One of the main creative minds behind last year’s successful “M&M’s Find Red” campaign recently found something lucrative himself: a dotted line on a contract to become creative director at Draftfcb.
Rene Rouleau joined the Toronto office of the integrated marketing communications agency last week after being approached directly by its chief creative officer, Robin Heisey, a couple of months ago.
Most recently, Rouleau (pictured) was associate creative director at BBDO Proximity Canada.
Why the change? The elevated status to group creative director was, of course, one of the main factors, said Rouleau. The other big draw was his admiration of the existing group CDs at Draftfcb. Commenting on the agency’s creative roster of Jeff Hilts, Chris Taciuk, Joe Piccolo and Patrick Weir, Rouleau said he had consistently seen their names in industry awards books for more than 10 years and wanted to work with them.
His own work is no stranger to the pages of those books either. The “M&M’s Find Red” campaign, in which giant red M&M’s were hidden around Toronto in an attempt to ‘hack’ Google Maps’ Street View images, won plenty of trophies between the CMA Awards, Cannes Lions and Marketing’s Digital Marketing Awards.
Rouleau began his career as a copywriter, working at agencies such as DDB Canada, Campbell Michener & Lee and The BrainStorm Group. He then held senior copywriter roles at Brandworks and BBDO Proximity Canada, where he soon segued into his associate CD post at the latter agency.
Another recent addition to Draftfcb’s digital creative team is Lionel Wong, who joined in April as associate creative director. After previous stints as an art director—he’s held posts at Grey Canada and MacLaren McCann—he was most recently senior art director at Twist Image. Wong has won awards from Applied Arts and the National Advertising Awards.
Part of the Interpublic Group of Companies, Draftfcb Canada has offices in Toronto and Montreal.
