OMD’s Paddy Crawshaw departs for startup agency

Paddy Crawshaw has left Omnicom Media Group after 17 years to join Singapore creative startup Kin&Tsugi.

Crawshaw has held multiple roles within OMG in London, Shanghai and Singapore, most recently as APAC head of strategy at media agency OMD.

He will join Kin&Tsugi as chief product officer. Founded in 2017 by creative director Hannah Middleton, Kin&Tsugi is a hybrid brand consultancy and creative studio that specialises in creative ideation, brand strategy, corporate communications, design and employee development.

Kin&Tsugi is derived from the Japanese term for ‘golden joinery’, an artform whereby broken pottery is repaired and enhanced with powdered gold, silver or platinum.

“It reflected how we were talking about the agency model,” Crawshaw told Campaign Asia-Pacific. “I got fed up over the years with endless articles talking about how everything is dead, the agency models are broken and so on.

"In the end we want people to fall in love with advertising again. Yes it has got flaws, but we are about gilding those flaws, making things better and simpler for our clients.”

Kin&Tsugi is pitching to clients within industries that are undergoing cultural or digital transformation, such as media, insurance, tech and healthcare.

Crawshaw said he was “excited” to be in a new working environment, after nearly two decades inside an agency holding group.

“Being in a new environment has made me appreciate how many entrepreneurial people there are out in Singapore,” he said.

The agency operates a freelance network called Kin, comprised of specialists across a variety of fields including graphic design, data science, search, media planning and photography.

The network is currently mostly based in Singapore and London, but the ambition is to uncover talent in up-and-coming locations such as Portugal and Vietnam.

Crawshaw’s appointment brings the full-time headcount to four. The agency is preparing to hire a variety of roles including marketing leads, in-house designers and planners over the next few months.

Crawshaw’s departure from OMD follows the recent resignation of China chief executive Aaron Wild.