• by Fern Siegel , 3 hours ago

Chris Garbutt has been named Global Chief Creative Officer for The Brandtech Group. He heads AI marketing.

Previously, he was Vice Media Group's Chief Creative Officer and co-president of Virtue, VMG’s creative arm. Before that, Garbutt was Global Chief Creative Officer for TBWA Worldwide. Earlier, he held the post of Chief Creative Officer at Ogilvy Paris and New York.

Garbutt's brand experience includes Apple’s Shot on iPhone and IBM’s Smarter Cities. He won four Cannes Lions Grand Prix for Apple, IBM and Google. Additional creative work includes Coca-Cola, Louis Vuitton and Dove.

"The old model of creativity had a ceiling. Now AI powers that idea through the entire process from insight and prediction mining, audience mapping, rapid prototyping, beta testing, optimizing and expanding, connecting to the right communities and culture — and the ceiling disappears. When ideas become limitless, the role of creativity expands far beyond traditional marketing," said Garbutt.

The Brandtech Group was founded in 2015 by David Jones, the former Havas CEO. Since 2018, the company claims it has produced more than 10 million ads on Pencil, its Gen AI marketing platform. It currently generates more than 1 million ads per month.

"In an AI world, brand is more important, creativity is more important and talent is more important. If you know what you are doing, AI will turbocharge all of those," added Jones. "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 idea."