4 years as Head of Strategy, Blair is set to join the agency on 21st February reporting directly to Managing Director Sarah Baumann. Blair is the second senior hire to have come from Engine in the past few months, with the appointment of Daisy Domenghini as Head of Client partnerships in October, who was previously Global Client MD at Engine Creative.

Blair has 20 years’ experience working across the marketing and communications sector in PR, brand communications and digital. Cutting his teeth client side before moving over to the agency world, Blair has led strategy at some of London’s leading agencies including at DDB, Tribal Worldwide and J. Walter Thompson.

During his agency career, Blair has been responsible for leading award-winning campaigns for brand partners including Volkswagen, adidas, Guinness, Marmite, E.ON and Jägermeister, with awards including D&AD, Live, Creative Circle, One Show and The Drum Content Awards. He is also a member of the BIMA Human Insights Council.

With deep experience in social media – and as a MySpace alumni – Blair has a flair for innovation, recently setting up the “NGN Lab”, Engine’s most successful and fastest growing business within the agency.

“Allan thinks about building brands in the same way as we do and has stood out throughout his whole career as someone who not only gets the modern marketing landscape, but has jumped in to help his clients, agencies and teams create it. I’m so excited about Allan helping create the next chapter of VaynerMedia’s growth and success - not least because he values people first and foremost”, says VaynerMedia London Managing Director, Sarah Baumann.

“Having the opportunity to join Vayner is incredibly exciting as they are a true challenger brand. In a sea of staid and dusty agencies, they are one of the progressive few who are leaning into the evolving creative and media landscape to meet the real needs of clients. They are growing fast and have huge creative ambition but, most importantly, everyone I met as part of the process was warm, open and a genuinely nice person. I can’t wait to get started” says Blair.

Blair will oversee the agency’s core accounts which include Durex, Tinder, TikTok, KraftHeinz and Natwest, replacing Dubose Cole who is moving back to the US having been in the role for the past five years.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Business News .