• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, October 18, 2010

Publicis Modem USA on Monday named Damian Claassens as senior vice president and creative director, Publicis Modem East in New York. Claassens joins Publicis Modem directly from his role as group creative director, AKQA, New York.

Reporting to Patrick Clarke, EVP and executive creative director at Publicis Modem East, Claassens will be expected to lead creative on the global LG account, among others.

A unit of Publicis Worldwide, Publicis Modem USA has been on something of a hiring binge of late, most recently naming David Shearer as executive creative director of Publicis Modem West in San Francisco in September.

"We are identifying and recruiting the best creative talent," said Dani Nadel, president of Publicis Modem USA. Regarding Claassens, Nadel said: "I am happy to have him in New York."

Publicis Modem New York has expanded its staff to 230 and recently moved into a 55,000-square-foot new headquarters space at 85 10th Avenue, NYC.

Claassens joined AKQA in New York in 2005, opening the office and developing their digital offering. He led global creative work for AKQA clients such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Motorola, Google, Smirnoff, DoubleClick, Kraft and Johnson & Johnson.

Fancying itself a multichannel digital experience agency, Publicis Modem also works with such clients as Citi, General Mills, Hasbro, HP, and PayPal.

Until then known as Modem Media, Publicis Modem was christened as the digital arm of Publicis Worldwide in mid-2007.

Since then, the main objective has been to expand internationally by aligning with Publicis Dialog operations and offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia.

Modem Media was acquired by Digitas for $200 million in 2004, which was later acquired by Publicis for $1.3 billion in early 2007.