CAREERS: Keeble joins Lowe in regional CD role

<p>Lowe Lintas & Partners has appointed Giles Keeble as regional </p><p>creative director. Keeble will bring to the job 25 years of experience </p><p>in the London ad industry, most recently at Publicis and Abbott Mead </p><p>Vickers BBDO. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>In his newly-created position at Lowe's, he will lead Hong Kong, </p><p>mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand creativity, </p><p>reporting to the agency's regional president Ian Creasey and regional </p><p>chief executive Ronald Yue. In the short-term, his focus will be on the </p><p>agency's newly-acquired HSBC account. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>Before joining Lowe's, Keeble worked for Publicis for just over two </p><p>years, helping set up its Publicis Technology new-media division, now </p><p>known as Publicis Networks, and eventually becoming creative director of </p><p>its direct marketing and contract publishing arms as well. His previous </p><p>job was at AMV BBDO's cross-platform design and advertising group Open. </p><p>Before that he was executive creative director of Leo Burnett London and </p><p>creative and board director at WCRS, after starting his career in </p><p>advertising as a planner. Keeble said that his mission has been to try </p><p>to build "the agency of the future", a company that comes up with the </p><p>best communications solution for clients, without trying to push them </p><p>down a particular route. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"I'm interested to see if there's a way for creative people, in the </p><p>broadest sense, to come up with creative solutions regardless of media," </p><p>he commented. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"An agency should have the integrity to say that the solution may not be </p><p>advertising, and the client should have the integrity to pay for that </p><p>advice. There's no client that wouldn't benefit from open creative </p><p>thinking. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>One of the functions of the agency of the future should be to ask 'what </p><p>if' questions." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>He's scornful of most agency attempts at integration, however: "You need </p><p>to start with integrated thinking, but that might not come up with an </p><p>integrated solution. It's not about making everything the same - that </p><p>way lies the path of making the print ad a still from the TV </p><p>campaign. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>If you try and force it, it doesn't happen. </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>"The place where people already think in an integrated way is in </p><p>pitches. People need to keep on thinking as if they're in a pitch. It </p><p>often doesn't happen, because the budget doesn't work that way, and </p><p>because that way doesn't necessarly lie the awards that make a </p><p>difference to your career." </p><p><BR><BR> </p><p>It won't all be reinventing the way agencies work, however. "There's a </p><p>job to be done doing some good advertising," said Keeble. "A big </p><p>institution like HSBC needs consistency of thinking about what the brand </p><p>stands for." </p><p><BR><BR> </p>