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Mark Bernath and Eric Quennoy appointed Executive Creative Directors of W+K Amsterdam

2010-09-01

Portland, Ore., September 1, 2010 – Leading independent advertising agency Wieden+Kennedy (W+K) announced today that creative director team Mark Bernath and Eric Quennoy have been promoted to executive creative directors of Wieden+Kennedy Amsterdam. The duo will replace Jeff Kling, who resigned from the agency last week.


As the creative force behind the recent Nike "Write the Future" campaign for Nike Football, Bernath and Quennoy spearheaded a globally integrated effort that drew worldwide attention including over 40 million online views and over 1.9 billion impressions on Facebook to date. As a team, they have created notable and award-winning work, including the “Here I Am” campaign for Nike Women and the FIFA Street 3 project for EA Sports that produced one of the top viral videos of 2008.


“People just love working with Mark and Eric. They have the kind of positive energy that inspires everyone around them,” said Lee Newman, managing director of W+K Amsterdam. “I’m smiling just thinking about the kind of work we’re going to produce under their creative leadership. I couldn’t imagine a better duo to be partnered with.”


An industry veteran with 13 years’ experience, Bernath joined W+K Amsterdam in 2007 as a creative director working on the Electronic Arts and Nike accounts. He came to W+K from Ogilvy & Mather in New York, where he was a group creative director and created the digital re-launch of Foster’s Lager that won the agency its first One Show Gold Pencil. He also spent time as a creative director at Publicis New York, where he worked on the Fujifilm campaign that won the agency their first Cannes Lion. A North Carolina native, he is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and lives in the center of Amsterdam with his wife and their three boys.


“We’re ready to strap on our safety goggles and play with the most ridiculously fun science experiment in the network,” Bernath said. “When you combine such creative minds from such different cultural backgrounds, the explosion that results can be so inspiring. We’re hopeful that our time with the chemistry set will continue to yield some brave new ideas from the Amsterdam office, and one or two beautiful disasters.”

Born and raised in Australia, Quennoy has been at W+K Amsterdam since April 2006 as a creative director on the Electronic Arts, Heineken and Nike business. Before W+K he was a creative director at Publicis New York, where he created award-winning work for Heineken and Amstel Light, and helped win the TBS account, which creatively won every award in the business. Prior to that he worked for D’Arcy & Partners in New York, where he was a senior copywriter for three years. He began his career in Melbourne, Australia, working as a copywriter for seven years. He lives in the center of Amsterdam with his wife Maria and their two boys.

“Mark and I are journeymen,” commented Quennoy. “We’ve worked in a bunch of different agencies in a lot of different cities, and we both feel like we found our spiritual home here in Amsterdam. The independent nature of W+K, the incredible roster of clients, against the backdrop of this wonderful city is a hard combination to beat. We’re just honored that Dan [Wieden, co-founder and global executive creative director] has handed us the keys.”

“We don’t hand the keys to this office over to just anyone,” said Wieden. “Mark and Eric have proved themselves at every turn with every client in every media for campaigns big and small. And frankly? They’re just charismatic as hell.”


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