VML

Walter T. Geer III, Chief Creative Officer of Innovation for North America at VML, departed after six years. Geer led a team of nearly 20 people across New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Departure effective immediately and unrelated to WPP restructuring.

Leadership read: A change at the top rarely stays at the top. VML's move reshapes the layer beneath it in Media as a new leader sets priorities and the team re-forms. Watch the first two or three appointments that follow; they signal direction more reliably than any statement.

curated · 2026-08-06 · context →

VML won Agency Network of the Year at the New York Festivals Advertising Awards, signaling strong market positioning and creative excellence

Leadership read: Alliances broaden the commercial surface, and the leadership need follows. VML's partnership in Media widens demand for commercial and alliance leaders who turn an agreement into realised value. Across Americas, watch whether dedicated senior ownership is put on it; unowned alliances quietly lapse.

curated · 2026-06-18 · context →

VML appointed Mark Verhagen as Group Executive Creative Director for Brisbane and Perth offices. Verhagen joins from VML Indonesia where he served as ECD and helped elevate the office into one of Indonesia's most awarded creative agencies.

Leadership read: The move commits VML to a unified creative leadership structure across two geographically separate Australian markets, Brisbane and Perth, that have historically operated as distinct cost centres rather than a coordinated creative unit. Pulling Verhagen from VML Indonesia, where the brief was award trajectory and regional profile, signals that the ambition for these offices is similar: lift competitive standing in markets that are easy to underinvest in from a Sydney or Melbourne headquarters. The internal transfer also compresses onboarding risk while preserving network IP and relationships, a deliberate structure, not a default. The related signals are thin on direct creative-industry comparables; of the twelve strategic hires tracked in the last 90 days, the most relevant are Showpony Hobart's senior producer appointment and Smith & Western's sonic branding consultant hire, both pointing to boutique and mid-market creative agencies investing in specialist craft leadership in non-primary markets. That's a pattern worth noting: creative investment is not concentrating exclusively in tier-one cities. VML's move sits inside that same current. Across agencies activating leadership in secondary and tertiary markets, the functional demand pattern runs toward creative operators who can also carry commercial accountability, building client relationships and new business pipelines without the proximity advantages of a capital-city hub. The market is moving toward operators who can manage creative output and revenue growth in the same role, without a dedicated commercial layer beneath them.

curated · 2026-06-17 · context →

VML created new hero campaign for Colgate's extended AFL partnership featuring Carlton captain Patrick Cripps

Leadership read: VML's role here isn't simply executing a creative brief; it is anchoring a rights extension for Colgate across one of Australia's highest-reach domestic sports properties. That means the agency has moved from campaign production into partnership stewardship: managing a live sports rights relationship, talent integration with an active AFL captain, and the brand-health narrative that holds an "Official Smile Partner" designation credible over multiple seasons. That is a different commercial and strategic obligation than a standalone campaign assignment. The related-signals set across the last 90 days shows partnership activity concentrated at two poles: infrastructure and capital-intensive joint ventures (Orange-Morrison's €3bn data-centre JV, REalloys-JS Link) and brand-to-talent or brand-to-property deals (Specsavers insuring Beau Greaves' eyes for £1m, Reebok signing Karol G, WMT Digital and Taymar embedding into university athletics programmes). VML's Colgate-AFL work sits squarely in the second cluster, agencies and brands increasingly treating sports and athlete partnerships as long-duration platforms rather than campaign vehicles, with renewal and extension as the measure of success rather than reach metrics alone. Across agencies and brands operating in this corridor, the pattern surfaces rising demand for commercial leadership at the intersection of sports rights, talent management, and health-category brand strategy, operators who can manage renewal cycles, hold talent relationships across competitive windows, and translate sponsorship assets into measurable category authority rather than awareness alone.

curated · 2026-04-22 · context →