Chris Garbutt, who spent five years as global CCO for TBWA Worldwide and eight years as CCO at Ogilvy Paris and New York, is joining the Brandtech Group as global CCO. He joins from Vice Media Group, where he has been CCO for the last five years.
As you’d expect from his CV, Garbutt has worked with some very big brands including Apple, Google, IBM, Coca-Cola, Louis Vuitton, Dove, Adidas and Airbnb. At Cannes Lions, he’s won Grand Prix for IBM’s “People for smarter cities” and UNESCO’s “Backup Ukraine,” as well as a Gold for the Louvre’s “Highway Gallery” (although Brandtech avoids mention of such traditional work).
Brandtech founder and CEO David Jones said: “What AI is now able to do in terms of storytelling is already remarkable and it’s only going to get better. Yes, of course there is a ton of AI slop – but last time I checked there is also an enormous amount of terrible content created by humans without any help from AI! Chris is one of the world’s most accomplished creative leaders, and bringing him onto the team will give our clients an unfair advantage when it comes to creating big brand and creative ideas.”
Garbutt said: “We’re at a crossroads. There’s a creative revolution bearing down on the industry like a tsunami, and a lot of traditional players haven’t tuned into that yet. The old model of creativity had a ceiling. A big idea could only go so far. Now AI powers that idea through the entire process. As a creative purist, that’s what excites me about a platform like Brandtech: it takes an idea and pushes it to its absolute maximum potential.”
