WCRS picks Saatchi boss for strategy post
WCRS has recruited Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising’s group media director Russell Place as its new communications strategy director.
WCRS has recruited Saatchi & Saatchi Advertising’s group media director Russell Place as its new communications strategy director. He replaces Mark Palmer, who leaves in the next month to join BMP Optimum.
Place, who worked on Toyota at Saatchi, will be responsible for media planning and communications for the BMW and Land Rover accounts.
He has worked for Saatchi for three years on accounts which include Toyota, Bhs and the Central Office of Information. Before that he worked at WCRS for four years on the BMW account.
Place says: “I will look at communications in general, not just traditional media solutions, but I will think outside traditional media planning.”
WCRS’s media buying and planning has been merged with sister media agency Mediapolis, apart from the planning for the BMW and Land Rover accounts. Both companies are owned by French network Havas. Place will head a team of newly recruited planners.
Mark Palmer, who has been at WCRS since 1995, will take up a planning position at BMP Optimum, assuming the responsibilities of Derek Morris, the company’s joint managing director who left in June. Palmer will be deputy to managing director Paul Taylor.